Hi there. Me again with the third chapter. This chapter focuses a bit more on Midoriya's social side (or lack thereof) though it will still have a bit of quirk analysis in there so need to panic.
Again, this was also mostly written/finished in the early hours of the morning (for me anyway) so apologies for anything that is grammatically or punctually incorrect as I don't have the time or energy to re-read these sometimes. Anyway, enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia, any of it's film adaptations or the manga.
The following day at school, Izuku had done his usual by keeping mostly to himself in class and only speaking when he was spoken to. He took down his notes and wrote in his analysis book whenever there was a free moment, usually between classes. It was a pretty normal day for Izuku until lunch came.
He had stood in line like everyone else and gotten what lunch rush was offering - which was practically the same as everyone else, seriously why even have a menu? - before making his way towards the back of the room to sit and eat his lunch alone. Before he could get to the back though he heard someone call his name;
"Midoriya!" came the yell.
Izuku looked around until he spotted Uraraka waving at him as he made his way over;
"H-Hey Uraraka" he greeted.
"Hey. Do you wanna come sit with us?" she asked. At the table currently were Uraraka, Tsu, Iida, Todoroki, Hagakure, Mina and Kaminari.
"R-Really? Are you sure?" he asked a bit reluctantly as if he weren't allowed to sit at the table.
"Of course." beamed Uraraka.
"O-Okay. Thank you" he replied before taking up the spare seat.
Most of the other students at the table greeted him warmly like Mina and Hagakure whilst others - namely Todoroki - simply offered a simple nod of acknowledgement. The conversation picked up again when Mina spoke up;
"So, Midoriya. Did you get what you wanted for your project thing?" she asked.
"Oh y-yeah I got a lot of stuff written down. Thanks for that by the way" he replied though stated the last part more towards the table in general.
"No problem. It's nice to have a new look on my quirk since it's kinda dull" said Hagakure.
"Aww c'mon Toru, it's not that bad" said Uraraka.
"Yeah, I mean surely it must be nice to hide away and listen to all the juicy gossip" said Kaminari.
"Well yeah but I'm usually ignored in large groups of people since they can't see my face...or my head in general" replied Hagakure.
"W-What about body paint?" said Izuku as he spoke up.
The group went silent for a moment before Hagakure spoke up again;
"Body paint?" she asked.
"Yeah b-body paint. It used to be u-used as a form of expressing a-art but kinda fell away like everything else once quirks became a thing" replied Izuku.
Toru sat for a moment, her clothes indicating that she hadn't moved a muscle before she got up and exclaimed;
"That's genius. Oh Midoriya thank you, thank you. You've just given me so many ideas. I need to go find Yaomomo" she shouted as she got up and hugged Izuku with bone-crushing strength before she ran off elsewhere in the cafeteria.
"Looks like someone's getting some special attention" said Kaminari as he nudged Izuku beside him.
Suddenly Tsu's tongue shot out and slapped Kaminari upside the head;
"Owww, what was that for Tsu?" he asked.
"You're making him uncomfortable. Stop that" said the ever blunt Tsu.
"Fine fine" replied Kaminari.
Izuku looked over at Tsu, acknowledging her for the first time since sitting down and nodded whilst mouthing the word 'thanks'. Tsu gave a small smile back with her typical 'kero' in response.
The rest of lunch went fine for Izuku. He chatted with Tsu and Uraraka for the most part as they seemed to be the ones he got along with best. He exchanged words with Kaminari a few times but he mostly wanted to talk about girls and Izuku mostly clammed up when that topic arose. He tried starting a conversation with Todoroki but he was mostly full of one word answers so it was hard to hold a meaningful conversation with him.
He had left that lunch room feeling just a tad bit giddy. It was nice to sit with people who genuinely enjoyed his company or even entertained his ideas, things which hadn't happened for most of his life. He was hoping that he could sit with them again tomorrow. Maybe he would try and ask during class.
When he got to foundational heroics that day, he wasn't expecting a number of people waving and saying hello to him. He thought he would have been lucky to get even just two or three people to say hi to him.
Just as the last of the stragglers arrived, All Might spoke up to begin class;
"Ok students, let's begin. Today we'll be having one on one sparring sessions going ten minutes per round. After each round you'll swap and spar with someone else and so on" All Might explained.
"I'll sort you in to pairs in a moment. Midoriya!" said All Might.
"Y-yes All Might sir?" replied Midoriya.
"For today's lesson, I've been asked by Mr Aizawa to pair you up with one student for the whole class. Today you'll be following young Jiro" said All Might.
"O-Okay" Izuku replied before making his way towards where Jiro was stood with Yaoyorozu.
"H-Hello Jiro, Yaoyorozu" he greeted both girls.
"Hey Midoriya" said Jiro.
"Hello Midoriya. It's a pleasure to see you again. How is your project coming along? Momo asked with genuine curiosity.
"It's coming along g-great. Thanks for asking" Izuku replied.
"So Midoriya, I hear you're paired up with me today?" Jiro stated rather than asked.
"Oh yeah that's right. Was there eh...anything you wanted to go over today specifically?" he asked.
"Well...to be honest…I was kinda hoping you'd have an idea Midoriya" admitted the rocker girl.
"Wh-Wha-What?" was all Izuku could reply.
"What I mean by that is that I've kinda run out of ideas on what I can do...at least for now anyway" Jiro explained.
"O-Oh ok. Erm...I've got an idea but I'm not entirely sure if your quirk is capable of it. Tell me, are you able to plug in one of your jacks to a sound source and relay it through the other jack?" he asked.
"Yeah sure, I do it all the time when I'm listening to music on my phone and I wanna play it on the stereo for others, why?" she asked.
"Well I was thinking, what if you got a small portable music player and plugged one of your jacks in to it and the other in to your jacks via a Y-splitter?" he asked.
"A Y-...what?" she asked in confusion.
"You know, a Y-splitter. Where you take a normal headphone jack and plug it in one side and it splits the output to two different connections" he explained.
"I know what a Y-splitter is Midoriya. I just...never thought of doing that before" she admitted with some fascination of the idea in her eyes.
"I wrote the idea down when I was thinking of all the different uses that the class's quirks could do. Yours just needs a proof of concept I think" he replied.
"So what? You mean you just need me to actually test it out?" she asked.
"P-pretty much. If we can test this and see that it works, it'll open up other possibilities to what you can do with your quirk" he explained.
"Wow. That's so cool. Hey Midoriya...can I see what you've written about myself in your book?" she asked.
"O-oh...um...y-yeah sure" he replied a bit nervously. Whatever he used to write down and what he wrote down now were usually things he liked to keep close to his chest. In some instances though, it was safe to share what was written and today was one of those instances.
He opened the notebook up to the page with her entry and he turned it around and presented it to the girl who promptly took the book and began to read:
Name: Kyoka Jiro
Hero Name: Earphone Jack
Quirk: Earphone Jack
Description: She has headphone jacks that hang from her earlobes. When she plugs either (or both) of her jacks in to any surface that will allow the jacks to be inserted, she can transmit her heartbeat through the object in to which she has "plugged" in to which will cause said object to vibrate. She can also use her quirk to listen to miniscule sounds and if she plugs in to a surface, she can hear what is on the other side of that surface if there is any sound at all.
Notable Drawbacks: If she plugs in to a surface with lots of loud noises on the other side, this can potentially damage her hearing. Similarly, quirk users with some form of sound amplification (such as Present Mic) will also cause issues and could reduce her ability to use her quirk properly.
Possible ideas: Possibly using a small portable music player, like an mp3 player to plug in to to produce different sounds at different frequencies? Would allow her to break down surfaces which require different frequencies to be vibrated apart.
Support Gear: Currently uses stereo boots and wrist mounted speakers, both of which amplify her main attack, heartbeat distortion. As previously stated, some small portable music player like an mp3 player would compliment/round out her arsenal.
Kyoka looked at the pages in amazement. From the little time he had seen her actually using her quirk and from the brief conversation that they had had on his first visit to the class, she couldn't believe the observations he was making already.
"I know i-it's not much but I'm s-sure I'll fill it up some m-more" he stammered out.
"It's okay Midoriya. It seems like you've got everything in hand" she smiled as she closed the book and handed it back to him. He had been avoiding eye contact the whole time but had then looked down to see his book being offered back to him;
"Now c'mon, I need help deciding which small portable player to get and test with that idea of yours" she said.
"Oh...oh s-sure" he replied as the two of them began talking and brainstorming ideas.
Whilst all of this had been going on, Momo had been standing idly by and watching.
'Hmm. He's very observant and seems to have lots of ideas on different uses for quirks. Maybe we should invite him over for one of our study sessions sometime. I think he would definitely bring a lot of new ideas to the table. Yes, I think I'll talk it over with the others later' she thought to herself as she was watching Kyoka demonstrate her quirk for him.
"So how was your time with Midoriya today Jiro?" asked Uraraka.
"You know...I thought it was gonna suck at first, what with his stuttering and shyness...but then he started talking quirks and you know what? I actually enjoyed talking to him. I like the guy" replied Jiro.
"I'm glad you think that Kyoka. I was actually thinking that maybe we should invite him to one of our study sessions" said Momo.
"Really? What brought this on?" asked Tsu.
"I was watching him explain Kyoka's quirk and listened to his ideas that he was proposing. He's got a sharp mind and likes to think somewhat outside the box as it were. I think he'd bring new ideas to the group if we invited him. Plus, I get the idea that he doesn't have very many friends of his own" explained Momo.
"Yeah, I've seen him around a few times when I go for a walk and he's always by himself and more recently, always has a notebook on him. I'm guessing that's the one that he's using for his project" said Hagakure.
"Do you think we should invite him to hang out sometime?" asked Uraraka.
"Yeah cause that wouldn't just make his day. Six girls hanging out with one guy? It's like we're just making his harem for him" said Mina playfully. The other girls either laughed or blushed and put on a fake laugh to hide their embarrassment at the idea.
"I think Uraraka's got a point though. Maybe we should invite him to hang out sometime. If he doesn't actually have friends then a few friendly faces might be a start" said Jiro.
"I agree. Maybe this weekend?" said Momo. All the girls nodded in agreement or voiced their approval.
"Then it's settled, we'll invite him over at the weekend" said Momo.
"Great, now next question. Who's going to ask him?" said Mina.
…
"I think it should either be me, Jiro or Ochaco" said Tsu.
"Why do you say that Tsu?" asked Hagakure.
"Between the six of us, he's interacted with us more than you three. No offence" explained Tsu.
"Why don't the three of us go together?" asked Uraraka.
"Sure, I'm up for it. Jiro?" asked Tsu.
"Sure, why not. I'm game" said Jiro.
"Great. Let's finish getting changed and go see if we can find him" said Uraraka.
"Hey Bakugou. Me, Sero and Kaminari are gonna head to the arcade after school. Wanna come?" asked Kirishima.
"Can't. Old hag's got me going home to help with some crummy decorating crap" said Bakugou.
"Dang. Oh well. We'll invite you next time" said Kirishima as he, Sero and Kaminari had finished changing and made their way outside the changing rooms.
On their way towards the school gate, they spotted a mop of green hair sitting on a bench with an open notebook.
"Hey is that Midoriya?" asked Sero.
"Yeah...yeah it is. Hey, you think we should invite him along?" asked Kaminari.
"I think we should. He's in heroics with us every class now. I think we should put in a bit more effort and get to know the little guy" said Kirishima.
Izuku was in the middle of reading his quirk analysis book trying to brainstorm some ideas for some of the quirks he had seen in class 1-A so far when he heard someone call his name;
"Hey, Midoriya".
Izuku looked up and around until he seen the three boys walking in his direction and recognised him. At first he thought that they were there to pick on him. Afterall, it wasn't often someone came looking for him and when they did, it usually meant trouble followed.
"H-Hey K-Kirishima. Kaminari. S-Sero" he replied.
"Sup Midoriya. We were just heading to the arcade" said Kaminari.
"Wanna join us?" asked Sero.
Izuku was skeptical. He had already met these guys and he knew that they were decent people. However, old habits die hard and he still had to fight with the feeling that they were only bringing him along to torment him somewhere else. His instincts did not serve him well enough on this occasion;
"T-Thanks but I'll have to p-pass this time. Too busy working on my p-project. See" said Midoriya as he raised his book to show them. It was a weak excuse he knew but it was all he had.
"Aww bummer. Guess we'll catch you later then Midoriya" said Sero as the three boys continued on their way towards the arcade.
Izuku breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't know why he said no. He knew he had met these guys and knew that they weren't bad, nothing like his old school. Come to think of it, since starting school at U.A things had been looking up, at least in the general harassment department.
He was never hassled with regards to being quirkless. Well, almost never. There were the odd times it would happen and someone would say something about him and his lack of being special. They never said quirkless though seeing as there was a zero tolerance policy within the school regarding quirkless discrimination.
Izuku was proud of that.
He stood up and began making his way back towards his dorm intending on sitting down and brainstorming over the next hero student's costume changes. He had made it all the way to his dorm building as someone called his name;
"Hey Midoriya"
He turned around at the sound of his name to be met with Uraraka, Jiro and Tsu walking i his direction.
"Oh h-hey. What brings you here?" he asked.
"We were looking for you" replied Uraraka.
"Yaomomo's going to be holding a study group and we wanted to know if you'd like to come along?" asked Jiro.
"We realized that you're a part of our class now. Even if it's only one class. So we wanted to take the time to get to know you better" said Tsu.
"W-wow. Er...I...I don't know" he replied. He was flustered, it was one thing for the guys to come up and ask him to hang out but now the girls were asking. He still wasn't a hundred percent sure though. Girls could be just as deceiving as guys, moreso even. However, one of them spoke again which made him rethink his decision;
"Please?" asked Tsu, "If you're worried about the number of people going, I'm sure we can have just a small gathering if we ask Yaoyorozu nicely" she finished.
"Yeah, just you and four or five, maybe six attractive young ladies" said Jiro. She had to put a lot of bravery in to those words. Whilst she was always up for teasing one of the guys, it was never in relation to talking about attraction to other people. She struggled with her own body image so she rarely tried talking about someone else's but this was an opportunity she couldn't pass up.
"I-I..er...um...I…" Izuku was stumbling all over his words and he couldn't really process what Jiro was implying. Thankfully he was saved by his new saviour;
"Jiro. Stop teasing him" Uraraka giggled lightly.
"Aww, can't a girl have fun" Jiro playfully retorted.
"So what do you say Midoriya?" asked Uraraka.
Thankfully, the brief respite was all Izuku needed to collect himself for an answer.
"S-sure, why not" he replied.
The three girls all smiled at him before Tsu pulled out her phone from her pocket;
"Here, gimme your phone for a moment, kero" she said to Izuku.
"Wh-what?" he asked.
"I wanna get your number, you know so that we can tell you a date and time where the study group will take place" she replied. Tsu would have been lying if she hadn't given some thought to a second reason as to why she wanted his number. She wasn't going to admit that though of course and thankfully, her ever stoic facial expressions had managed to hide the facade of an ulterior motive to the simple request.
"O-oh, s-sure. H-Here" he replied, stuttering now worse than ever as he pulled out his own phone and exchanged numbers with the shorter green-haired girl.
"Can we get your number too?" asked Jiro as she waved her phone at him with Uraraka doing the same.
Izuku could have cried at that moment. Here there were three very attractive looking young ladies all asking for his number. Sure they weren't asking him for anything other than friendship but right now, that was exactly what he wanted and what he needed.
"Yeah. We can get a group chat going" said Uraraka as she accepted the boys number in to her phone as well.
"Sure. Sounds good" replied Midoriya as he calmed slightly, enough that his stutter didn't bother him on this occasion.
"Great. We'd better get going, we'll text you later Midoriya" said Uraraka as the three girls turned and left as they waved to the boy.
Izuku waved back and proceeded to enter his dorm building. He greeted a few of the other occupants of his dorm but proceeded straight to his room. Once he was safely inside, he finally let the tears go. The ones of happiness. He had talked to people who not only wanted to speak to him but were actually inviting him to go places. Granted he may have declined the first invite with the guys.
He was also getting phone numbers and not only that but they were girls phone numbers. It was so overwhelming that he had to take a few steadying breaths just to realize how real it had all been.
He sat down at his desk and pulled out his notebook from his bag. He opened up to one of the most recent pages he had and began to note down some more details:
Name: Eijiro Kirishima
Hero Name: Red Riot
Quirk: Hardening
Description: He has the ability to harden any and all parts of his body to a somewhat stone like form. This grants him the ability to tank a lot of damage from various different types of attacks, such as explosions, punches, flames (to a certain extent), stabbing attacks, blunt force trauma, etc.
Notable Drawbacks: Has a time limit as to how long he can stay in his hardened form for. Also has a distinct lack of maneuverability, both before and after using his quirk.
Possible ideas: Implement support gear to augment mobility issues? Can his hardening form be pushed further? Improve reaction times and reflexes to harden only the areas he requires, thus allowing him to possibly extend the time he can use his quirk?
Support Gear: Currently does not appear to use any. Would suggest something on his feet at least to improve his mobility. Some form of rollerskates perhaps?
He had just finished adding the last note when his phone ding'd:
Izuku Midoriya has been added to the group chat.
Uraraka: Hey Midoriya. We talked after we left you and thought that we would just go ahead and start a group chat with you. Hope you don't mind?
Jiro: She's just excited to use her new phone that she got at Christmas, don't let her fool you.
Uraraka: Hey! I mean...ok.
Izuku laughed to himself before replying:
Midoriya: Hey. It's ok, I don't mind. I'm actually really excited. I'm not part of many...or any group conversations so...yeah.
Jiro: What about your class? Do you not have a group chat with them or something similar?
Midoriya: Not really. I tend to keep to myself. I'm quite shy in case you hadn't noticed.
Tsu: Oh we noticed but we didn't think it polite to say anything.
Uraraka: Yeah there's nothing wrong with being a bit shy.
Midoriya: Thanks :)
He continued chatting away in the group chat, not even realizing that he was being social. It was something that had eluded him for a number of years since he had been ostracised most of his life. His stuttering thankfully had not translated to text. Eventually the conversation wound down and everyone bit each other a good night.
He closed his notebook as it still sat at his desk where he had been writing in it before getting up and putting it back in his bag and then making his way to his wardrobe. He pulled out a set of pyjamas - just shorts and a baggy t-shirt really - before making his way to the communal bathrooms to brush his teeth and get ready for bed.
After he had finished, he returned to his room and put away anything that was making his room messy before he headed to his bed. He picked up his phone and noticed that he had a new message, one that wasn't in the group chat. This one however, surprised him a bit:
Jiro: Hey, you still awake?
To say that Izuku was surprised was an understatement. Between the three girls, Jiro was the one he probably had spoken to the least so far:
Midoriya: Yeah I'm still awake, what's up?
Jiro: I was wondering if you were free on Saturday? I want to try out that idea you suggested about the portable mp3 player. I've got tons of music but I need other ideas and input, I respect your opinion after seeing how you've analysed our quirks so far. So...what do you say?
Izuku read the message then re-read the message. A girl wanted to spend time with him outside of normal school hours? Granted, it was for research purposes. Still, however, it was not something to be taken lightly:
Midoriya: Sure. Will it just be us?
Jiro: I'm going to try and rope Yaomomo in as well as her quirk might make it easier to get the job done. Plus, it gives you a chance to speak to Yaomomo more about the study group, seeing as she's the one who came up with it in the first place. But if she can't make it then yeah, would just be us. Hope that's not an issue?
Izuku's mind was rattling off different scenarios for how terribly wrong things could go if he was left alone with a girl, regardless of what the reason was. Any time he had spent talking to girls was either in a large group such as class or within at least a group of four or five girls so it wasn't too hard talking to them. One on one was a bit different.
Midoriya: Not at all. It would be great if Yaoyorozu could make it but understandable if she can't.
Jiro: Great, see you Saturday then? I'll meet you outside the 1-A dorms.
Midoriya: Sure, sounds great. See you then.
Izuku put the phone down and took a big breath before exhaling it out. Yep, still real. He now apparently had plans to spend Saturday with Jiro and possibly Yaoyorozu. At least it would be working on her quirk and what she could do with it.
Izuku decided that he could worry about that tomorrow. Right now, he was struggling to stay awake, the previous group conversation taking longer than he had initially thought it would. He got in to bed and pulled his covers over him and thought about his three new friends. Maybe he could make some more friends if he just spoke up a little bit more.
Maybe he would go and speak to Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero and try to join in with some form of activity that they all do. Something to be a bit more social. He had really wanted to say yes to them earlier but he just couldn't do it at the time. One step at a time though. First he would get through the rest of the week and Saturday then see what the following week would bring him. Eventually, his thoughts drifted back to the three girls and he cracked a smile before drifting off in to a land of slumber for the night.