A/N: Ok I apologize in advance for the really long-ass chapter. I hate having to read long chapters on here.
But anyway, I hope you're all having a Merry Christmas and / or a happy holiday! Hope winter break treats you well!
Okay, back to the book. I feel kind of iffy about this chapter, especially near the end. I'm worried about my wording being too choppy. But despite that, get ready for one hell of a chapter because things are about to go down. A comment / reply with any constructive criticism / feedback would be appreciated! I read every one! Thank you for reading!
- o - o - o - o -
Izuku was still sick on Monday, too tired to even get up to grab a glass of water and easily too sick to go to school.
Mina missed him. A lot, actually—more than she ever thought she would. Once again, she'd underestimated her feelings for him and how much they meant to her, and time and time again she would inevitably end up proving it to herself: This was more than a crush, far beyond a little name or notion like that. She'd dug herself a hole she couldn't get out of all because she had stupidly fallen in love with him.
But even if, in some sort of alternate reality, she had the power to rewind time and rewrite the past, she didn't think she would. She'd leave it all alone—she liked things just the way they were. Just the thought of having feelings for someone was enough, and it made her so, so enlivened over even the littlest of things, dwindling down to just waking up in the morning and getting ready for school. Everything was bright and beautiful and right in the world, ten times better than before, and she didn't want to give that up.
And she hadn't let go of hope, either—not one bit. In fact, she had the upper hand over Uraraka, and even though she knew how wrong it was, she wanted to keep it that way.
After dismissal at the end of her last lesson, Mina marched right through the main dorm doors, earbuds in at full volume blocking out anything and everything that could've distracted her from her one true task. She whipped out her phone the second she got a moment alone, sending Izuku something she'd wanted to say to him all day.
Sitting on the living room couch, she double-checked to make sure no one was behind her. She clicked send.
Hey. How are you feeling? School wasn't the same without you.
He replied back in the blink of an eye.
A lot better, actually. My fever's gone down, and I just got out of bed a few hours ago. It must've been a 24-hour bug.
He added one more thing.
Thanks for asking!
She smiled dumbly down at her phone screen, sitting there speechless, knowing good and well that if anyone were to walk by right now, she would have been caught red-handed talking to somebody she surely had no business being with. But she didn't care. She couldn't have given a shit if she tried.
No problem. Of course I would. I care about you a lot.
And then, just for good measure: Like, a lot, a lot.
"Whatcha doing?"
She jumped. Looming over the couch was Kaminari. "A-Ah, Kami, you scared me. What's up?"
"Is that Midoriya you're talking to?"
First she jumped, then she panicked. After coming to, clarity hit her harder than a blow to the back of the head, and she realised she hadn't yet hidden her phone away, leaving it still sitting there in plain sight for him to see. Covering it up with the couch cushions, she sighed, secretly, of course, hoping to God he hadn't seen something he wasn't supposed to. After all, it wouldn't have been too tough, especially since he was standing right behind her.
Ugh, why Kaminari of all people?
"Yeah. I mean, he is my friend, after all, and he missed school today," she said, trying to play it cool. "I'm just worried about him."
"Well, geez, I was just asking. No need to get defensive."
"I wasn't getting defensive."
Who was she trying to trick? She sure sounded defensive.
"Okay, well, anyway, can I ask you something?"
"Sure. Go for it," she replied.
"Where were you last night? Because while I was leaving Mineta's I saw you in the hallway, and if I'm not mistaken, you were walking out of Midoriya's room."
She froze.
"K-Kami, I think you might need to get your eyes checked. You must've seen Uraraka."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Because there's definitely someone else in our class who has bright pink hair and horns coming out of the top of her head."
Internally, she freaked. There wasn't any way she was getting out of this one.
"Okay, well, maybe I might've gone up there once," she said, letting a little white lie slip. "But just to see how he was doing. That's all."
"Ashido, I might be dense, but I'm not dumb."
For once in his life he'd actually seen through a lie? That was a new one.
And for the record, dense and dumb meant exactly the same thing.
Suddenly she felt mean. That wasn't very nice of her—not only to say but to even think. She was just a little annoyed that he was the first to find out and not someone she truly trusted.
"Kaminari, it's not what you think. Please don't tell anyone. Please, I'm begging you." With her puppy-dog eyes, she was able to play with his heartstrings. "And whatever you do, don't take it out on Midoriya. He didn't do anything wrong. This is just a kind of confusing situation, and I— You know what? I shouldn't even be telling you this. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten you involved."
"So it's true, then?"
"Yes. Of course it is. I'd be sick to take a joke like this that far. And, Kaminari, you'd better not tease me about it."
"No promises."
She gave him a look. "Well then, I guess I'll just have to tell Jirou all about your little crush."
The color drained from his face, whittling away without warning as he went white as a ghost. "Um, nevermind. You know what? Have it your way. I was just kidding," he said, shrinking some sizes smaller.
"And this isn't only about me. You can't tell a single soul. Not a word about this to anyone. Got it?"
Sweat drops dripped down from the top of his temple to the crook of his collarbone and chest. "Yup."
She smiled a cheeky smile, one full of mischief and a slight bit of relief. "Okay! Sounds good to me. You keep your end of the deal and I'll keep mine."
Mina spun around, hands held firmly behind her back, and as she started to walk away, one foot in front of the other, she couldn't help but have this look of alleviation on her face. Energy in each of her steps, she skipped through the corridors and into the elevator, waiting patiently for the doors to close.
Once she was sure she was alone, she let out a sigh.
The reality of it all was that she couldn't keep up the act forever. People were beginning to suspect something, and she'd have to be naive to assume word wasn't getting around. Kaminari was one. Kirishima was a close second. Who would be third? Fourth? When would everyone else find out? When would the cat be let out of the bag?
She knew nothing. But what she did know, however, was that she couldn't wait around much longer for Izuku to man up.
In search of something, anything, to use as a distraction, she took a look at her surroundings, beige walls and maroon-colored carpets, and glanced idly down at her iPhone. Reality hit her harder than a slap on the face. She'd completely forgot that she was in the middle of a conversation with Izuku. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized she hadn't left him on read.
In response to her previous message, he'd left her with something sweet, something heartwarming. Me too.
- o - o - o -
Tuesday, Izuku was back at school.
Mina knew she'd missed him, but it wasn't until she saw him again that she realized the missing was more than she could've ever imagined. She'd suddenly forgotten all the nitty-gritty details and the ethicality of it all and the fact that they shouldn't have been seen together, enjoying the day for what it was for what must have been the first time in a long time.
During class, she'd made it a habit to turn around and look back at him every now and then, almost like a game of statues, or freeze tag—maybe more like freeze dance. Whenever she'd catch him staring, he'd blush bright red and turn away, and she'd have to hold down her laugh.
At lunch, the two of them made the probably-dumb decision to sit across from each other, Uraraka next to Izuku. Mina couldn't help but have this feeling, this intuition, like she knew she was doing something wrong, something horribly, horribly wrong, but despite her best efforts to hide it, the fact that it was eating away at her was like a smear, a smack across her face. She tried to forget it for now and toss it to the back of her mind. At first she found it difficult, but she was eventually able to swallow her pride. She knew things could go south—and fast—but she was willing to take that risk. There was something about him, something about the way he made her feel that left her weak, ready to surrender and succumb to her desires.
Mina had never used footsies as a flirting technique, and she certainly hadn't ever done it with a boy. Izuku was the same, only ever having played the game with his mother when he was a little kid. But, probably stupidly, like almost all of the choices they'd made in these past few weeks, they decided to do it anyway, right there under the lunch table in the middle of the cafeteria, praying to God that Uraraka wouldn't notice. Mina slid Izuku's pant leg up with her toe, and he grabbed hold of her whole foot with both of his. She almost gasped, but she remembered Uraraka was right close by and she shouldn't have made a sound.
They continued like that for the rest of the lunch break. Every once and a while he would stop whenever Uraraka turned to talk to him, probably out of respect. She understood. She didn't fault him for that. In fact, she applauded him. But part of her hated it, knowing he was nowhere near ready to tell her the truth, and she couldn't deny the fact that at this rate, he probably never would be.
- o - o - o -
After school, Mina was walking through the corridors with Kaminari and Kirishima when she suddenly realized she'd forgotten something. And when she said something, she meant everything. "I'll be right back," she mumbled, spinning back around and racing toward the classroom at an unprecedented speed, even for her. She felt silly. How could she have left without any of her books or binders?
Out of breath, she turned the corner into the doorway. She wasn't expecting to see Izuku.
She smiled. "Hey, Midori. What are you doing here?"
"I forgot to grab my makeup work from Mr. Aizawa, so I guess I'm getting it now. He kinda just gave it to me and then left. I'm actually pretty surprised. There isn't much."
"Yeah, I mean, we didn't really do anything yesterday. Or, at least, I didn't."
She headed over to her desk and pulled out an abundance of notebooks and folders she'd apparently left inside, watching them all fall to the floor. She was wondering why her backpack was so light. Half of her stuff wasn't in it.
"What about you? Why are you here?" he asked.
"Oh, just casually left my entire backpack in my desk. Dumbass move, don't you think?"
"Sounds like something I'd do."
She rolled her eyes. "Um, no, Midori, you're the kind of person who would do the exact opposite, and you know it. Looks like I know you better than you know yourself."
He sighed, sitting down in his chair. He unzipped his backpack and put away his worksheets and wrote down what he needed to remember in his reminders. She would die to be as organized as him, but at the same time she didn't seem to care. She liked not having to stress out about everything.
Walking over to the desk beside him, she grabbed the chair out from underneath it and inched it into his vicinity, spinning it around on its back legs. She scooched it all the way up so that the backrest of her chair was leaning against the backrest of his, legs skidding and screeching against the gray granite floor, the bars on the backs of the chairs touching one another like vertebrate on a spine. She laid her knees where she would usually sit down and sat up, wrapping her arms around him and startling him from behind.
"A-Ashido."
"I didn't scare you, did I?"
He turned around, scratching the side of his cheek. "A little."
"You don't mind, do you? You don't mind me doing this?"
"No. Well, I mean, I don't, but other people might..."
She sighed, subtly smiling at his sorrow. It was worthless to waste his time worrying. After all, unless he was ready to tell Uraraka, who needed to know? "Midori, we don't have to worry about other people. Not right now. We're alone."
"But that doesn't make it any less wrong."
Her smile fell, lips turning down at the corners. "I know."
"It was a close call at lunch today," he said, suddenly changing the subject.
"Yeah. Uraraka looked under the table one two many times."
He sighed, and it wasn't too hard to hear the exasperation in his voice. "Ashido, I feel bad even talking about this. It feels wrong."
She stood up and gave his shoulders a squeeze. "Me too. I get it, y'know. It's been eating away at me lately." His muscles were tense; he needed a massage. "And… Midoriya, Uraraka needs to know. If you don't tell her soon, I'll have to do it myself."
He pried her off of him, suddenly needing some space. "Listen, Ashido, I'm trying. It's just… Uraraka and I have been friends forever, and I don't know if I'm ready to give that up. I know it's the right thing to do, but I'm scared."
She tilted her head, looking at him with eyes filled with wonder. "But, Midori, you're training to become a Hero. Heroes don't get scared."
"Yes they do. They just don't show it."
Her arms were once again around him, holding him tight, hands hanging loosely over his collarbone and the crook of his neck. She squinted her eyes and friskily fluttered her eyelashes, hoping he would notice. "Oh, well isn't that deep?"
He craned his neck back, bright green eyes meeting yellow and black sclera. They both blushed.
"It is. Maybe a little too deep, actually. I don't really like this conversation anymore."
"Neither do I," she said.
"Ashido, can I ask you something?"
"What's up?"
"Well… Um, how do I put this… I guess, on a scale of one to ten, if you had to give it a rating, how much would you say you like me?"
She let out a little bit of laughter, her nervousness nothing to hide. "Midori, you can't put me on the spot like that."
"I know, a-and I'm sorry. I just wanted to, y'know, maybe get a general idea, I guess."
She shook her head. "I can't rate something like that. It's not right."
He furrowed his eyebrows. "Why not?" He was used to thinking of things numerically, giving almost anything and everything a rating or a rank. It helped him keep track of things, make sense of mystifying emotions and the more confusing concepts in life.
"Because it's just, I don't know, too important for that. And something as simple as a number doesn't tell the whole truth. Here, let's just say this: it's well, well over ten."
She buried her face in the nape of his neck, hoping to God he wouldn't bother looking back at her. He'd see nothing but lavender and lilac.
To spare her any more embarrassment, she decided she'd throw his own inquiry right back at him. "How about you? How do you feel about me?"
She barely even opened one eye, glancing at the tips of his ears and wishing she'd see red, knowing that if she did she certainly must've made him at least a little bit flustered. She smiled. She was glad she'd gotten under his skin. "See? It isn't so easy, now is it?"
"Ten."
"Hmm?" He'd said it far too fast for her understanding.
"Ten," he repeated.
She blinked once. Twice. A third time. "Really?"
"Yup."
"You too, huh?"
"Yeah."
Words couldn't express how happy she was over such a big bombshell. And even though she didn't know it right then, Izuku was feeling the same.
They stayed like that for a little while longer until the clock hit a quarter past four and it'd been half an hour since the rest of the class had gone back to the dorms. People would wonder where they were.
Izuku was the first to say something, the first to call it quits. He left five minutes prior to when she did, coming up with some lame excuse that he needed to finish a quiz he had dumbly decided not to make up before Finals. Mina's alibi was that she was getting tutoring lessons at the library. Nobody seemed to question anything except Kaminari.
But little did she know, Kirishima was just as suspicious as he was. If not even more so.
Mina was about to throw her dirty laundry in the washing machine when she felt somebody grab onto her arm. Spinning around, she came face to face with Kirishima.
"K-Kiri, don't scare me like that. You're doing that way too often lately."
"Sorry," he mumbled, looking down at the ground. "But"—he picked his head up—"I wanted to talk to you about something."
"What is it?"
"Well, it's about you and Midoriya. I saw you hugging him earlier, and it just made me wonder: are you guys more than friends?"
She stood there stunned. Her secret was spilling for her, and she didn't even have to try. "Um, w-well, it's kinda complicated. The short answer is yes, but there's more to it than that."
Mina felt comfortable enough to tell all this to him, much more so than she ever could've been with Kaminari. When she looked at Kirishima, she saw something different. He was one of her best friends, and she trusted him not only with her deepest, darkest secrets, but also almost every aspect of her life. She was still a little on edge, though, knowing this was getting harder and harder to hide.
"What do you mean it's 'different?'"
"It just is, Kiri. It's hard to break news like that to Uraraka. We're working on it. We're not getting all… touchy with each other and stuff."
"Sure looked like it."
"We're not!"
"Okay, okay," he said, catching the drift that today was definitely not the day to get on her bad side. She was seconds away from snapping. "Whatever you say."
"Just, what am I doing wrong, Kiri? Why is everyone just now figuring this out? Did I give it away somehow?"
"No, Ashido, it's not like that. Remember how earlier you just up and ran and said you'd 'be right back?' Well, when I didn't see you for a few minutes, I went back to check on you, and that's when I saw."
She gritted her teeth, wincing all the while as she'd bit the tip of her tongue. "Ugh, why is this happening to me? Soon enough it'll get around to the whole school, and then to Uraraka, and then… I don't even want to think about that."
"Am I not the only one?"
"No. Kaminari knows too."
"Oh, that's bad," Kirishima said, a sharp inhale budding at the back of his throat. "He can't his mouth shut."
"I know," she said flatly, finally finding the time to throw her horribly heavy pile of laundry into the wash. She could barely feel her arms anymore. "I'm kinda screwed here."
"But, what I don't get is why you don't think this is wrong."
She turned toward him, tilting her head slightly to the side. "Hmm?"
"You being with Midoriya while he's supposedly dating Uraraka. How is that not wrong to you? I'm your friend, Ashido, so I'm gonna be honest. There's this thing called cheating. You're doing it right now."
She gave him a look. "Gee, thanks for enlightening me. I didn't know."
He gave her a look right back. "Ashido."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. Getting sarcastic in serious situations. I really need to stop doing that."
"Yeah, you do."
She took a deep breath. "Kiri, can I rant to you real quick?"
He nodded.
"You don't have to tell me twice. I know it's wrong. But, it's hard, because I'm in love with him, and… I'm pretty sure he's in love with me too." She waved her hands frantically in front of her face. "And I'm not trying to get ahead of myself! I know I sounded a little full of myself right there, assuming things, but I can just kinda tell. I really hope he loves me, at least."
Kirishima couldn't contain his laughter. "It didn't sound that way at all. Keep going."
"So, yeah, it's just kind of hard, I guess. He really, really doesn't want to be doing what he's doing, and neither do I. It's hurting me, watching Uraraka be oblivious to all of this. Killing me, even, and I don't know how much more of this I can take."
She held her hand to her heart, tears brimming beneath what would be the whites of her eyes. Kirishima sighed. "Mina, if it's hurting you this much, maybe being with Midoriya isn't the right move."
Kirishima was her person, the friend she'd never had. She was really lucky to have him, but a lot of the time he said the stupidest things, and she wanted to slap him square in the face. "No. It is. I wouldn't give him and I up for the world. I know it's right; it just feels right. It's worth fighting for, Kiri, and I'm not just gonna give that up. It's not like there are issues between us, but rather other people, and all we need to do is get those cleared up and everything will be alright."
"'All we need to do,'" he scoffed, a sense of scorn in his overly sarcastic expression. "As if it'll be that easy. You know it's not gonna be."
She glared at him, disappointment strewn across her face, and lately she thought such an emotion had been stuck to her like glue. "Thanks."
"Mina, look at me."
"Wow, that's a new one. You never call me Mina."
"I thought it was about time," he said, smiling. He grabbed her by the cheeks. "Listen here. You're gonna figure it out, okay? It's all gonna work itself out. Just give it a little more time, try to reason with Midoriya, and work from there. Just, whatever you do, don't lose sleep over it. It's gonna turn out fine."
She searched his ruby red eyes for at least a little bit of truth, coming to the realization that if he was simply saying so to make her feel better, he was doing a hell of a good job at making it believable. And if he was telling a lie, he was either doing it just right or she was a little more dense than most. He believed the words that were coming out of his mouth just as much as she did.
She smiled. "Thanks, Eijirou."
"That one's new, too."
"Yup."
Mina walked out with the laundry still running, starving for something to eat. A little jarred and lost in thought, she rammed right into Hagakure.
"Toru, hey."
"You and Kirishima sure have been getting close, huh?"
Mina groaned. She had begun to get a little annoyed by Hagakure's over the top, unnecessary teasing, especially when Kirishima was already confirmed to be out of the picture—and because of a guy, no less. Sometimes she wished she could just tell her the truth to shut her up, but she knew she could never do that to Kirishima because of all of the times he'd had her back. She'd never stoop low.
"Kiri and I aren't like that."
"You sure? You two seem a little chummy lately."
Mina looked over her shoulder at the boy in question, who was hearing everything leaving Hagakure's lips and eyeing her with one eyebrow raised. She turned back around. "Yes, I'm sure. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm hungry. I'm gonna grab something to eat."
She pushed her invisible friend out of the way and wandered into the kitchen, sighing something of both relief and a bit of bitterness. Everything was all too stressful lately, too many problems without resolutions. Sometimes, on days she wasn't thinking straight, she wished she could just forget about all of the stupid stuff Izuku wanted and take matters into her own hands, but usually, at least, she'd end up putting it past her—she knew it was a bad idea.
- o - o - o -Later that evening, a little while after a mostly microwavable dinner, the majority of Class 1-A was crowded around on the couches in the living room, sitting there wasting away idly. Nobody knew what to do with their free time—having no homework wasn't part of their norm, nor was it something they were used to having to handle. What were they to do except be bored and scroll through their phones?
"Hey, I have an idea," Sero started. "Anyone wanna play a game?"
"What kind of game?" Tokoyami had a certain nullness in his voice.
Sero shrugged. "Well, uh, I don't really know. I was gonna leave that up to everyone else."
Hagakure, her usual bubbly self, hopped right into the conversation, no holds barred. She gasped. "Oh, I know! How about Truth or Dare? Or, better yet, Spin the Bottle?"
The boys looked back at each other, the girls lighting up with glee. Mina was the first to open her mouth. "Spin the Bottle sounds fun. I don't know about Truth or Dare."
"What's wrong with Truth or Dare? I happen to like it," Uraraka said.
The boys put in their two cents, Kirishima standing up to be their spokesperson. "I don't know. Aren't these the kinds of games middle schoolers play?"
"So? We were middle schoolers just last year," Mina mentioned, excitement written all over her face. There was something innocent and pure about playing Truth or Dare, Spin the Bottle, something childish. It made her feel young again. "Here, how about this. We play Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle first, and then we do whatever the boys want to do. We have the next two hours to ourselves, after all."
"Okay, sounds like a plan. But we aren't playing your games for longer than an hour," Kirishima said.
"Deal."
Starting off with Spin the Bottle, they decided to save the least interesting of the two, Truth or Dare, for later. Coming to a collective conclusion, they decided a kiss on the cheek was enough for now, a kiss on the lips a little too intimate.
It was a bit of a mess—girls kissing girls, boys (begrudgingly) kissing boys. But the good parts were worth it, just as much good as the bad parts were bad. Girls kissing guys, guys kissing girls they found cute. In the end, Mina had only kissed three: Hagakure, Todoroki, and Kirishima, the last, especially, resulting in lots of oohs and aahs.
When Midoriya kissed Asui, only on the cheek, even, both she and Uraraka got jealous.
They really both were the jealous type.
Thirty minutes in, they decided to call it quits on such a stupid game, bringing it immediately to a halt. It was about time they played Truth or Dare, and Mina was a lot more scared for this than she was for Spin the Bottle, knowing her friends could easily pull whatever kind of sly tricks they wanted. They could even make her admit her feelings for Izuku, and she knew how horribly wrong that could go in every which way.
As the night went on, the questions progressively got more and more in depth, in detail, maybe even in a little too deep, drowning their interviewees in an onslaught of embarrassment and shame. With everyone watching, Mina no longer wondered why everyone felt so high-strung and stressed out, revealing their darkest secrets to people they weren't exactly the best of friends with nor whom they wanted to know. When would she be the one? When would she be that person, the one getting sucked dry of anything and everything she wanted to hide? Time would only tell.
Eventually, after a slew of slanderous truths and disastrously detestable dares, Hagakure decided—after half an hour of little to no action—it was finally time for Mina to steal the stage. "Ashido," she started, a certain slyness in her voice, "why don't you… kiss the boy who you think is cutest in this room."
Mina froze. "What?"
"You heard me. Whether or not he's your crush or just someone you like, kiss the cutest boy in this room."
She paused. "Um, where? The lips?"
"The cheek's fine. A kiss on the lips would be preferable, though."
Mina's heart hammered heavily through her chest, her breath catching in the back of her throat as sweat began to collect on her overly acidic skin. She wasn't sure what to think, what to do. She thought for a moment, and she came to the conclusion that she could either do one of two things. Whichever it would be was based on how much bravery she was willing to muster.
Today was one of those days when she was feeling particularly brave.
She gulped, stood up. "Okay."
She looked over at Kirishima, and then at Midoriya. She glanced away, doing her best to draw the attention elsewhere, anywhere but on her. And then, if only out of instinct, she turned toward Hagakure, whose face was lit up with so much glee she thought she was about to explode, and she contemplated going right over there and giving her a piece of her mind, but she decided at that very moment that wasn't the greatest idea.
Her mind was racing at a million miles per hour, and for what wasn't the first time in her life she wasn't quite sure what choice was the right one to make. With Midoriya to her right and Kirishima to her left, she took one slight step with her left foot out first, indecisive over whether or not it was the right thing to do. She took another step to the left, but then she thought, No. If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this right.
And so she took one step to the right. And then another.
She'd noticed the looks on her friends' faces, the watchful eyes they'd had on her for quite a while now, and she no longer cared what anyone else thought. She was either going all out, or she wasn't going out at all.
And so she sped up the pace, the perplexed look on Hagakure's face nothing new to her nor surprising. Once she reached Midoriya, she timidly tied her hands behind her back, looking down at the ground with shame and regret and a number of other unnamed emotions in her eyes, her uneasiness undoubtedly unveiled in big bold letters for all the world to see. She knew she'd made a mistake. She had. She knew she had. But it was too late to turn back now.
Midoriya stared up at her wide-eyed. He didn't exactly know what he was expecting, but it sure wasn't this. She was so forward about it, like she wasn't about to screw up everything by doing what she'd inevitably decided to do. When she stood up, he'd expected her to walk right over to Kirishima and give him a quick kiss on the cheek, fulfilling the fantasies of all of her classmates.
But instead he found her here, standing over him and giving him this look, like she knew she'd fucked up but had absolutely no idea how to fix it.
His face flushed. He couldn't process all of this. It was all happening too fast.
She kneeled down on her knees, and still, no words were exchanged between them. No words were exchanged between anyone. The silence was almost agonizing.
Hagakure sat their stunned, at a complete loss for words, her mouth agape and her eyes wider than ever before, though she was the only one who knew. Midoriya side-eyed Uraraka, her face pale, and he wondered if she was hoping, praying, maybe as much as he was, that Mina would say psych right now and fess up to the fact that it was all a prank.
And he wasn't wrong. She couldn't help but hold onto that last bit of hope.
Uraraka wasn't sure what to think, what to feel, whether or not she was in the midst of an unspeakably horrible nightmare or really just wide awake, living that backwards and upside down reality herself. Who was she supposed to be mad at, and for what? Was it just one sided, or were Mina and him more than friends?
Surely he'd end up saying it was one sided. It had to be.
With little regard to the usually-air headed-but-now-panicky girl sitting next to her, Mina coyly placed a hand on the nape of Izuku's neck, her thumb on his jawline, the suppleness of his skin nothing she'd have ever spited or said no to. Leaning in, she closed the distance between the two of them until there were only inches left between their lips, whispering "I'm sorry" softly in his ear. He heard, but he didn't listen. He was too much in shock.
In what was only just a moment, she managed to place her lips on his and leave him at a total and utter loss for words, a loss for what to say or what to do or even what to think and what to feel. She'd closed her eyelids long before initiating the kiss, but little did she know, he was staring right back at her with some of the widest eyes she would've ever seen, unable to communicate his feelings any other way. He couldn't use his mouth, after all.
After five vigorously long seconds, she pulled away.
"I-I think I'm gonna go," Uraraka said, standing up, a tear trickling down her cheek.
As she walked, almost ran, toward the elevator, Izuku called out to her, still in shambles. "U-Uraraka, wait. Please—"
But Uraraka didn't wait. She didn't even hesitate. She waited for the elevator doors to open up for her to carry her to the fourth floor, Yaoyorozu and Asui both hurriedly trying to catch up with her before she did anything rash, anything she'd regret. Even Mina didn't wish that upon her, one of the kindest souls she knew. Of course she didn't; Uraraka was her friend.
Izuku gave Mina a look, a not so nice look, a look that let her know this wasn't going to be as easy of a fix as "I'm sorry." She deserved this. She knew. She knew this was how it'd end up long before she made the stupid decision to do it in the first place. She knew she'd fucked up, and she knew she was screwed, and she knew now that he was screwed as well all because of something she'd done, something he didn't deserve.
Lately she'd just been so caught up in her feelings, and her anger had been building up at him. It must have just caught up with her.
Speaking of which, her heart was pounding out of her chest right now. Out of the suspense of it all or the exhilaration, she wasn't quite sure. She kind of liked it, kind of hated it.
She hated it a lot more than she liked it.
"W-Well, um, I think we should probably end this here. How about it?" Kirishima asked, trying his best to make things a little less awkward but barely even breaking the tiniest bit of the tension. In fact, he hadn't even scratched the surface.
Everyone nodded.
Hagakure wasn't giving in so easily, though. She wanted answers. "I— Mina, I could've sworn you liked Kirishima."
On the verge of tears, Mina was the most defensive she'd ever been, the most angry. "Why? Why would you think that? I told you numerous times I don't like him, didn't I? Besides, he's—"
She stopped herself short.
"He's what?"
"He's— He's nothing."
She turned toward Kirishima, who, alongside whom she'd already angered, was also giving her the evil eye, a death glare like no other. She was so embarrassed, so ashamed. She didn't know where to look.
The accountability of her actions was finally starting to set in. Izuku didn't say a word to her, and neither did Kirishima. Not for the next little while, at least, and she knew for certain she'd really royally fucked up this time, way beyond repair. Now how was she supposed to make up for this mess?
- o - o - o - o -A/N: Okay, so all in all, I don't know how I feel about that ending. Was it too cliche? Too dramatic or not dramatic enough? Was it just all around bad or an okay way to reach a climax? If anyone has any feedback please let me know, and thank you all for your support!