I want to say thank you for every favourite and follow that this story has received. To Otakugirl1996, thank you so much for your return review; I'm thrilled that you like Koharu! To M, thank you again for your continued support. I love writing Shouta and Koharu's interactions, so I'm so happy you enjoy them!

Chapter Twelve: Recall Election

"Then, the class representative is Midoriya, and the deputy class representative will be—" Shouta paused, feeling the malicious intent radiating from beside him as he fought to keep from smirking. He faked a cough to mask his laughter. "Sorry. The deputy class representative will be Koharu."

Koharu scowled, her brow pulling down in a wrinkle and her teeth bared at her classmates. Beside her, Midoriya was quaking with wide eyes. Koharu could only just hear his stammering through the roar in her ears.

"S-Seriously?" He was muttering, "Seriously?"

Somehow encouraged by the sight of the two of them, a smiling Tsu declared, "That might not be too bad."

"After all, Midoriya can get pretty fired up!" Kirishima affirmed with a single nod of his red-spiked head. "And Koharu was super cool during our battle, and she knew a lot when we were going over the battle results!" At the front of the room, Koharu's scowl remained deep-rooted, but her cheeks tinged a soft pink from the praise.

With a shake of her head, purple locks hid Koharu's blushing cheeks from view of her classmates. Her glare landed on Shouta, who was still curled into his yellow sleeping bag. "Can I abdicate?"

His response was immediate and firm: "No, thanks. Homeroom is over."

The rest of Koharu's protests were lost to a bright yellow back as Shouta shimmied his way out the door, replaced in a shuffle by the vibrant Present Mic.

"Yo, yo, yo!" He yelled as he swept into the classroom with books under his arm. He slid the door closed behind him with a quick shove. "Who's ready to learn some English?!"

~ o ~

Several hours later saw Koharu and Kirishima travelling unhurriedly through the school's vast hallways to the cafeteria. Kirishima walked with his hands tucked into his pockets and his shoulders relaxed, chin held high. At his side, Koharu dragged her feet as she trudged along, her back hunched uncomfortably in a show of self-pity.

After class, Koharu had been planning on skipping lunch altogether in favour of hunting down Shouta to complain about her new role of deputy. Instead, Kirishima had spotted her and was quick to start a debate on just how manly it was to skip meals (not manly at all, in Kirishima's opinion). As it turns out, Koharu's rebuttals meant nothing in the face of his shining determination.

"I owe you for our bet, anyway!" He had said, tugging Koharu's wrist as she struggled to stay planted at her desk, her fingers clawing at the edges like a cat avoiding a bath. "I'll buy you lunch! How can you say no to a deal like that?"

"Like this: no!"

In the end, the much larger Kirishima successfully hauled from her desk and out the door. At that point, it simply wasn't worth the effort to resist. And so Koharu trudged, unhappy but compliant, as Kirishima chattered without a care.

He had been talking non-stop since they left the classroom. At first, he had been complaining about how boring their morning classes were— something Koharu would usually be eager to get in on, if she wasn't so busy with being petulant— but he had been quick to move onto how excited he was about their Hero training, about their classmates, about Bakugou's quirk, and was Koharu even listening anymore? And wasn't Midoriya's stuttering hilarious, and did she remember Bakugou yelling when he won, and—

"- I know you're a bit grumpy about it, but honestly, I thought you'd do a good job of being Class Rep—" Kirishima stopped talking as Koharu's arm crossed his chest, halting him in place. Koharu's head was downturned, purple strands hiding her face from view when he shifted to look at her. "What's wrong?"

"Kirishima…" she pronounced his name slowly, sweetly, as she looked up and let her hair slide from her face. Her lips were pulled tight into a smile that didn't match the darkness of her eyes. "Did you vote for me?"

Kirishima shook as her gaze pierced through him, sending a shiver up his spine. His mind flashed back to days before, suddenly realizing the uncanny family resemblance between his friend and their teacher as he took in her haunted grin. Rapidly he began to shake his head, and he held up two placating hands. "No! I voted for myself!"

The two locked eyes, black meeting red. Satisfied with what she saw, Koharu dropped her arm from Kirishima's chest. She started walking again without further fuss. "Smart. Not that it got you very far."

Alarmed, Kirishima lagged behind for a moment longer. Another shiver crept up his spine as he watched Koharu continue on like nothing had happened. Under his breath, he muttered a revelation of, "Girls are scary…"

"Huh?"

"I said you're good at listening!" Kirishima chirped, easily stepping back into stride with the short girl. "Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did."

"Ha. Ha."

Catching a glimpse of Kirishima's deadpan expression, Koharu snorted a laugh. "Ask away."

"Why are you so upset about being Deputy Class Rep?"

Koharu side-eyed her companion, unsurprised by the question but irked by it nonetheless. "I'm not interested in being some dumb rep. I didn't even raise my hand, so where do these people get off voting for me?"

"I think you're taking this too seriously," Kirishima said with an easy tone of his voice that made his words sound more like an observation than critique. "It's not like you're really the class rep anyway. You're just the deputy."

Koharu felt her brow ticking in irritation. She grunted as she turned her face away from her friend's line of sight. "It's stupid either way." Koharu insisted through clenched teeth.

For a blessed moment, Kirishima was silent. "No way," he then said in a gasp. "You're just mad that Midoriya beat you!"

"What?!" Koharu yelped as she whirled her thunderous gaze back to Kirishima in a snap. Black eyes met red again, the dark thunderous and the light as understanding as they were warm. "I'm not—" Why was he looking at her like that? "I'm…"

He saw right through her.

It wasn't a lie to say that Koharu didn't want the position of Class Rep. Any leadership positions she took on ultimately meant that she did all of the hard work, and unlike her masochist brother, Koharu didn't want the responsibility or the headache of wrangling teenagers. As nice as being Class Rep would look on her resume, it just wasn't worth the hassle to Koharu. So no, Koharu wasn't interested in the job at all.

That is, until she saw her name up on that board. Right below someone else's. In second place.

Koharu Aizawa was a lot of things, and quite near the top of that list was a sore loser. She had tossed more Monopoly boards than she could count, and any 'best of threes' would go into the thousands before Koharu would ever admit defeat. It was an ugly side of her— and the name reason why Shouta wouldn't play card games with her anymore. If she was always going to get so riled up, it was better not to compete, he said.

Reluctant or not, Koharu agreed with him. But life was a competition, and fuck if Koharu didn't want to win it all.

Koharu's hands were clenched into fists, glued to her side from the effort it took to avoid waving them around like a child throwing a tantrum. Her energy came out in her voice instead, cracking as she shouted, "Who would want to be a stupid deputy?! Of course I'm pissed off about it!"

Kirishima nodded, unbothered at the straggling eyes of student passersby attracted to them by Koharu's yelling. "Hey, I get it. No one likes to play second fiddle," he conceded with a small shrug of his shoulders. "But it's not like anyone else got any votes. It was just you and Midoriya. That should count for something, right?"

Her stomach twisted, his words a knife of a reminder in her gut of the fact that Koharu had voted for Midoriya. Koharu had oh so wisely put his name down instead of her own, and that was the deciding factor in her loss.

If she had voted for Iida, she and Midoriya would have tied.

If she had voted for herself, Koharu would have won.

Gritting her teeth, Koharu let the bones act as a barrier to the litany of curses her tongue ached to unleash. "Second place doesn't count for shit," she told Kirishima shortly. Her feet began to lead them faster towards their destination, and Kirishima caught up to her with an unabashed laugh as they reached the doors to the cafeteria, clearly intent to ignore her raised hackles and continue teasing her.

BRRRRP, BRRRRP, BRRRRP!

The two teens halted just before the doors, shoes squeaking to a stop amidst the blaring alarm overhead. Koharu felt Kirishima's hand wrap around her forearm, the skin startlingly soft in comparison to the memory of his hardened skin.

"An alarm?" asked Kirishima, his voice raised to be heard. "What's it for?"

Koharu felt her ears perk as she began to register a sound beneath the monotony of the alarm, a steady drum like thunder. The ground trembled beneath them. Her eyes, widened with fright, snapped to the closed door in front of them as she registered the sound originating behind it.

"Kirishim—ah!" Her warning broke off into a startled yelp as Kirishima hauled her towards him, using his grip on her arm to drag her away from the doors. Her back hit the wall a moment before the doors burst open, struggling to let loose a cramped crowd scampering for escape. Kirishima's grip stayed steady on her wrist, acting as an anchor against the wall in case she had any ideas of swimming in the sea of students.

"What's happening?!" He shouted over the continuing blare of the alarm.

Koharu winced as someone stepped on her toe, and tried to flatten herself further against the wall. To Kirishima, she hollered back an incredulous, "How am I supposed to know that?!"

"Well, what should we do?!"

A sudden shout broke through the madness:

"Everyone, everything's fine!"

The crowd halted in their stampede, briefly hushed by the sudden declaration. The voice continued:

"It is just the media! There is nothing to panic about. Everything's fine! Let us act in a way befitting the best of the best."

Iida. If the voice wasn't enough, the way he spoke was a dead giveaway. She could only imagine how he had managed to capture everyone's attention.

Koharu dropped her head back against the wall, letting out a relieved sigh despite the thump of her skull against concrete. She heard Kirishima do the same as the students in front of them began to disperse with their own remarks of relief.

"Maybe I should have voted for Iida," said a thoughtful Kirishima.

The knife in Koharu's gut twisted again. "Yeah," she groaned. "Me too."

~ o ~

"To… to decide the other class officers…"

Side-eyeing the boy beside her with unease, Koharu discretely took him in. Midoriya's cheeks were flushed pink, a bead of sweat trailing down his brow— and Koharu had been pretty sure that Midoriya was taller than her, but with how he stood so hunched over himself like that…

"But first, can I say something? I think… that Tenya Iida should be the class rep after all!"

Koharu blinked away her shock.

"He was able to get everyone's attention in such a cool way," Midoriya praised, his trepidation fading with each word. His lips pulled into a smile, small and nervous, but enough to brighten his clearing face. "I think it would be best for Iida to do it."

Tearing her gaze from Midoriya, Koharu looked out to the class and locked eyes with the startled Iida. His face was filled with awe, glasses slipping down his nose untouched. She bit her lip as she mulled over her choice: Midoriya had made a good point, and it wasn't like Koharu couldn't remember why she wanted to vote for Iida in the first place. It was still a loss, but maybe Koharu could stand losing to Iida. And with Midoriya's and her own vote bringing his tally to two… well, technically, it would be a tie.

Koharu felt her lips twitch into a grin. She could live with a tie.

"I second the motion."

"This isn't a courtroom," snarked Shouta, catching the attention of the class from his place swaddled in his sleeping bag. "I don't care what you do. Just hurry up and do it."

Slowly, Iida stood. He pushed his glasses up his nose and straightened his spine, returning to the rigidly postured Iida the class had come to know. "If both the Class Rep and Deputy have nominated me, then it cannot be helped." He took a deep breath, and raised one of his arms high above his head in a mock-salute. "From this day forth, I, Tenya Iida, promise to do my best to carry out the duties of the class representative!"

"We'll be counting on you!"

"Yeah, do your best!"

Koharu leaned forward, and rested her chin into her palm as she leaned over the podium as she watched the class clamour in their congratulations of the new Class Rep. "This might work out for me after all," she said with a small hum.

Midoriya started at her side. "H-huh?"

Lips curled, Koharu lightly shook her head. "I just have a feeling that this job won't be as tedious as I thought."

"...should I be offended?"

With a laugh, Koharu patted Midoriya on the shoulder. She began to shove him back towards his seat.

"Wait— K-Koharu, what did you mean by that? Koharu!"

chapter end

We changin' canon here, yo. Sorry Momo! Who do you think voted for Koharu? ;)