Chapter 16: Live A Little
Midoriya was not usually easily distracted, normally he was a studious and diligent student who always tried his best. Today though he couldn't keep his eyes off the clock, imagining how Mina was doing, realising he wasn't working then doing a burst of work, wondering how much longer he would be he looked up at the clock and so the cycle would begin anew. He had only himself to blame for being so irresponsible and uncooperative of course, but he really hated that it had just so happened to mean he was being pulled in to write a paper detailing his exact mistakes, why they were mistakes and what the correct decisions ought to have been, all the while Mina was out there again doing her best. He wanted to be waiting in the observation room, rooting her on. Well, at least this time she wouldn't be held back by anything, as he had done to her.
The defeat had weighed heavily on him for several reasons, the most of which of course being that he had caused her to lose as well and for her to get hurt as a direct result of his incompetence. Yet, he felt strangely conflicted when he thought of it as a total loss. He wasn't so sure of that anymore. Defeats, after all, had a way of making you reflect. You hit a wall that you could not overcome the way you were so you had to reflect and adapt to change yourself in a way so that you can overcome it next time. The more the thought about it the more he concluded that the conversation he had with Mina after their defeat only happened because they lost. If they had won, would the status quo between them have changed? Maybe, but more likely not. There would have been no reason to dwell on their lack of coordination as it would have been enough to win. When he thought of it like that, he couldn't totally hate that they lost because it caused them to have a real conversation. One that begun to mend the divide that had somehow come about in between them.
How had that even happened?
It must have been that conversation they had in her room. He couldn't imagine Uraraka was the type to do anything that would affect how Mina treated him nor could he imagine Mina to be the type who would response to such a thing even supposing Uraraka were. Whatever happened between them sure did upset Mina but he just couldn't figure how that would have or could have affected his relationship with Mina. That wasn't anything to do with it and, as far as knew, nothing else had happened.
It was time to face his responsibility. It was something that he had done. All Might hinted at it and it was this morning he had begun to realise exactly what the second thing All Might had alluded to have happened was. He had backed off after being rejected. He treated Mina differently after that, deliberately keeping his distance and focusing every ounce of his being back toward his heroic ambitions so as not to make her feel uncomfortable. What if Mina had only responded to his change in behaviour toward her? She was energetic, social and excitable but she wasn't insensitive. It was definitely plausible.
If that was true than that meant he had also misunderstood what she had been telling him about in her room that night. He had made it about himself for some reason and in doing so had reached an erroneous conclusion. She had only told him that she liked someone that would cause problems between her and someone else. There was never any reason to think that any of it was anything to do with him. He liked her and a part of him was paranoid that she probably knew it, so he had just leapt to a conclusion that fit that narrative as opposed to having any actual reason to believe that to be true. It was embarrassing to even think and humbling to boot. Obviously, the world didn't revolve around Midoriya Izuku. How naïve can you be?
He pushed the cringy thoughts away and redoubled his efforts onto his paper. Rather than thinking of all these things he had already more or less worked out he should finish his paper as soon as he could and head on over to the dorms to wait for her to offer his congratulations on her job well done, win, lose or draw. No matter the result he was quite convinced she would make herself proud as she always did and there wasn't anything wrong in basking in your achievements with a friend either.
He also couldn't deny that he found himself so eager to talk to her again. He was eager to completely erase the divide that had cropped up and to be a good friend to her as she had been to him. So far all he could think is that she deserved so much more than what he had been to her. It was deeply frustrating.
He finished his paper and submitted it to Ishiyama-sensei who had been sat at the front on the mostly vacant classroom marking some other papers. After a read through Ishiyama-sensei seemed satisfied and permitted him to leave. He thought he would take the long way back in order to pass by the nurse's office just in case. Uraraka was a dangerous opponent after all, even Bakugo didn't dared to take her lightly in the sports festival after realising her quirk. If he saw her in there rather than waiting around, he would send her a message instead and make us of the time training. Recovery Girl could be quite the stickler for making you wait around as he knew all too well. As he rounded the corner, he nearly walked into someone.
"Oh!" he flinched.
"Eh!" Mina gasped as they both jolted back after coming within an inch of walking straight into one another.
"Oh, Jeez, Izuku, it's just you. Don't do that!" she whined with a drained sigh.
"M-my bad" Midoriya stammered in apology.
"It's okay, my bad too" she smiled wearily with a playful tone, clearly putting up a good fight to Recovery Girl's draining quirk. "Say, where are you going?" she asked with a curious frown.
"O-oh I just finished up with Ishiyama-sensei, had to write a paper because I failed" he admitted. Mina's expression lifted.
"Ah yeah, that was a thing wasn't it?" she recalled, shuddering at the idea writing papers on Saturday. That just seemed unnatural to her. "Wait, but… so why are you coming this way? Dorms are that-a-way" she pointed one with two index fingers as pistols doing a quick rotation before settling on behind him.
"Um, well…I was…I just thought…" Midoriya's mind had bailed on him. He couldn't think of anything. Mina meanwhile looked at him curiously then grinned.
"You here to check up on me, Izuku?" she teased.
"Um, well, I wouldn't put it quite like that…" he stammered. Mina's eyes grew wide and her lips curled into one of her signature smiles.
"Oh, but it's not wrong then?" she beamed.
"Um, no" he mumbled. Mina paused in surprise. She had just been teasing him as a natural response, she hadn't expected to be right.
"Well, still in one piece!" she affirmed hastily. "Wanna head back with me?" she offered, eager to move the conversation along.
"Yeah" Midoriya agreed.
They turned and begun the short walk back to the dorms together.
"So, how did you do?" he asked looking at her expectantly with a smile. Mina smiled briefly but then look downcast, as if something were troubling her.
"Well, I passed the exam as a whole at least" she mused.
"You don't sound particularly pleased about it though" Midoriya commented. Mina looked up at him and forced a smile
"Well I'm not super bummed out about it" she offered. Midoriya didn't return her smile, instead looking concerned.
"But?" he asked, hoping she would open up to him, desperately wanting to avoid a new obstacle.
"But, it's kind of unsatisfying the way it went down" she replied glumly. They continued on in silence, Midoriya hoping she might start talking about it unprompted, but she looked deep in thought. Just as he was debating asking her something else, she started speaking again.
"Say, Izuku, your quirk is super power right? You ever lose control of it?" she asked hypothetically, not looking up toward him as she did.
"Not yet. I'm so paranoid whenever I've turned it on another person that I'm usually too focused on that if anything." He answered it as honestly as he could. His mind thought of Mina fighting Bakugo and wondered if she had a second battle that had gone a similar way.
"Figures you wouldn't. Mr Boy-wonder" she smiled softly "I'm kind of jealous of you, you know?" she added, looking at him again now.
"Jealous?" he repeated in confusion.
"You betcha! You always seem so totally in control and stuff. When I think of how hard you try and everything else, you're kind of incredible. Definitely when I compare you to me" her smile turned to a heavy look, her gaze returning to the floor in front of her as she finished.
"I could say the same about you though" Mina countered. Mina's face snapped up, she looked at him curiously "You have an amazing quirk and have so much control over it that you can use it offensively, defensively, for speed and utility purposes. That's as much as the better pro's and this is just in your first year." He listed as he counted them off on his fingers.
"Plus, you have the best smile. It's one that I think rivals All Might's" finished, turning back to her. Mina, who had been watching him in wonder, quickly looked ahead to avoid meeting his eye.
"Well, I don't think I'm all that" she dismissed her cheeks burning a little to hear him compliment her so directly and earnestly.
"I do" he replied simply "But I also think that it's something else that's bothering you"
"Yeah, I guess it is" she agreed quietly.
They reached the dorms and stood on the steps outside waiting, neither one wanting to go inside. Mina looked on thoughtfully.
"Things have been kind of chaotic this past week or so, haven't they?" Midoriya commented, thinking of his own experiences and realising that his must be, in some way, related to hers. Even if they had different catalysts or epicentres, they had been a team this part month and shared so much, it was only natural that if something affected one of them it had likely affected both of them.
"You can say that again" Mina groaned "It doesn't help that we are kind of stuck here as well"
Midoriya looked up at this.
"Stuck here?" he repeated
"Yeah, you know, we eat, work, play and sleep all at U.A. now. So, when you get a problem it's not like you get a go home, sleep on it, get a weekend break from it. It's here with you all the time" she described it, elongating the three lattermost words.
Midoriya hadn't really thought of it like that but now that she said it, he couldn't disagree. When he was going around in circles it probably was worse than it would have been had he been able to get distance from it from time to time.
"I guess it does seem like it could be a little… suffocating at times?" Midoriya posed thoughtfully.
"Yeah, it really does" she sighed in agreement. "And It just feels to me like because of that I'm holding on things that I would normally be able to let go." There was a moment of pause between them.
"Is that what happened today?" he risked in asking.
"I don't know. Maybe?" she speculated "Probably not. Today was a bit different in a lot of ways but then it became what it was because of this… confinement."
"Confinement?" Midoriya repeated, interested in her choice of words as he tried to piece what was bothering her together. Mina nodded.
"Yeah, that's the feelings lately. Like I'm all cooped up and so everything is being pent up and so when I go out and do things, it just feels like today and yesterday I unloaded on people. With my quirk being what it is, it made me uncomfortable." She complained, her feelings of frustration and guilt clear by the emotive way she described it.
Midoriya refrained from nodding as her quirk had an amazing high destructive capability. That was precisely what seemed to be bothering her, or at least was a part of it. She needed to stretch her legs and 'un-coop' he supposed. Mina was clearly a very outgoing person and yet since they had moved in not many people had gone out much further than the local convenience stores. Everyone knew what was at stake and felt the burden of being as cautious and safe as possible heavily on their shoulders as individuals even though no rules expressly forbade them from going out as they might normally.
He had an idea of what to do but he wasn't so sure he could quite bring himself to propose it. After all such a thing carried certain implications. Perhaps instead he would be better off waiting for a better time, when the exam battle wasn't so fresh for Mina.
Flick
He resisted the urge to rub his forehead where he could have sworn someone just poked him. He had a sense of déjà vu, the last time someone had poked him like that was when he had spoken with All Might the first time about all this.
"While it is admirable to be concerned with the future you are too farsighted, never here, now!" his mentor's voice rung out in his head as he recalled from the conversation just as he got poked.
He knew that All Might had been right, as he always was. What else was it that All Might had said that day? To 'live a little' he thought. There was no sense thinking about it. He would just persuade himself out of it and really it didn't mean anything. He was just doing right by his friend. Making a good decision for her benefit, as good friends do for one another.
"Then, let's go out" Midoriya suggested as nonchalantly as he could muster. Mina looked at him quizzically, assuming she must have misheard.
"It's Saturday, we can just go out if you want to go out?" he proposed his cheeks now starting to burn. Inside he begged himself to stay natural and not to let it come across as weird or creepy.
Mina gaped at him, her cheeks burning anew. She had in fact not misheard at all.
"G-go out?" she stuttered "L-like, with you?" she checked, her mind reeling from what he was saying unsure of exactly what his intention was in saying it.
"Y-yeah, I-I mean, if you want to" Midoriya responded, his voice becoming quieter and more pitchy, his mind warning him he was making a fool of himself right now.
"That would actually be…" Mina began, taking it all in. Midoriya preparing for the worst "Awesome" she beamed with a grin, her hands meeting behind her back as she felt herself becoming nervous. In that moment, she couldn't help but ask herself if he was just doing it out of a sense of duty?
"Well, that is, if you don't mind?" she added on quickly "I don't want to put you out bec-"
"You're not" Midoriya interrupted "I'm asking you because I want to and because it sounds like it's something you need right now. B-besides, we're still a team" he tried to sound reassuring and confident, but he wasn't quite able to fully break out of the mousey way he spoke when the timid switch had been flicked. This wasn't helped by the way Mina was smiling at him in a way he could only think of as rather vixen-like for some reason.
Mina smiled shyly at him, her chin burrowed into her neck, her shoulders raised and her hands clutching her hero-outfit case behind her back. In her mind she was daring to ask herself if this could be counted as a date. Probably not right? I mean, no obviously not, he made it clear that it was to give her a breath of fresh air but still… it wasn't like she'd ever been asked to go anywhere by a boy. Much less one she thought was cute.
"Then, I'd love to" she bubbled.