"Midoriya, is everything alright?"

Tsuyu looked at him, her finger at her cheek as a concerned look was on her face. Izuku raised his eyes to meet hers and in that moment, his brain just started working again. Gears started turning and turning and turning and turning...

The next moment he felt like his mind was going a million miles an hour all at once. First off, when the hell did he get Toga as a contact?! There was clearly a number associated with it but he definitely never exchanged anything of sorts with her. Second, he never added emojis to his contacts so it was definitely not him, who put Toga's number in his contacts?! Third, when did that even happen?! He had no memory of handing off his phone to anybody at all, there was also a pin code on it so there should be no way somebody just randomly was able to add anybody to his contacts...

"Midoriya? You are starting to worry me..."

With a frown, Tsuyu started to close in on him, trying to figure out what was going on with her friend. Izuku couldn't help but recoil in that moment, quickly scrolling past Toga and clicking onto Tsuyu's contact, going onto edit in a split second before stuttering out:

"It's nothing, just... mind going off... somewhere. Sorry... been a... hard day."

He sincerely hoped that that would deflect the conversation. Really from the expression on her face, he already knew that she was not buying it. So instead he quickly opened Tsuyu's contact info and changed the info to her new number. After another short question if he was alright the frog girl moved on, to inform the other classmates.

Izuku's attention, however, returned right back, going back into the list, scrolling up and clicking on Toga's contact. There was not really... anything there. Her name, her number... that's it. Still there was a strange feeling...

'I could call her'

He thought. He could call her right now if he wanted to and ask for answers. He could also write her a text for her to answer, in case she was busy right now. But that was not really getting to the bottom of all that. No, this was feeling strange because, unlike all the other times before, it was on him. If he wanted to talk to her, he needed to initiate things.

Did he really want to?

She was a villain after all. He had gone through this a billion times over the last week, consciously and subconsciously; she had hurt his friends. She had hurt and worse people in general. And even now he had no idea why she was behaving towards him the way he did. He had met her in both ways, as an opponent and as somebody... who seemed to want to talk to him.

Why did she want to talk to him? He had not really any idea. Of course, maybe she was spying for the League and now he stepped right into their trap. It didn't really feel like that though. He had no idea how naive he was being, he felt like she was being honest to him in her intentions... in some weird way.

So what was it? Was it just her fighting against the boredom? Just chance meetings that happened at an opportune time and she just took her chances? That felt so risky that it did not seem worth the effort...

Of course, there was this little option that made his heart pound fast and his cheeks flush. The thought that she was genuinely interested in him was... uncomfortable in this strange way that only being desired could really bring. He had never felt like he had been wanted before and now that it seemed like a real option. That made just much more surreal to him.

His finger hovered over the text button. He was tempted, really tempted. Although he still did not understand where this number was coming from and where it could lead him, he was still tempted by the possibilities...

"Everything alright, Deku?"

The question once more repeated, Izuku raised his head from the phone screen, this time looking into the worried eyes of Ochaco. For a moment, he felt like recoiling from her drawing in closer to get a better look at him, on the other hand... there was a deep yearning for letting loose some of thoughts swirling around his head. Unfortunately, like many other things, he did not feel like he could tell her all of them in an unfiltered way.

"Yeah... yeah, I'm alright... just today's... stuff" instead of pressing the text button he locked his phone and slipped it into his pocket, filing it mentally under 'later".

"Mhm... i know... they mean well, but damn..." she replied as she let herself fall onto the armchair across from him, sighing loudly as she let her head fall into the back of her neck. "It didn't feel right, did it?"

He could only nod, humming along in agreement as he pressed his lips into a thin line. "Made me still wonder about a few things..." he added dryly

"The whole discussion felt, overall, weird. It was... how do I say that..." She scratched her head a little bit before trying to summon some conviction. "Just because he was right, didn't make him correct."

A small frown appeared on Izuku's face. Even though he tried really hard not to, one eyebrow raised as he just wordlessly stared at his best friend.

"F-forget I said that." she tried to laugh it off, waving her hands as if it would distract him from that awkward sentence. Still, he found she had a point there.

"I mean, in the end... we still do good, right?" he asked, making the girl sigh out a little bit, looking up as if to find the answer in the stars, even though she could not really see any.

"I think?" She answered, scratching her head again before letting out a frustrated groan. "I think... we need to sleep on that one for a while. Right now... we are not really getting anywhere by ourselves." she mumbled to herself.

"So Deku, what are we going to do now?" She asked, switching the topic and shaking off that heavy, gloomy atmosphere that hung over the two of them.

For him it took a moment to adjust before he turned towards the TV. "Wanna watch something? Maybe there is some decent movie, or a quiz show..."

The attempt at diversion felt half hearted at first. In his heart, he still felt a pull in all those different directions. Still, it was hard to not get dragged in when the quiz show started playing and more and more people were sucked in, joining, laughing, joking, or getting frustrated at the people being unable to answer, completely obvious questions.

When the time came for everyone to go to bed and everybody retreated to their rooms, a certain lightheadedness made Izuku feel like he was more so hovering into his room rather than walking. By the time, he started to calm back down to a normal level he was already in bed, turning from one side to the other as he tried to sleep...

Sleep sounded easy when you were tired. He was... still not. He maybe had calmed down to the point where he did not feel like his head was filled with cotton candy clouds but that still did not mean he had calmed down all that much. Even as he laid there he could feel the immense urge to just walk around... so instead he just turned from one side... to the other... again and again. And again. And again.

Maybe he could watch something real quick on the phone and that would relax him enough to fall asleep. Without really looking he reached around for his phone, hands sliding over it, before he turned it on, immediately turning down the brightness, before he unlocked it lazily.

And there, just as he was going to press the home button, he stopped his finger right before it touched the screen.

Toga 3

Written there right on his screen. What was he supposed to do? Just ignore it? Do as he was planned. Honestly, he could try and watch a video, but without somebody to pull him away from thinking about it, he wouldn't be able to concentrate about anything but that green message button right next to her name.

He was not sure if he should. Especially now that it was so late. Maybe she was sleeping already. Actually, he should be sleeping already.

Humming with frustration, a moment of introspection told him quite clearly, that all the efforts to calm down, were for naught now. His heart was racing, butterflies in his stomach, even a pleasant tingle in his scalp as a stray thought flashed through his head, that he pushed away before it really could take root in his mind.

With a sigh, he pressed the texting button, knowing that if he didn't, he wouldn't know rest. Which leads of course to the next question: What should he write her? Just writing 'Hi'? Maybe just asking how she got her number in his phone.

Even more so now than before he felt the burden of initiation on his heart. Toga had many times taken a step towards him. She had made her interest clear, even if the nature of that interest still baffled him in many ways that only brought more self doubt. Now it was his turn.

"Hello, this is Midoriya Izuku." He started typing into the text box, looked at it and deleted it even quicker than he typed it. He was doing this, right? Was he really doing this? He knew he was repeating himself, but it was almost unavoidable. His mind was running in circles, after all.

"Hi." Short, sweet... but... did she even know it's him? He had her number, but did she have his? What if she did? And if she did, why hadn't she written him before? She... probably didn't. At least, somewhere inside of him, he hoped she didn't. For multiple reasons really, some of which he was already contradicting by typing this much.

"Hi, it's Izuku."

That seemed... odd too. Maybe too informal. Maybe like he was trying to follow up with something so what if...

"Hi, it's Izuku. Is this Toga?"

Now... this made more sense and in that sense, was definitely not something he would send at all. He had it all deleted before his finger even thought about it, once again looking at the empty text box. There was really no good way to start this right?

Again and again he tried, feeling like he was making less and less progress the more he tried to actually write anything. The question of whether he should write to her now seemed to become more and more trivial. In the end, it was clear... as nervous as it made him, he wanted this. He wanted this more badly than he might have realized even in that moment.

His fingers finally stopped trembling after a while. Tiredness started to settle in, the exhaustion of the day making him stop more and more as his mind started to slow down more by the second. The realization that he had to sleep was slowly dawning on him.

With his eyes half open he thought about just putting his phone to the side and let it be an issue for Future Izuku... but then.

"Hello, Toga?"

He almost wrote it without thinking. His heart missed a short beat as he realized that he had actually typed something. For a moment he lingered, then he pressed send. For a moment, it was like a weight was lifted from his shoulders, exhaustion washing over him as he put the phone onto the night table.

As he drifted off to sleep he was already feeling dreams appear before his eyes, of a response. Of that crazy smile, that somehow still felt genuinely warm to him. Then just warmth as he felt himself drift off into the dream completely.

I hope you enjoy this story still! And if you want to see updates or whatever goes through my head follow me on tumblr or twitter, both karukos