Chapter 3

It was never really difficult for Uraraka to approach Midoriya. She did it all the time without thinking about it. Heck, the first time they even met she had saved him from planting his face into the concrete. Then, why was it suddenly rather difficult for her to do so? She just needed to ask for his help. That was all. It was easy, it was simple. She knew he would do it. This was Midoriya. Always kind and ready to help anybody. Yet, her heart was beating hard against her chest and she could feel her hands start to tingle.

"Uraraka? Is something wrong?" a soft voice pulled her out of her thoughts and she flinched at the mentioning of her name.

"Eh!?" She forced herself to look Midoriya in the eyes, making her hands start to sweat.

Midoriya smiled at her and shortened the distance between them. "You were kind of looking," Midoriya grinned as he touched the nape of his neck, "you need anything?"

Uraraka swallowed hard and clenched her hands into fists. Come on Uraraka, you can do this!

"Uhm, training!" Were the first words that came to her mind and she had to mentally slap herself. All other words had seemed to disappear from her at just the wrong moment.

"What?" Midoriya asked, slightly confused by her outburst, but smiling nonetheless.

"I mean, will you help me with some training?" Uraraka squeezed her fists and bit her cheek as she forced herself to look into his bright eyes.

"Ah, some quirk training, right?" he smiled at her again as realization came over him, "sure, what do you need?" Midoriya asked, taking some water from the bottle that stood next to him on the floor. Uraraka tried not to look as he bowed down to reach it.

"No," Uraraka shook her head, she could feel her heartbeat in her chest and she swallowed hard, this was it...

Midoriya stopped drinking and looked at her confused.

"Not quirk training," Uraraka took a deep breath, "strength training."

"What? Really?" Midoriya's eyes almost widened.

Uraraka fought the urge to flinch. She had already practiced what to say. "You see, because of the nature of my quirk I have to get close to my opponent. But, I'm still hopeless if I'm not able to get close enough or if I'm not able to use my quirk," she knew it wasn't a lie, although her stomach tightened by the thought that she wasn't telling the entire truth to Midoriya.

"Hmm. I see," Uraraka was slightly surprised that Midoriya of all people, with all his analyzing of everybody's quirk, didn't deny or interrupt her immediately. "Sure, I'll help you out," Midoriya smiled, making Uraraka feel slightly more at ease.

"Really?" Uraraka beamed at him.

"Of course, might even be fun, we haven't hung out together for a while," Midoriy smiled that airy smile that only he could make.

Uraraka knew why they hadn't been hanging out lately. She was painfully aware of why. Ever since she realized she had a more than small crush on Midoriya, she had been struggling to be around him without getting nervous and extremely clumsy. So, she had done her best to avoid him. However, this time she was ready, she was prepared and she wouldn't let her feelings get the best of her.

"Thank you!" She cheered, letting her cheeks get dusted with a light blush. At least she hoped it was light.

"So, when do you want to start?" Midoriya asked.

This might actually be a good idea. Great even.

After a few days of training with Midoriya, Uraraka almost regretted asking for his help. This might really not have been that great of an idea after all. She might have feared that he would have been going too easy on her. And although he might have been slightly more easy going than he would have with some of the others from their class, she could still feel her whole body ache and being sore after their training together.

No, what Uraraka really should have feared and the reason why she was starting to regret this now, was because Midoriya often took off his shirt after a while of training. And it seriously made it difficult for Uraraka to focus. Was it really that impossible for the guy to just stay in his shirt through training?

The first time she felt like her eyes might have fallen out of their sockets. Midoriya was way more ripped than he let out to be when he was just wearing his normal clothes and even though she knew he was strong, it still surprised her with how his body looked. Lucky for her, her face was still flushed from their training together, so it wouldn't be obvious with how badly she was flustered by the look of his naked upper body.

Lately she had only been thinking of the guy doing pull-ups in the other apartment across from hers, who turned out to be Bakugou. She had almost forgotten about her big crush on Midoriya. Almost.

And now it came crashing back to her when they trained together. And whenever Uraraka came back to her apartment, tired, she couldn't help herself from watching Bakugou from her window.

For the few days that went by, Uraraka almost got whiplash from watching her crush, Midoriya, topless while they were training together and from watching Bakugou when she came home in the evening.

Uraraka knew that it had nothing to do with her. And yet, in some weird way she couldn't help but to think that it did. She tried to shake her thoughts off of her, but it became very difficult whenever Midoriya accidentally touched her doing their training, trying to correct her form.

After a week, Uraraka was at her limit. When Midoriya tried to correct her form during a new exercise, she was almost about to melt into his touch. She was even about to let out a deep sigh, but instead she quickly went back to reality and wiggled out and away from his touch.

"Okay! Thanks for today!" she hurried over to her bag and swung it over her shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Midoriya asked, genuinely confused as he slowly turned around to face the blushing Uraraka. His shirt was tossed off a long time ago and sweat was falling down his chiseled body, tracing every inch of muscle there was available to the eye. God, he was killing her.

Uraraka tore her eyes away from him before it was too obvious where her eyes were.

"I-I'm going to practice on my quirk alone for a while," she pivoted around and left the training room as fast as she possibly could, ignoring Midoriya's voice behind her, asking her to wait. But she couldn't wait, she wouldn't, she needed to get away and as quickly as possible too.

Uraraka finally let herself relax and breathe properly when she reached the playground that wasn't too far away from her apartment. She had been running with all her might after she left the training room where Midoriya had been calling after her. She could still faintly hear his voice in her head. She probably shouldn't just have left like that and she felt bad for running off so quickly, but she knew she had to get away, she couldn't deal with Midoriya right now. She could feel her senses were overloaded and she needed to get some air.

She dropped her bag on the ground and she plopped down on the nearest swing as she let out a sigh and let her body relax for the first time in what felt like forever.

She could still feel the burning sensation of the blush that had hardly left her ever since she started to train together with Midoriya. Her heart was beating fast in her chest and her muscles were aching from all the new strength training she had been doing lately. When she finally sat down and relaxed, Uraraka could feel how exhausted and tired she actually was. She closed her eyes slowly, just for a second and before she knew it, Uraraka fell asleep on the swing.

"Eh, now isn't she cute?" a tall guy with dark hair said to his friend as the two of them walked past the playground and saw Uraraka sleep on the swing.

"She sure is," his friend said with a smirk playing on his lips.

"Parades all down and ready for the taking."