Izuku sat at his desk in the dark, legs pulled up to his chin, squinting down at the notes arranged under the glow of his desk lamp. He'd given himself three days to plan before getting started, because he felt like being nice to the part of himself that loved making hyperdetailed obsessive plans, and because he didn't want to jump in blind like Mr. Yagi and wind up inside a locker. That was one thing he'd actually never experienced before, and he had no desire to start now.

The first two days were spent tracking down and devouring the books Yagi suggested. The third was spent wearing a hole in his phone as he tried to fill in all the gaps with hopefully-sane Internet advice. It seemed straightforward enough at first glance: put stress on your body, and it would get stronger to compensate. Also, don't eat like a slob. (Was katsudon out of the picture? God, he hoped not.)

It was the execution where things got murky. Yagi's books seemed to assume access to a gym, except that memberships were mind-bogglingly expensive and they didn't even allow kids his age. His school had a gymnasium, but the last time he went near the equipment there, someone accidentally dropped a weight on his foot and fractured two bones, with lots of funny jokes about how he didn't need the extra pinky joint anyway.

His remaining options were "go across town and sneak into some other middle school's gym" or "just do exercises that don't need equipment." The second option seemed easier and less illegal, but maybe it was too easy... a lot of the articles that promoted those kinds of routines were filled with stock photos of grandmas holding microscopic pink dumbbells, not people trying to get ready for a hero entrance exam.

Izuku sighed and dragged his phone across his desk into his lap. At the top of his email inbox sat a conversation titled Re: Books?

Asking Yagi was the obvious solution. It would probably be simple for him to confirm whether bodyweight exercises would really be enough, or whether Izuku should start scoping out rival middle schools.

Izuku desperately wanted to do this. He also desperately wanted to never, ever talk to Yagi again, because the man was so kind, and so patient, and he didn't deserve to be annoyed to the brink of death by any more obnoxious prattle from the kid who'd attached himself to him like the world's neediest suckerfish. Izuku felt bad enough for bothering him as much as he already had.

But, if he started this based on his own guesses, and guessed wrong, he wouldn't have time to correct his mistakes before the entrance exam.

He let out a long sigh, clicked into the email chain, and started typing. He wanted to improve his U.A. chances more than he wanted to be considerate. He'd just have to do everything humanly possible not to be any more desperate and annoying than he already had been, and hope for the best.

He sent off his message after scraping off about three paragraphs of unnecessary rambling, then spent the next hour fitfully browsing the Hero Chat discussion forums, not really absorbing anything, until his phone chimed. He snatched it up, heart in his throat.

Yes, bodyweight routines are definitely enough! The reason you see them recommended for all kinds of people is because they're so versatile! Don't let anyone tell you that improving yourself has to be complicated or expensive. The biggest hurdle is your own willpower. (I think this is why people like to pretend it has to be complicated or expensive.)

The list you linked has a good spread of exercises, but they're more intermediate so you may need to look up progression lists and sub out for earlier variations if you run into ones you can't do yet.

Good luck!

Izuku felt a little smile creep onto his face despite himself, which was dumb. It was just an email reply, clarifying something obvious. It didn't mean anything.

It was an email reply from the one person who had ever stopped and actually listened. The one who sat down and talked with him as if his plans actually meant something.

I have no doubt you'll make a fine hero.

God, he was so lame, he was so corny. Everything suddenly felt so much more doable.

Re: Fwd: Macros calculator
From: T. Yagi at 3:12am

Yes, it does seem like a lot, but that's the right amount of protein. Take care to look at the protein BV chart they have there too, no point eating all that if you can't use it.

p.s. I'm a little jealous that you actually enjoy charting out all this nonsense. Whenever I look at a nutrition label for more than thirty seconds I start to feel like I'm having a stroke. I suppose I'm part of the jock stereotype.

Izuku's first few workout routines were amazingly short, on account of the fact that he could only do two and a half pushups before his arms suddenly transformed into tubes of pudding and he collapsed onto the floor. This apparently meant he needed to scale back to easier versions of the exercise—variations from the progression list—until he found something that he could do ten to fifteen times in a row. And then do that until he collapsed on the floor.

At least he was figuring this out at home, behind his closed door, where nobody was there to judge him... aside from the several dozen All Might posters, figurines, and plushies that filled his room, staring down at him from every angle with wide grins stretched across their faces.

He sighed, running his fingers through the bright red-and-blue fibers of his rug. Please look away from this, All Might(s). I am a disgrace.

God, where had All Might started? The hero couldn't have been born with his physique. (That was a terrifying thought.) But it still felt kind of blasphemous to imagine that All Might ever could have been a skinny little kid.

Very little is known about the early years of the Number One hero before his time at U.A. High School. Even as a freshman, classmates reported that he was driven and dedicated, going by his hero moniker "for practice" and pushing himself to excel at every task in front of him. "He never tried to show off, but it was still pretty intimidating!" reported a former classmate, "He always seemed like he could take on the world, no problem. It made us realize how far the rest of us really had to go."

Had All Might ever felt unsure, in the beginning? Had there ever been a time where he looked up at his ceiling and quietly wondered what the hell he was doing? That idea felt kind of blasphemous, too.

Izuku 3:54pm: I did it! I doubled the number of reps I can do from when I started! On the whole routine!

Yagi 6:40pm: That's wonderful! How many can you do now?

Izuku 6:41pm: I decline to answer that! I have upgraded from the strength of a mite to the strength of a flea

Yagi 6:48pm: And you'll get even better as you go. You won't have to keep looking away towards heroes on TV to find something worth admiring.

His little workout routine stayed comfortably private right up until Mom threw open the door one day while he was splayed out on his rug trying to catch his breath.

"Laundry delivery!" she cried, clothes basket perched on her hip and a cheery smile on her face that quickly faded into a confused look as she took in the scene in front of her.

They stared at each other in frozen silence for about half a second. Then Mom's eyes widened and she backpedaled out of the doorway at the speed of light. "I-I'm so sorry, I should've knocked—"

It took him a second to realize what it must have looked like, him sitting there randomly sweaty and out of breath. "Wait, Mom!" he cried, dashing to the door. "I wasn't doing that!"

He chased her down with stamina he didn't realize he still had, because wow, it turned out there was something more embarrassing than being caught doing situps alone in his room like an absolute weirdo. "It's, I'm..." he stammered. "Um, do you remember the hanami festival? How Mr. Yagi wanted to share some books with me?"

"Yes...?" Mom said, then her brows drew together in alarm. "Wait, what kind of books did..."

"Exercise!" he cried. "Fitness! I've been doing exercises!" She stared. "Like pushups, squats, planks... I was doing situps just now..." She looked lost for a few more moments, then her eyes finally widened in understanding.

"...Like a workout?" He nodded furiously. "That's why you have more laundry lately? I thought it was just because it was summer."

Huh, being stealthy was harder than it seemed. "Oh... yeah, no... but anyway! That's what I'm doing!" Not anything weird! "I've already made a bunch of progress!"

She tilted her head with a bemused smile. "Huh... I had no idea you were interested in that kind of thing. You should've told me! What made you decide to start? Is this something for school?"

He hesitated. "Um... we got to talking about what I'd need to do for the U.A. exam..."

And just like he feared, she went still, and he saw that look in her eye, the quiet, worried, guilt-slash-pity that always came out when he talked about wanting to be a hero. She didn't say anything—she never did—but it always made him feel like he needed to defend himself anyway.

"— a-and it's just useful, right?" he added. "Especially for someone like me."

That got through, and she nodded thoughtfully. Except it was a stupid reason, a meta-analysis of 17 Quirk registration records showed that 23% of registered Quirks were unlikely to provide any direct combat advantage in a physical altercation, and yet he didn't see a fourth of his classmates feeling like they needed to work out in order to stay on the same footing as everyone else. Just him.

"Well... I have some yoga mats and some other things stored in the closet, would those help?" she asked. "I don't know how good they still are after so long."

He blinked. "Wait, you do exercise stuff too?"

"A long time ago!" she laughed. "I took a break when I had you... and then Asuka moved, so she wasn't bugging me to go anymore... and then your father went overseas... and I guess I just never made the time for it after that."

A faraway look came into her eye, and she smiled. "I don't know why I never started again... I really did enjoy it. It's a nice feeling, to make yourself better."

Izuku 9:30pm: Can I just say that I still really hate pushups?

Yagi 10:12pm: That's alright! Pushups aren't very fond of you either.

Izuku 7:10am: oh my god

After the incident with the sludge villain, there were several weeks of confused peace at school while the other kids tried to figure out what to do now that Kacchan had withdrawn from the Deku Pecking Order. It was almost like they weren't sure whether it was still okay to pick on him.

He was so wrapped up in his own plans that he barely acknowledged the lull. That is, until one day when school let out and he trailed along on the edges of the crowd to the big rows of shoe cubbies in the entrance hall, as usual. The first warning sign was when everyone suddenly paused and glanced at him as he came down the aisle. Then he noticed that his shoes were... not quite the right color. Or texture.

Oh... they were soaking wet. Completely full to the brim with water and sitting in a puddle that dripped down the front of the cubby onto the floor.

He felt a momentary stab of dismay, which quickly melted away as he scrutinized the scene. This was... probably from Nami's moisture Quirk. It was a fascinating power that let her cry literal buckets of tears on command—saline, like normal tears, which meant you could always tell when she'd used it by how much she was craving salty snacks to compensate; her body had to have some way of banking up the extra sodium (and water), considering the sheer amount of tears she could produce without giving herself an electrolyte imbalance...

...then he paused. Wait. This was it. This was the kind of situation he'd been trying to catch himself in. This exact kind of thing.

He'd noticed, after a lot of unpleasant self-reflection, how these mental tangents liked to kick off under stress. And why not? It was nicer to think about Quirks instead of thinking about how he was being publicly humiliated.

But in situations where he couldn't escape right away, it was hurting more than it helped. The stress would keep building under the surface, and he would keep trying to ignore it by muttering to himself about Quirks, and then it would eventually bubble over and he'd end up crying in front of his classmates like the baby they all thought he was.

He couldn't control what his classmates did. But maybe, if he got on top of it early, he could control whether he was going to give them the satisfaction of seeing him mutter and cry.

So he forced himself to pull out of the comfortable Quirk monologue. And sure enough, as soon as he did, everything else came back into painfully sharp focus.

His hands were clenched. His chest and throat felt tight. He was breathing faster than normal. He could hear Nami and her friends giggling together over by the stairs, and the sound sent a sick feeling curling through his stomach. Everyone around him was at a standstill, watching, waiting to see what would happen, what he'd do. The pressure of their eyes weighed down on his back.

He let out his breath slowly, unclenched his hands, forced himself to drop his shoulders. He still wasn't good at calming himself down, he was just winging it based on advice he'd read online, but that's why he had to practice. Slow down the breathing.

Everyone was still watching, whispering. This was humiliating. He would much rather be muttering about Quirks right now.

Then Nami and her group suddenly fell silent. Izuku glanced up. A teacher?

No... Kacchan.

The other boy had appeared from down the hall, and stopped in the entryway, taking in the scene. He glanced at Izuku and his shoes, then across at Nami's group, who shrank together like a pack of minnows faced by a shark. His eyes narrowed.

"You know how lame you look hiding all the way over there, Nami?" he finally barked. "You think he's gonna bite?"

He scoffed, then hiked up his backpack and strode off down their row of cubbies with an exasperated roll of his eyes. Izuku flattened himself back as Kacchan approached, but the other boy just ignored him as he brushed past. "Goddamn extras," Izuku heard him mutter.

Izuku stood still, breathless, until Kacchan was well out into the school courtyard, striding off with his head held high like he owned the entire neighborhood.

He blinked. He'd been upset a second ago, right? But the surprise had shocked it right out of him, and now all he could see was how stricken Nami looked at Kacchan's scathing judgment.

And suddenly, things seemed to click into perspective. All these other kids really were easy to understand. Just insecure middle schoolers squabbling for some sense of relevance, trying to feel a little higher up by pushing someone else down. Nami had been lonely and sometimes picked on for her Quirk, until she figured out that the other kids thought it was funny when she used it to mimic his crying spells.

None of this was even about him, as a person. He just happened to be the easiest target.

Something else had been poking at the edge of his mind since this had started. He glanced back towards his shoes.

He had worked out a system some time ago: whenever he put away his shoes in the school cubbies, he would quietly tuck one shoelace under the heel in a specific way that looked accidental, but wasn't. If he came back at the end of the day and the shoelace was disturbed, then he knew to be extremely careful and thoroughly inspect everything before trying to touch his shoes or put them back on.

Despite the sopping mess, the shoelace was still tucked away in its spot.

Nami's Quirk was tears. Which came from her eyes. Which meant...

Which meant he should keep his mouth shut and not draw any more attention to himself, but wow, the implications were too amazing not to bring up, and he felt oddly giddy right now, and sure, maybe he'd draw a punishment from being so bold, but who cared? He was going to leave this idiot middle school behind in a few months. He was working hard, getting stronger every day, and what were these kids doing? Wasting their time on immature little power plays, even though they were too cowardly to come over and get in his face now that Kacchan wasn't backing them up.

Amateurs. Extras. Couldn't even bully the Quirkless kid properly.

He turned back towards the stairs. "Nami," he called, and she jolted from all the way across the room, seafoam curls bouncing, like she really was afraid he was going to bite.

This wasn't like him. But maybe he was tired of being the way he'd always been. "You didn't move my shoes," he said. "Did you stick your whole head in the cubby to do this...?"

Nami's eyes widened. Izuku heard another classmate snort next to him.

"Sh-shut up, Deku!" she squeaked, and scurried off to her class's row. Her friends trailed behind her, glancing at him as they went. Izuku watched them shuffle out the school entrance, pointedly not looking back.

Had... that really just happened? He reminded himself to breathe.

...Wow.

Middle school wouldn't last much longer. He'd learn from his mistakes here, and start with a clean slate somewhere else.

Maybe he really could make it. Maybe things really could be better.

Izuku 6:13pm: If I'm understanding correctly, every single food group is both the key to and the death of a healthy diet, depending on who has the soapbox at the moment and what they're trying to sell

Yagi 6:15pm: Wow, you just distilled the last 100 years of diet advice down to a single sentence. That's very impressive!

Izuku 6:16pm: But somehow, they all manage to agree that you can't eat anything that actually tastes good...

Yagi 6:17pm: Now you're getting it.

Izuku lay sprawled out on the old yoga mat mom had dug out of her closet, tapping away on his phone with a small scowl. He was already done, just hadn't bothered to get up. His muscles still felt a bit like jello.

Mom peered out of the kitchen alcove. "What's that face for?" she asked.

He glanced backwards up at her. "...diet culture is even crazier than fitness culture," he muttered matter-of-factly, and she dissolved into laughter.

"Yes, that's absolutely right!" she chuckled. "Speaking of which, dinner's almost ready. Stop bothering Mr. Yagi and go clean up!"

"Wh..." He frowned and sat up, feeling his muscles twinge in protest. "Why do you assume I'm texting him?" They didn't talk that often! Was it that obvious? Mom just smiled sagely and turned back to her cutting board. Apparently so.

He finished up in time to scurry back to the living room and grab plates and bowls to set out, his part of their dinner routine. He actually hadn't needed to ask for very many changes to what they ate. A little more protein, and a little less fried stuff, which Mom admitted she probably ought to cut back on as well. Apparently, it was harder to go astray when you were 14 and still growing like a weed.

"I wanted to ask, Izuku," mom said as she doled out rice. Izuku looked up at her curiously. She glanced to the side, tapped the rice paddle onto her plate idly. "I mentioned that I used to work out, a long time ago... me and my friends would go to the city sports center after work to use the treadmills. We were never quite brave enough to actually go out jogging around town."

Izuku nodded, and she continued. "And, I remembered... it's not the same as a real fitness club, but the sports center does have a little workout area. You've been so dedicated with your exercising, lately, and I was wondering... if I were to start going there again, would you want to come with? Would that help, to be able to use their equipment?"

Oh. She.. she'd be willing to do that? He was technically fine with what he had at home, but as he got more familiar with the fitness ecosystem, he had been starting to pine after some of the fancier equipment he kept reading about. Maybe he didn't need it, but he wanted to try anyway.

There was still the horror of being seen by anyone other than Mom and his All Might cheerleading squad, but he would have to clear that hurdle someday, right? And he didn't want to ask Mom to fill their apartment with home exercise equipment when it was already stuffed floor-to-ceiling with his ungodly hoard of hero merch...

Mom laughed. "I wouldn't say floor-to-ceiling," she said, "but we definitely don't have room for a home workout center."

Aaaand he'd been talking out loud again. "I, I mean, it'd be nice to check it out, but... aren't gyms really expensive?"

"Gym chains are expensive," she said. "That's why you go to the public centers instead! They're very affordable, and I think you'd be free."

"Oh..." he said. His total lack of practical experience was showing again. Even picture-of-domesticity Mom knew things he didn't.

She sat back. "Seeing you so excited about all this... it makes me a little excited too, you know? It makes me want to do better. And if it can help you, too, well..." She glanced down, and her smile stretched into something strained. "You've always worked so hard towards your goals. I never tried to discourage you... but I never really tried to encourage you either. I've always felt bad about that."

He remembered the guilty, quiet look he'd seen so often, the one that said "I'm sorry" for standing by and doing nothing. He knew it came from love, because she worried about him and didn't want to help put him in danger, though he couldn't help but feel abandoned every time he saw it.

She'd probably never be totally on board with his crazy hero dreams. But maybe that was all right. She was still trying to be there for him, in the ways she could.

"...Thanks, mom," he said. "It means a lot that you want to help."

She beamed at him, and he smiled back.

Re: Recovery time
From: T. Yagi at 6:45am

Well, no, the whole recovery debate isn't as simple as that. It's not just your muscles that are being stressed when you exercise, it's your whole nervous system, and you can't ignore the mental aspects either. There are a lot of factors that go into how much time you need to wait. Overtraining can be worse than not training enough.

Would it be all right to just call? Is that too forward? I'm so slow with typing, and I feel bad trapping you in these back and forth email exchanges when I could give you the information much more quickly.

Most of his life was spent bracing for the other shoe to drop. If things seemed to be going well, that just meant he hadn't figured out what was wrong yet. The nice, hopeful parts were like happy little dreams, and reality always slapped him awake.

And this last while really had been like a dream. It had gone on so long, way too long. The worry loomed like a thundercloud off in the distance. Something was going to break the illusion eventually.

The sports center seemed like a good candidate. He was terrified at the thought of showing up in front of strangers who knew what they were doing, where someone bigger and more experienced would slap down his stupid pitiful delusions of grandeur while the rest of the room laughed. And the fact that he was scared just to work out where anyone else could see made it painfully obvious that he'd never be able to handle something as public and social as hero work.

But he tried not to think too hard about that yet. For now, the dream held.

He lay in bed, flopped out across his pillow on his stomach, with a ziplock bag of ice slowly melting over his calves. His history book was propped up against his headboard next to a page of haphazard notes, and his pencil was lost somewhere in the sheets. The phone buzzing on his pillow was a lot more interesting than 18th century trade policies.

"Please, when you go to the sports center, promise me you'll find someone who will teach you the right form for the equipment," Yagi's voice rang out through the speaker. "You won't get into any high school if you drop a barbell through your rib cage."

Izuku winced at the image. "Their website says they have personal trainers, but they're expensive. I don't even know if they'll teach kids."

"Don't you have a P.E. teacher at school or something? Does your school have equipment?"

Yes, but things were going well at school and he wanted to keep it that way. "I found some videos online that show what to do," he said. "I've been taking notes."

"And I've been telling you, notes and videos are a fine starting point, but you can't really know what good technique feels like by looking at a video any more than you can know what a strawberry tastes like by watching someone eat them. It's something you have to experience, and it's hard to get it right alone!"

Izuku made a vague frustrated noise. "I thought you said not to let anyone tell me this had to be complicated," he grumbled.

There was a beat of silence, and then Yagi burst into laughter, a deep, rich, somehow familiar sound that seemed to fill up the whole room. "I take valuable time out of my day to nag at you, and you use my words against me?" His tone was so overwhelmed with warm amusement that Izuku had to smile too.

"But I'm serious," he continued, his voice dropping to something softer. "It's already easy to hurt yourself with bodyweight routines. Equipment makes it effortless. If you don't figure something out, I'll come down there myself and then everyone will remember you as the kid with the undead fitness instructor."

Izuku's brain said, he only ever makes mocking jokes like that when it's about himself.

His mouth said, very quietly, "...You would?"

Then his brain caught up with what his mouth said and he physically died for a few seconds and then almost slammed his fist onto the "end call" button, because there was no possible excuse in the world that could explain away the nakedly hopeful tone of voice he'd just used.

Yagi didn't respond right away—bad, bad—then he let out a light laugh. "That was supposed to be a threat!" he chuckled. "I need to work on my villainous side, clearly."

Izuku cringed into his pillow, wishing it would swallow him up. He always did this, with everyone who bothered to give him the time of day. Things would be going well, and he'd get lulled into a false sense of security, and then he'd blurt out something incredibly demanding or creepy, and they'd laugh it off awkwardly, like this, but soon after, they always managed to find some reason not to give him the time of day anymore.

He wracked his brain, trying to think of some wild change of subject so they could forget he'd ever said anything. But Yagi seemed to have other plans. "You know, it would be better than nothing, now that you mention it," he mused. "I'm not officially certified to teach, but then again, neither are your notes."

Izuku felt panic crawling up his throat. "I, I, no, I mean, I couldn't ask you to do that, you've helped so much already, you've spent so much time..."

"If we're talking about spending time, coming and showing you good technique would definitely be faster than trying to figure out why your back is hurting by talking over the phone, or god forbid through email..."

And just like that, the shoe dropped. Because Yagi had spent so much time. He'd dumped enormous amounts of earnest, thoughtful, unreciprocated effort into humoring a random kid he'd met in an alley. Izuku was freaking out about asking too much, but he'd been doing that from the start, hadn't he? From the very beginning, it had just been a long cycle of him pestering Yagi, and Yagi good-naturedly rolling with it, and Izuku pretending this was anything besides pitying indulgence for the silly delusional Quirkless kid who thought he could make anything of himself.

In all their conversations, had Yagi ever reached out on his own, without Izuku bugging him first?

He felt something hot welling up in his chest and drew on every shred of the calming exercises he'd been practicing. He was not going to dump a tidal wave of hysteria onto this phone conversation. He let out the breath he'd been holding, unclenched his death grip on his pillow, realized he'd curled in on himself like a miserable little roly-poly and vaguely wondered where his ice pack had slid off to.

"Midoriya?" Yagi asked, and Izuku realized he'd fallen silent for much longer than was appropriate during a call. Well, at least silence was better than muttering. "Am I making you uncomfortable? I'm sorry."

"No! No no no..." he blurted out, "I'm, I just, I don't..." he took a breath. "I-I just don't want to make you feel like you... like you have to go out of your way... I know I ask a lot from people, and I'm trying to be better about it, and..."

"Midoriya," Yagi said, "The fact that you worry about this... means you're probably not half as selfish as you think you are."

Izuku didn't know what to say to that, and Yagi continued. "You're not asking too much. I don't find talking with you to be a chore. I actually, ah..." he let out a cough, "when I get off work and see you've left a message, it... really..." he trailed off for a moment. For once, he seemed like he was at a loss for words. "...It makes me happy, to see the new things you're up to. I like hearing how you've improved. And I'm glad to be a part of that, as much as you want me to be."

"That said..." he continued, "I don't want to pressure you into anything. Besides, it sounds like this is an important gesture from your mother... I wouldn't want to intrude on your time together."

"N-no, I mean, I'd like it..." Izuku said, "I'd really like it, if you'd be willing to come. I'm worried about doing this by myself. And I'm sure Mom would love you forever if you helped keep me from doing anything stupid."

"Well... you can ask her," Yagi said. "I'm always on-call, so I can't guarantee that I'd be able to make it, or stay. But I'd be happy to try, if you'd like."

Re: Fwd: Neuromuscular Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training: a Meta-Analysis
From: Izuku texas_smash_12 at 6:04pm

Okay, I still hate the actual exercising part, but it's really fun to research... I never would have thought there would be so many numbers in something that's supposed to be an activity for jocks. And heroes talk about their diets and routines the same way they talk about their Quirks! There's a whole section on Hero Chat about it! I used to just skip that board and I was really missing out!

The sports center was a few light rail stops and a block's walk away, a big, long building that could have passed itself off as just another large office complex, if not for the sign announcing what it was.

Izuku glanced around, but there were no unnaturally-tall, skinny people to be seen outside. Yagi did say that he couldn't guarantee he'd make it, but still...

When they opened the door, they were greeted with a low, rumbling cacophony of squeaks and thumps and murmured conversation, the sound of lots of activity echoing around inside a very large enclosed space. The air smelled faintly of rubber and people, a little muggy despite the AC units laboring away up on the ceilings. And almost immediately, Izuku spotted a telltale shock of yellow hair, like a very disheveled sunflower, over in the corner of the small lobby area.

Yagi was absorbed in something on his phone screen, taking up very little space against the far wall, his thin limbs drawn close to himself. He was the same gaunt, towering man Izuku remembered, with frighteningly intense eyes and a somber expression. It was hard to see the playful, gentle person Izuku had gotten to know over the last few weeks, the one that was very allergic to spreadsheets and very not allergic to excruciating dad jokes and who, as you got him really riled up on a subject, would send more and more exclamation points with every response until they outnumbered the whole rest of his message.

Then the blue eyes flickered over to them, and widened, and his whole frame straightened. An expression appeared on his face that wasn't a smile, but looked like it was asking permission to be.

"Mr. Yagi! You made it!" Mom called, and then it was a smile, and Izuku could see the person he knew shining out from it. Yagi tucked away his phone and made his way over.

"Mrs. Midoriya, young Midoriya," he said, in a voice that seemed too soft to carry over the background din as easily as it did. He glanced at them both in turn with a respectful incline of his head. He was dressed in baggy cargo pants and a t-shirt that would've looked perfectly ordinary if it wasn't so oversized it could fit a whole second person inside.

Izuku had a million things he wanted to blurt out all at once, and the words all crashed into each other in a spectacular train wreck, and the only thing that crawled from the wreckage was an awkward, quiet "Hi" that made him wish he hadn't said anything at all.

But Yagi's smile just got wider, and luckily Mom was there to take up the slack. "I'm so glad you could come!" she chirped. "It's been so long since Izuku and I have been able to go on an outing like this with other people."

"I haven't had many chances lately, either," Yagi replied. "I haven't been here before, so I'm grateful to come with someone who knows the place well."

"Oh!" she beamed. "Well! I haven't been here in forever! Though not much seems like it's changed..." She waved them over to a vending machine near the entrance to pay the entry fee. "It's a lovely little place, if it's anything like it used to be... the showers are a bit cramped, but that's fine because there's a wonderful onsen just down the street..."

Izuku stuck close as they made their way down one of the big hallways and out into a large open room. The first thing he noticed was that everyone there was older than him; the youngest people looked like high school seniors at least. The second thing was that he and Yagi were getting polite glances. "I'm afraid you chose the wrong person to invite if you wanted to blend in," Yagi said, with a small, apologetic smile.

Mom broke off to go to the rows of treadmills on the other side of the room, and Izuku followed Yagi down a little further, to the small forest of lumbering, complicated-looking workout machines. He'd done his research, and quietly rattled off the names of the various contraptions as he went, only stopping when he noticed Yagi glancing down at him with a little smile.

"Sorry," he muttered. He glanced back up at the confusing maze of rubber and steel. "...So, how many of these are actually useful?" The Internet had a lot to say about that, and exactly zero consensus.

"Unless you're older or recovering from injury, you need just two pieces of equipment here." Yagi pointed to what looked like a metal box frame. "A rack, and a bench. And enough weight to make you sore, of course. If you want to try the other machines, that's fine, but they don't do anything you can't get from free weights."

"But... that's so..." Izuku trailed off. It seemed like such a... betrayal. All his life he assumed you had to be some kind of savant, spending years mastering dozens of intricate mechanical behemoths to unlock the true secrets of fitness. "Why even bother with them, then?"

"Because it's expensive and complicated, of course. And don't people look so impressive using them?" Yagi had a playful twinkle in his eye. "You know, if I had things my way, nobody would be standing around in a gym at all. They'd be out doing real things. It's much more useful, and it's much more fun."

He shook his head. "Anyway, unless you come at three in the morning, there's probably going to be a line for the power racks, and sometimes for the benches." Considering some of the ungodly hours that Yagi chose to send off his email replies, and the pitch-black circles under his eyes, Izuku suspected this advice might come from real-world experience. "There's usually a board where you can claim a time slot. Ah, over here."

Izuku scrawled his name down, then they found a spare barbell and a patch of free space so they could go over basic technique. Yagi watched him over with a keen eye as Izuku murmured his way through all the instructions he'd written down earlier.

"Um, feet shoulder-width apart... knees slightly bent?"

"Just enough that they're in line with your toes. You just don't want to be locking your knees. There, that's good."

It was immediately apparent why Yagi had harped on and on about having a second person to observe. He could point out things Izuku would never notice on his own, like whether his back was aligned the right way. Lots and lots of things.

"Chin down," Yagi said, for the third time, and Izuku bowed his head with a frustrated frown. There was so much to keep track of, and he wasn't even doing this for real, just running through the motions. The benches were still occupied by the time they were done, so Yagi had him start demonstrating the bodyweight exercises he did at home, giving small corrections here and there.

"It gets easier with practice," Yagi said with a sympathetic smile. "Your body will remember the technique and you won't have to think about it so much. It becomes an instinct. That's why it's so important to learn it correctly from the very start."

The other gym goers—older, dressed in name-brand workout gear—occasionally glanced at the two of them, and every look made Izuku want to curl up like a pillbug and disappear. He didn't belong here with all these people who actually knew what they were doing. It got even worse each time Yagi pointed out yet another way he was doing everything wrong in front of them all. It was so much less stressful back home, where his All Might squad was the only one there to judge him. But Yagi had taken time out of his day to come help, so he'd persevere.

They were about halfway through when Yagi paused, straightened, and pulled out his phone, which was buzzing. He stared intently, eyes scanning the screen, then frowned.

"Ah, that's not very good," he murmured. He looked down at Izuku. "I'm sorry, I need to go take this."

Izuku's heart fell. "Oh... okay." Yagi hadn't been kidding about being constantly on-call. "How long will you be gone?"

"I'm not sure. These work calls can last a while. Please don't wait for me."

Izuku must have let his piteous emotions show on his face, because Yagi's expression softened. "You're doing wonderfully, by the way," he said. "It may not feel like it, but you already have much better technique than a lot of people who call themselves regulars. Stepping into this world is very intimidating at first, but that gets easier with practice too."

"I'm glad..." Izuku murmured. "Um, thank you for coming. You were right... having a second person does make it easier."

"It really does," he replied with a soft smile. "Take care, Midoriya."

Yagi 8:55pm: I'm sorry again for running off halfway through!

Izuku 8:59pm: No no it's fine! I'm glad you could make it at all! It really helped!

Yagi: 9:01pm: How were things after that? Did you like being in a gym compared to doing things at home? I hope you didn't try to use the bench without a spotter

Izuku 9:09pm: The whole thing really stressed me out, honestly... I'm scared to do stuff around people I don't know. But I think that means I should keep going back, because, I mean, how else am I going to get over that? It's something I need to handle eventually. I can't stay scared forever, you know?

Yagi 9:12pm: You always have your eye on the far future, don't you? You'll go a long way with that attitude!

Izuku 9:13pm: Haha thanks

Izuku 9:13pm: And thanks again for coming... and for everything else, I wouldn't have been able to make it this far without you helping

Yagi 9:14pm: I don't think that's true. You'd find a way. But you shouldn't have to struggle through everything all alone if you don't have to.

Izuku 9:15pm: Yeah

Izuku 9:18pm: I'm really glad I met you

Yagi 9:18pm: Me too, kid.

Notes:

Tune in next time for unrest in the criminal world and Toshinori doing stuff he probably shouldn't be doing without a teaching license.