Chapter 26

Izuku dropped the dumbbell with a sigh and wiped the sweat off of him with a rag. While he had been bringing his arms back up to snuff, Kobayashi had been strengthening her orbs of light by using them as targets for Momozono while the latter threw cheap hairpins at them like darts. He should have realized by the nearly destroyed dart-board near her desk that she had shockingly good aim when it came to throwing- if she could only control it enough to keep them from exploding. The explosions in a way helped Kobayashi in keeping her orbs strong, becoming something much more than just a convenient light source. If she kept applying herself the way she was now, the light heroine might be able to turn them into something more offensive. Now it was just him and Kaminari- Aoyama had opted to run the agency while they were gone. They all had their gear with them if they needed to leave at a moment's notice, but their comms had remained silent. It wouldn't be long before Alyssa was done with her class. Izuku hadn't gone back since his first lesson, not having the funds to subscribe to a fifty-eight hundred yen TLLA punch-card but since they worked out in the same building, he at least made it a point to walk home with her any opportunity he got. There was just one little problem.

She didn't know.

Somehow, through some sort of error or miscommunication, Alyssa didn't know who he was: the can-do hero, Deku, who ranked eighteenth in Japan on the hero board and was in the top one hundred internationally, was the mystery hero that had plagued her thoughts for weeks- and he didn't correct her. Oh sure, he tried. He had ample opportunity to do so, but the racket with the patrons left her so frazzled and him so embarrassed with the amount of fan-girl praise that she kept unknowingly giving him, he just couldn't find it in himself to do it.

It got even worse when she kept sending him pictures or old videos of him performing some sort of heroic feat, some of which were embarrassing for entirely different reasons such as him acting like an amateur or having no idea someone had been recording him doing something unflattering, and that she was still referring to him her as a 'mint green bunny superhero.' Did he really look so much like a rabbit in all of that getup? He vaguely remembered Ochako mentioning something like that when he had started out with costume alpha, but his look had changed so much over the years and it had never been brought up again since then. At least, not to his knowledge. It's not like he was vain enough to look himself up on the web, unless it was to study his moves to see what he could improve on.

"Midoriya... Hey, Midoriya!" Kaminari's hand waved in front of Izuku's face, finally getting the freckled hero's attention. "You alright, man?"

"Hmm...? Yeah, why?"

"You've been lifting that washrag like its a weight for the last ten seconds."

"Oh!" Izuku stopped the motion and dropped the towel with a slight chuckle, "Guess I was just lost in thought. Was there something you wanted?"

"I was just going to let you know that I'm gonna take off and head to Kyoka's- oh, and that I talked with Kirishima earlier. We decided to go with karaoke instead of dinner for Bakugou's birthday party this Friday."

"That sounds like a great idea." Since his parents were fashion designers, Kacchan wasn't really fond of frivolities like getting dressed up to go out to some fancy dinner, plus they wouldn't have to worry about going over-budget by dealing with the extra cost of renting out a party room in some fancy restaurant that paided on average five thousand yen a plate.

"See you later," Kaminari waved goodbye and Izuku was left to his thoughts once more. Normally, he had no problem with that. Today though, his head felt especially full and he couldn't figure out why. Sure he had been embarrassed that he had cried in front of Alyssa, but he had done that before in front of tons of his classmates and that had never bothered him, and it has been almost two weeks since the incident. Surely it wasn't because of something like that. It's not like he hadn't been comforted before or hugged by one of his friends. There was just something... different about it. Perhaps it was because she unknowingly idolized him and it made him ashamed to keep something like that from her, like he was being manipulative or underhanded by playing with her feelings. That had to be it.

He had to do it. He had to do it today, otherwise he was going to be stuck feeling this way anytime he was around her. Once he told Alyssa the truth about who he was was, he would stop feeling so nervous and out of sorts and finally be able to just focus on the bigger picture. Then he could stop replaying that moment where she had been in his arms hugging him close enough that he could smell lavender in her hair and feel how soft her-

"Hey Izuku!" a voice called out, causing the hero to nearly drop the weights he was holding with a yelp. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Alyssa said with an apologetic chuckle, her hands covering her mouth to stifle a smile, "I'm told I'm quiet like a cat when I approach. How are you today?"

"F-Fine!" he managed to squeak out. How long had she been standing there? Instead of her usual light grey sweats, she wore an outfit that was almost entirely black, which helped her blend a bit more in the background.

"Good, good..." she hummed, her dark eyes glancing over his appearance in a way that made him feel self-aware. Her expression lingered on his chest, almost like she was studying him. Did he look bad or was it that she somehow recognize him?

"W-What?"

"Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but... does your t-shirt say 'dress shirt'?"

His shirt? She was asking about his shirt? Unconsciously, he looked down at his pale green t-shirt. He had gone with one of his older shirts, which was more snug and form-fitting than it had been back in high school, having been shrunk one too many times in the wash, which made it ideal for comfortable workout clothes. His head could barely process a response before mumbling a confused yes. Alyssa's expression lit up as she gasped, letting out a resounding cackle that made his ears grow hot. "Oh my god, that's hilarious! Man, I knew I wasn't crazy. It really does say 'dress shirt.' That's so ironic, like someone wearing casual clothes that says 'this t-shirt is my costume' or something. Did you plan this when you bought it?"

Izuku paused. Her words sounded mocking, but he didn't think Alyssa was being openly malicious, like how she had pointed out his All Might t-shirt was his Bronze Age costume. He was probably being overly self-conscious. Alyssa wasn't like other girls he knew, the ones that were subtle and more calculated with their emotions that had hidden double meanings behind every word that they said. Alyssa was fairly up-front about her feelings, even if he couldn't read them well all the time. A few seconds of him realizing this, Izuku shrugged. "Not really. I just thought it was comfortable and cheap and figured it would be easy to wash. I didn't have a really big spending budget when I started living in the dorms, but after awhile, I just kept buying more of them, thinking they were kind of funny."

"You have others!?" she gaped. "What do they say?"

"Well there's 'polo shirt,' 'flannel shirt,' and I have one that says 't-shirt' and another that says 'sweater'-" he listed off before she cut him off with another boisterous laugh.

"Oh my god, Midoriya, you are hilarious!" Somehow hearing her say his last name instead of calling him Izuku hit differently, like it was almost being treated like a pet name, like when she'd slip and affectionately call him 'Freckles.'

"W-What about you? I see you wearing a lot of graphic t-shirts and hoodies. Is that for some reason or do you just like them?" He gestured towards the black, form-fitting t-shirt that had a little fireball on it that said 'May All Your Bacon Burn,' trying not to pay too much attention on how snug it was around her chest and how curvy it made her.

"Nah, I just buy them because they're comfortable and they have shows and characters that I like on them, although," she paused thoughtfully, "I do have a long standing collection of Kingdom Hearts t-shirts. I have so many of them that I had most of them made into a quilt."

"Really? That's so cool- and practical."

"Yeah. Gotta save the planet by recycling and what not, plus the blanket that was used for the base was so heavy, it ended up becoming a weighted blanket, so two-for-one."

"What's a weighted blanket?"

"It's like a really heavy blanket that's good for comforting people with anxiety and other mental disorders. It feels really nice. It's like being enveloped in a big, warm hug. I think that's why they're used mostly for trauma blankets."

"That does sound nice," Izuku mused. He had never considered using blankets to help people with trauma before, but they had been useful in the past. Lemillion had used his own cape dozens of times to comfort people like a blanket. Maybe he could... Suddenly the image of Alyssa having her arms wrapped around him in the park derailed his current train of thought and replaced it with a warm stirring in his chest. "So umm! You ready to head back to the train station?"

"Sure. Just give me one second to put everything away." Alyssa leaned down to slip off her shoes, visor, and gloves before shoving them all into her paisley tote that she used as a gym bag. Izuku's blue and white UA duffel-bag was marginally much smaller than Alyssa's tote, which apparently seemed to contain dozens of objects that ranged from clothes and granola to bubble-wrap, while his contained only his personal free weights and his hero costume since he was technically still on the clock.

"How was class?"

"It was alright. We trained with weighted bars today instead of our swords, so everything feels crazy light right now." She shifted the large tote bag onto her right shoulder and waved her noodle arms for emphasis. "How about you? How's hero work been?"

"Work's been good. I was actually with some of my coworkers today to train and work on their moves. You just missed them."

"That's great- not about the missing them part but the other stuff. I remember you being concerned about that. Speaking of which, did you bring one of your old business cards with you?"

"Right here." He pulled out a card from one of his side pockets and handed it to her as they walked towards the exit. Written plainly in English with hiragana under the text was 'Deku Hero Agency, Koreria, deku-at sign-gmail-dot-com-dot-jp #080-5555-5678.' He watched her expectantly before Alyssa's face twisted in disgust.

"Oh god, what sort of unholy serif font did you use to make this?"

"'Serif'? I don't know. I thought it just looked kind of cool."

"Yeah, but you can't read any of it. The thick weight makes the characters too hard to read. The symbol for 'de' looks like 'te.' No wonder your agency hasn't gotten a lot of business or clients. You can't read anything on this card but the phone number. Hell, I'm getting a headache just looking at it," Alyssa lifted the card away from her face in disbelief, squinting at it like it had personally offended her. "Plus, you used Comic Sans for your email address. You never use Comic Sans for anything outside of a comic book."

"I see..." So it was his fault for the faulty business cards. Her blunt criticism struck him hard, causing the warm bubble in his stomach to deflate somewhat. Her narrowed scowl lessened once her eyes caught his crestfallen expression.

"Sorry, I don't mean to sound so harsh. I just- I wanted to let you know. There's nothing necessarily wrong your design. All the text placement is fine and a simple design is usually easier to read than an overly complicated one. I'm sure you did your best with what you thought was right at the time."

"You don't have to spare my feelings. I know I'm not really good at things like this."

She swatted his arm and placed her hand on his shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. "Hey, give yourself some credit. I don't expect you to be good at everything and be this amazing artist right out of the gate, and if I'm being completely honest, I'm not either- hell, compared to my sister, my stuff looks like garbage. But like my instructors always say, we all suck in the beginning and it's okay to fail. Sometimes we gotta get all the garbage out of the way and out of our systems so that we can learn from it. Besides, you are not designing the business cards here. I am. That's why you got me, right? So don't worry about it. You just do what you're good at, all that heroing and stuff, and I'll do what I'm good at." Her hand lifted away and Izuku found the sensation still lingering there, almost disappointed that her hand was gone. "Of course-" she broke off with a dark, slightly jaded smirk, "-things would go a bit smoother if you'd give me more details on your costume, but I think I might have a design you might enjoy."

Izuku felt a twinge of guilt at that not so subtle jab at him. He had been dodging the conversation ever since Alyssa had asked to see his costume, unsure when it was the best time to bring up the fact that her mystery hero and Izuku Midoriya were the same person. Then it occurred to him in that moment that he could have easily cleared everything up simply by unzipping his exercise bag and showing her the contents within, the one that had his hero costume shoved into it.

He considered that for a second before he opened the door and saw it opened up to a grey sky pouring rain. Realizing that he had failed to bring a raincoat or umbrella, Izuku began looking for the umbrella display they had for visitors to borrow from but turned up empty.

"Don't worry. I got you covered," Alyssa said as if reading his mind before pulling out a clear umbrella patterned with rubber ducks and a wooden, yellow handle shaped like a duck's head from her exercise bag. It was a stark contrast to the dozens of black umbrellas or transparent ones that other people used around them and yet was somehow familiar. So cute! Izuku thought as she raised it above their heads and opened it up, shielding them from most of the rain as they began their walk towards the train station. The situation felt a bit backwards to him. Wasn't the guy supposed to hold the umbrella for the girl? She was taller than him, so naturally he supposed that it made more sense for her to carry it. He averted his eyes, realizing that he had to move in close to her to avoid the rain. His right shoulder was starting to become damp from all the distance he'd tried to put between them. Alyssa instead angled the umbrella so he was covered more than her and gave him an apologetic smile.

"Sorry it's a little small. I just got this out of storage the other day and haven't used it since I was a kid. It should hold up though. Do you want a plastic bag to use as a poncho so your shoulder doesn't get wet? I have one in my bag-"

"It's alright. I'm fine," he said, feeling his face grow warm.

"Come on, you can get closer. I don't bite," she said teasingly while he swore he heard her mutter 'much' under her breath. "I won't even claim you're trying to cop a feel simply for trying not to get wet."

"Wha- I would never-!" Izuku exclaimed before Alyssa let out a jubilant bout of laughter. "You're teasing me..."

"You make it so easy. You've been so nervous this whole time, you're like a squirrel in a dog park. Lighten up, Freckles. You're so jittery that it's making me feel self-conscious, so just grab the damned umbrella already." With some reluctance, Izuku grabbed for the middle and instead almost grabbed her hand, his hand nearly encompassing her own as it rested above hers. He didn't mean to touch her hand but he didn't want to move it away either. It was so soft and smooth, nothing like his hands which were rough and calloused and covered with ugly scars. Still, she didn't move her hand away from his as they held the umbrella together, and for a moment, he could've sworn he saw her breath still.

"Ugh, I should have known it was going to rain today," Alyssa muttered mostly to herself, "I always wear the wrong shoes when it's going to rain..." His eyes glimpsed down at the paint-spattered Birkenstocks she wore. The leather around the buckles was frayed and stretched out, causing her feet to occasionally slip in and out of the leather, water-soaked sandals while she walked. "Watch your step," she warned, snapping him out of his reverie.

"Thanks. I'll try not to slip."

"I meant the worms." He realized that while they had been walking, she had tactfully avoided stepping on any of the earthworms that had crept out of the freshly planted flowerbeds and treated grass. Meanwhile, she had bumped elbows with dozens of people, nearly run into a sign post and crossed the street when the sign above the crosswalk stated 'Do Not Cross' at least five times.

"I didn't even notice them."

"I don't think most would. I just spend a lot of time looking at the ground," she shrugged. "Did you know that earthworms come up during rainstorms because they can sense the vibrations of the rain hitting the ground and that's the best time for them to get moisture?"

"No I didn't." Thinking his response was interest, she continued, suddenly very talkative today.

"Yeah. Actually a lot of people think they come up because they're drowning in their homes because the rainwater doesn't give them enough oxygen, but some theories say now that they do it to migrate because wet soil is the best to travel on. Birds exploit that by stomping their feet on the ground to trick them into coming up."

"You know a lot of interesting facts."

"Ah- thank you. According to my best friend Gabby, we like to call it 'having command over thoroughly useless information.' It certainly makes coming up with Jeopardy questions a lot easier."

They fell into a light comfortable silence and continued like that for a few more blocks, listening to nothing but the rain hitting the umbrella overhead and the pavement below. It was now or never. "Hey ummm... Alyssa?"

"Yes?"

"I was wondering..." He hesitated. In a strange sort of way, he enjoyed the fact that he was a pro-hero kind of came second in her mind. On the other hand, it was an odd feeling, hearing praises about how cool Deku was but not hear the same amount of praise for Izuku Midoriya, like he was jealous of himself. How was he supposed to compete with himself? Would all of this go away if she knew? Would she still treat him the same or would she act like all those other people who fawned over heroes, unable to see the person under the heroic glimmer and facade? He enjoyed hanging out with her. He didn't want to stop because of something trivial like hero worship getting in the way. He liked her-

All of his thoughts ground to a halt at that word. He... he liked her? That couldn't be it! He was just nervous and inexperienced with girls being overly familiar with him. Alyssa had just been talking about earthworms not five seconds ago. What would be attractive about that? Except... she had considered their feelings, this tall, larger-than-life woman who refused to take crap from anyone, was concerned over people stepping on earthworms, the lowest, slimiest, most uninteresting creatures on the planet.

"I was wondering if-" He saw something out of the corner of his eye and instinct took over. "Watch out!" A car with bass and sub-woofers pumping EDM rushed by, splashing small torrents of water onto them as Izuku pulled Alyssa away from the oncoming car. Everything seemed to slow down and move too fast all at once as he pulled her flush against him, shielding her with his back. Icy fear raced through him as he looked up at her in concern, suddenly uncaring of how close his head was in proximity of her chest. "Are you okay?!"

"I- I'm fine," Alyssa said a bit breathless, eyes wide and full of alarm. Izuku whipped his head back towards the direction of the speeding car, trying not to think of how close she had come to being hit as a trail of police sirens followed behind it.

"I have to go. I'll meet you at the train station!" He let her go and dumped his gym bag into her open arms. Alyssa fumbled awkwardly for a second, her face projecting a million thoughts as they raced through her head while she tried to keep everything from tumbling to the ground.

"Where are you going!?"

"To do what I'm good at!" Without another word, Izuku took off in a fast series of jumps and sprints, green sparks of One for All rippling off him, leaving behind a wide-eyed, slack jawed Alyssa in his wake.

Author's Note: References today are Howl's Moving Castle, Calvin and Hobbes, Tron Legacy, and Star Wars (duh).

Okay, so I had no idea until I wrote the umbrella scene that Japan has this whole adorable culture around umbrellas. Apparently in Japan, it is a common romantic gesture to share an umbrella, a gesture that is called "aiaigasa" (which roughly translates into "love umbrella" or "love under the umbrella") to the point where girls during the summer will purposely forget their umbrellas so that they can hope to share one with a boy (though it was probably the reverse in this case). It usually means that the couple is dating or a sign that they are ready to date, hence why you see it as a trope in a lot of shojo manga. There is also a drawing you've probably seen in a lot of anime and manga where there is a small triangle with a heart on top and a line dividing two names- that is supposed to be an umbrella and it is the Japanese equivalent of carving a heart on a tree and writing your initials on it. Japan just has all the cutest romance tropes.

Also, it just occurred to me that my story has hit over 100,000 words as well as over 100 followers. Thank you guys so much for loving my story! This is such a milestone for me, and I am so thankful to be on this journey with you guys. Please do continue to favorite, follow and review as it is my life blood lol.