Don't stare. Don't stare. Don't stare.
Eijiro taps his pencil hastily over and over, his left leg twitching in sync with the thumps. His efforts to pay attention to Ishiyama-sensei were becoming more and more fruitless by the second. Of course, that can be accounted for the entire period of morning classes.
Don't stare! The boy orders once again at his short-attention-spanned brain.
But no matter how many times he chants this, a pair of red eyes couldn't stop glancing over to the side of the room where the source of his distraction sat without a care in the world.
The raving beauty from this morning and his new classmate: Izumi Midoriya.
Sitting in the same parallel row as her, Eijiro tries to hide his strange gawking as best as he could. Each time his traitorous eyes found her, color stuffs itself in his tanned cheeks. The redhead purses his lips together as he takes in the sight of her.
Izumi sat at her desk, head down in her notebook. Her tiny hand diligently flows as it jots down the class notes from the board. Her bright eyes shift up and down, being careful not to miss anything from Ishiyama's lesson of the day. Every few seconds, her head bobs slightly with understanding at the man's fast-paced words. Along with nods, he swears he could hear little hums coming from her direction.
It was kinda memorizing to watch this. Eijiro is hypnotized by how she rapidly glided her pencil across the pages, how steady her head bounced, and the pitches of her agreements.
Maybe she's another really smart-type like Momo or Iida. At least that what he guesses, and it would make sense.
Their class is number one in terms of scholars and strong pupils, so for her to be here with them, she would have to be pretty sharp and disciplined. Even when they were given the surprise pop quiz, she didn't really bat an eye or see any issue with having to take it, despite literally just getting here.
Man, of course, she would have beauty AND brains. Not to mention, a personality so sweet, his back molars ached just by looking at her. His heart was still pulsing from that arrow attack she released earlier this morning. Was it even human to have a smile that dazzling? Thank God everyone didn't hold back in her greeting because then the crack in his voice would have sure been noticed.
As his rambling thoughts continue on, he notices her non-writing hand reaches up to tuck some hairs behind her ear.
Oh, damn.
That same hand then pitches her plump bottom lip in deep thought.
Oh, double damn.
Those two small innocent actions made steam fume out of his pores, and a spark shoots instantly through him. Oh, come on, don't do this. His heart was just starting to recover.
"Psst!" A whisper calls out next to him.
Damnit, look away man! What the hell are you getting riled up for?
"Kirishima, dude," The whisper now snickering.
You're not on the same level as that perverted Mineta! Don't degrade the thoughtful girl like this!
SNAP. SNAP. SNAP.
The imaginary bubble pops in his ears and Eijiro blinks. In his line of sight, a set of fingers hovers in his face. His body twitches as he knows who they belonged to. Begrudgingly, he traces his eyes from the fingers to Hanta's face, who looked like the sneaky cat who caught the helpless mouse.
His knowing smirk makes him want to die and take the smug asshole with him. How he hasn't lost consciousness yet with all of the times the blood has rushed to his face will remain unsolved.
He and Hanta hold stares for a moment before Hanta looks over to Ishiyama-sensei. He waits until the man turns to write something on the blackboard, and as soon as that happens, a folded-up piece of scrap paper gets tossed onto Eijiro's desk.
The redhead blinks again and picks it up before he looks at Hanta, confused. The cropped haired boy just gives his straight-tooth smirk and nods his head, gesturing to open it. Dread fills his stomach, but Eijiro opens the note slowly and looks at the wrinkled mass.
And there, written in Hanta's sloppy scratching, stood only one message that reads:
Wait a little bit more and you can shoot your shot at lunch.
Nevermind, it's just his friend who's gonna die. He drills a scorching glare into Hanta, who fights his laughter into the palm of his hand. With all of his belligerency, a boiling faced Eijiro crumpled the paper as if it wronged him in some way and whips his head back to the front.
Never has Eijiro ever wanted more than the floor to entirely open up and swallow him whole.
The poor boy lays his forehead down against the cold surface of his desk; Hanta stops his mirth and frowns at the action in concern.
What the hell is going on?! He has never, never been this thrown off balance by another girl. Yeah, he's had his share of crushes over the years, but they were not to this extent. The frustrated groans of his psyche echo off the walls of his head as it frantically rubs its hands through its hair.
It's just...
With his head still laid, his eye flickered once again at Izumi, who still remained unaware of the boy's predicament.
There was just something indescribable about this mystery of a girl. Most of the time, Eijiro has this internal radar that pings every time he met another good-willed person. What he lacked in high intelligence made up in his skills in judgment.
The best example of this radar was the living, breathing dragon named Bakugo Katsuki.
So, when he met Izumi, all of the alarms blared in his head. Not in this person is absolutely crazy, haul ass kind of way, but in this person is a literal angel that got sent down from heaven itself way.
Eijiro growls under his breath and lifts his head up. He snaps his eyes shut in angered thought.
Okay, this is fucking ridiculous. He doesn't even know her, and no matter how accurate his instincts usually are, he seriously can't be acting like some creepy-ass stalking pervert. That's the scummiest, unmanliest shit to be pulling on such a sincere human being.
With that resolution in mind, he glanced at Izumi again, prepared for it to be the last time before he would force himself back in student mode. And like the last hour, she's still hard at work with her notes.
But before Eijiro could look away, the girl suddenly stops her writing to look up at the wall clock.
And then...a flash expression of white distress goes across her face. He blinks in confusion at the sudden look and sees her grip her pencil harder. Something pitches at the bottom of his stomach. Was she okay?
Now that he thinks about it, he could have sworn that she had a similar look earlier on her way to her desk.
Izumi bites her bottom lip, he fights the blush in his face this time, and she swallows before placing her pencil down. A smile is then gets put in place, but it held no true reason to be made.
"So, for your homework tonight, there will be an excerpt from the book, Kokoro along with some composition questions about its subject and the time of transition during-"
"Um, I'm sorry, Ishiyama-sensei?" Izumi shyly raises her hand.
Ishiyama-sensei stops his announcement at her voice and looks over at her, along with some other students.
"Yes, um, Midoriya?" He questions the correction of her name.
Izumi smiles and nods her head at the Literature teacher.
"I'm so sorry to interrupt, sir. And I'm so sorry to ask this, but since we only have a few minutes left before lunch, I was wondering if it would be alright for me to leave early to go see Principal Nezu? I wanted to ask him about some things," she explains, putting her hands together in a prayer stance.
Eijiro raises an eyebrow. Is that why she seems worried?
The gray-ponytailed man scratched at the sharp prickles on his face before he nods at the girl.
"Since this is your first day, I'll allow it. Just don't get used to it, okay?" he grants her.
Izumi stands up from her chair. "Yes, sir. Thank you very much." She bows in respect towards him before she bends down to rummage through her giant backpack and pulls out a wrapped bento box. Quickly, she scurries away towards the sliding doors, and Eijiro watches as she makes her exit with a gentle click of the door.
A childish sense of stubbornness flares in him. Man, his chances at getting to talk to her at lunch have gone down a bit. Maybe he'll be able to find her late, hopefully?
"Tough luck, bro." Hanta mumbles out in sympathy.
Eijiro sighs wistfully and bows his head in slight defeat. But it nods back up when a loud, out-of-nowhere slam jolts him to his core.
Stunned, his and everyone's eyes seek out the noise and he flinches at the deadly, dark energy that emits from their class hothead. The savage had terror in his eyes and hisses like a snake ready to sink its fangs into anyone who dares to challenge him.
"Bakugo? What the hell?" Hanta calls him out on his behavior.
Yeah, seriously, Eijiro wonders. He thought that they put his crazy behavior to rest yesterday. What was his deal now?
Katsuki clicks his tongue at the question and refuses to answer. He just clenches his teeth and ignores the stares at the back of his head. Eijiro frowns at the dismissal and sighs to himself.
Eijiro wasn't being a good friend right now. Hell, he wasn't a very good person right now.
He spent his whole morning watching over their new sweet classmate like she was some piece of meat, and he hasn't really followed up on how Katsuki was feeling today versus yesterday. Some man he was, he chastises himself on his behavior.
He didn't deserve to talk with Izumi right now, but he'll properly introduce himself when the chance comes. Not on his time, he was okay with that. Eijiro makes the plan to just hang out with his bros at lunch and check up on his brother. Sounds good, his determined self tells him.
And while he and everyone else is told the rest of the layout for tonight's homework and to remember to take home their textbooks, they remain unaware of how their new green-haired classmate took off running down the hallway as soon as she walked a fair distance away from their room.
Her face looking as if death has come to take her to her grave.
Izumi has always loved snow.
She loves how the white flakes glisten against the peaks of the sun that made their way through the dark gray clouds. She loves the feeling of being wrapped up in warm sweaters, knit hats, and a big fluffy scarf that made her feel safe from any danger. She loves how beautiful the world seems to be under layers of the white flurries that fall delicately from the sky.
One of the seven-year-old Izumi's favorite places to play in the snow would be the neighborhood park.
It wasn't the biggest park in the area. It had a few swings, a giant slide, a couple of rocking animals, one seesaw, and one big jungle-gym of overlapping metal pipes. But the best thing about this park to Izumi is how much space there was to run around.
The girl happily giggles and scream as she danced around the empty park, thrilled to have such a big place all to herself. Snowflakes continue to float their way down to earth and into her green curly hair, making it shine from the slow-melting flakes. Her dancing stops for a moment, so she could look up to the sky taking in the sight of the falling white dots.
Like the wonder-filled child she always would be, she closes her eye and sticks out her tongue, letting a few of the droplets land on the small pink muscle. Buzzing little chills hit her lips and she covers her mouth with her hands, her giggling joy never-ending.
Izumi looks around the park at the giant blanket of snow, and a simple idea popped in her head.
She rushes to reach down on her knees and determinedly squishes together all the flurries in her arms, her All Might-themed jacket and gloves becoming wet as she does. She forms a somewhat sizeable ball of snow before she stands and walks to roll it against the covered ground, more and more flakes sticking to the mass as the ball moves.
The small girl hums a pleasant tune as the ball grows bigger and bigger, almost to the point that it was just as tall as her. Once pleased with its size, she stops her rolling and keeps it in place before running to another spot to repeat the same process. This time, the ball of snow was smaller and compact enough for her to lift it up on top of the first ball.
After that, she frantically looks around for some branches, which she found some distance away under one of the park trees. The cheerful girl grinned and runs over to pick up some of the dark wood twigs.
She was also glad to have found some round clusters that had fallen from the tree as well; she scooped up a few with one hand, her twigs hugged against her side in her other arm.
Her smile lights her way back to her snowball pile. Without wasting time, she arranged the branches on the side of the lower ball and three clusters in a straight line on the bottom. The last two clusters were put on the upper ball, and she takes off one of her gloves to draw a huge smile into the ball as well.
Izumi takes a step back to review her work, her hand perched under her chin in thought. The lightbulb flicks on inside her head, and she lets out a delighted hum.
She gathers up some more snow and puts some on the upper ball in the form of a long horn-like structure on one side before making another one on the other.
Perfect! Izumi cheers in her head as she takes a step back once more, her hands now placed on her hips. A glimmer shines in her eyes from the sunlight. Her tiny body felt warmer under her puffy jacket and yellow knit cap as she looked over her All Might snowman sculpture with pride filling her body.
She knows it was just a snowman but the sight of it just made her felt light and airy. Glee hugged her heart as she stared at the smile of the snow hero. Every time she sees her favorite hero, she felt powerful and strong.
It also reminded her of all the good times she had with...
Izumi's smile and prideful stance falter and her line of thought draws itself to her former best friend. Her heart contracts at the flash of his smiling face speeding by. Suddenly, the pleasure of her creation is lessened by the ache of her memories.
But as Izumi stands distracted, a hard, cold object hits the back of her head. A small gasp escapes her, and she rubs at the wet spot with a groan. What was that? She moves her fingers through her hair and realizes that there were clumps of snow now in it.
"Yo, Deku..."
She freezes, but it wasn't because of the weather.
No, she turned into a rock-hard statue at the familiar voice she knows too good and well. Her wide eyes gawk at the ground before her, and she swallows the lump in her throat. The hand on her head clutches her cap while her other clutches at her chest.
Izumi looks to her snowman with pleading eyes, wishing it was her actual hero to come save her from the villain behind her. But alas, the snow All Might just looked back at her with its drawed-on smile. It couldn't move, fight, or save anyone, especially not her.
"Deku..." The voice drawls teasingly out again, various types of laughter echos after it.
Deku closes her eyes tighteningly, tears of fear starting to pool in the corners before she finally turns around to meet the face of the park's newcomers.
That tremendous feeling of enjoying her beloved snow day dwindles away.
Izumi should probably stop her running at this point.
First off, she doesn't need to leave a bad first impression if a teacher catches her. She already feels guilty enough for lying to Ishiyama-sensei about seeing the principal.
Second, it's a huge school. Even when she got here early this morning, the need to go straight to the main office got buried under the want to look around at all the hallways and spacious corridors.
Which led to her getting hopelessly lost a good amount of times, her bad.
Third, she's already a good amount of distance away from Katsuki. Hell, she thinks she's like a floor down from him now. But her panicked heart screams at her to run away because it was getting harder to breathe. Get to a safe place while you have the chance.
How she didn't immediately crumble to the ground once she saw the asshole for the first time after seven years is a complete blessing in disguise.
She stops her running to look around her surroundings, noticing that she's now made it to the ground floor. Her insides itch at the unsatisfied feeling of not being far enough from her old childhood bully. And then the lunch bell chimes out and her terror sweats at the sound.
Shit, shit, shit.
She whips her head around and, to her luck, sees an entrance door that leads to the main courtyard of the school.
Without missing a beat, she slams through the door and pushes her way through the huge grassland area. With her main mission to hide, she couldn't stop to smell the nice clean air or admire the tall oak trees that flourished around the area. All she could think was hide your ass now.
And she felt the power of God strike her because lo and behold, she manages to find the perfect hiding spot around the corner of the building. It was a good decent sized area that looked like it stayed pretty vacant most of the time.
There didn't seem to be any nearby windows or doors, just one little tree that provides some good shade. There was a patch of concrete against the building, so she had a place to sit down, which she automatically did as soon as she found this safe haven.
Her pastel green wrapped bento gets tossed at the ground with impatience as she sits down, panting and huffing.
Inhale for eight: She takes a deep breath.
Hold for eight: The breath stays solid in her chest.
Exhale for eight: Her release was shaky but gradually.
She repeats this process over and over again, the sounds of students happily screaming and loud talking start to arise from afar.
The high of escaping and running starts to die down in her chest as she repeats her exercises, and then as soon as her heart beats its normal rhythm, she growls loudly and brings her legs to her chest, and places her forehead on her knees.
The universe just loves to pull its middle finder on her sometimes, doesn't it?
She shouldn't be surprised that he was here, the guy's a freaking prodigy even when they were kids. Give him any hard task or anything new that he had never done before, he could do it like a pro on the freaking spot.
She should have expected him to be in the best high school in the whole nation, but she had very high hopes and prayers that he wouldn't be in the same class as her!
"Damnit!" Izumi loudly whispers under her breath.
Now that she thinks about it, she wasn't angered by the fact that her old childhood tormentor now sits in front of her in her new class, at her new school, in her new town.
No, she's angered, actually livid is more of the correct term, that after all of these stressful, long, anxious-filled years, Bakugo Katsuki continues to be a thorn in her side, the trigger to her freakouts.
What adds to this livid feeling is the fact that she had to lie and put on an act just so she could have just a few minutes to just breathe for a second. That wasn't how she needed to approach this type of situation. She sighs against her skin and lifts her head up, legs still folded.
But she'll admit the feeling of throwing his death glare right back at him this morning might of gave her...a bit of relief. She laughs at that thought, but it doesn't really help get rid of the tension in her shoulders at all. Uncurling her legs, she stretches them out as she rubs at her shoulder.
Izumi wasn't an idiot. Somehow, the bastard's gonna find her and from the look of his face this morning that rivaled a mad bull, he wanted to have some words with her.
And like what the hell is he so angry about? Her irritation grows at the memory and she pitches her lips together.
Was he angry over the fact that she was more than capable to get into this school? Angry over the fact that she was back in Japan? Back in his life? Because honestly, the feeling's completely mutual.
Izumi clenches her fist and stares ahead at the school's fences. If he wanted to have words, then let's have words. She's had her moment of weakness and that was only because she got caught off guard and didn't have her plan ready yet.
But now? She's ready for anything that he'll throw at her.
Are you? Her inner self sounded unconvinced. She ignores the voice and grits her teeth. The tiny girl starts punching the air in front of her, pumping up the fighting spirit in her.
Yes, damnit! She's ready!
...But if she could avoid him as much as she could for now, that wouldn't be so bad. Damn these nerves.
And then during one of her punches, pain shot like an arrow through her arm.
"Ouch!" She shouts and holds the arm, grimacing at the feeling. Ah, with all of the excitement and drama, she forgot about yesterday's injury from that drug-induced nutjob.
...Yesterday...
Izumi blinks with an unease smile and sweat comes back in a wave of anxiety. Holy shit, she forgot all about how the girl she helped yesterday is in the same class too.
Like seriously, the universe keeps that middle finger at the ready for her.
Izumi scratches at her cheek with an unsure look in her eyes. What should she do about that? She has a feeling that the girl knew who she was, but Izumi doesn't really what to draw attention to herself from the others.
No, she's overthinking it. The girl didn't know who she was...of course, she did give a good enough description about her to the police that Naosama-san managed to know it was her and told her parents what had happened. She got a good lashing over the phone for that, mainly from her mom.
Izumi shakes her head to clear her thoughts. She really didn't want to bring up the topic if the girl did figure out it was her. It wasn't to be mean or anything, it's just part of the reason why she was here in UA now is because of situations like yesterday.
...Izumi grabs at her left shoulder before looking down in slight shame. A few moments of silence go by before the pain in her arm starts to throb. She grunts before she moves to take off her jacket, being careful not to jostle the wound so much.
She lays the gray material carefully beside her, making sure it doesn't get any sort of dirt on it. The stark white bandages around her forearm start to redden just a bit but nothing really serious. She stitched it up pretty well last night with her overstocked first aid kit.
Thank you, dad.
She reaches into her skirt pocket to pull out a roll of bandage tape and a little handy bottle of medicine spray. She unwraps some of the redden gauzes and took a scrap piece to blot some of the blood before putting a hint of the medicine on the wound. There was a moment of burning but she ignores it and wraps the replacement tape carefully and slowly.
Unfortunately, the girl didn't hear the footsteps of whoever came around the corner to witness this.
"There, better," she remarks quietly, smiling at her quick handiwork.
And as she was getting ready to put all of her stuff back in her pockets and finally start eating her lunch, she's grabbed from behind. She lets out a girlish shriek at the sudden attack and the person swings her around without her getting a chance to react.
And a pair of wide, chocolate eyes met hers head-on, the tears in them making her startled-self twitch.
"I KNEW IT! TENYA, I TOLD YOU IT WAS HER!"
...Yeah okay, that sounds about right.