There were a couple of times where Ikumi wished that she didn't have her Quirk. She could have lived without constantly being the largest kid in the room. More than once she had begged, pleaded and outright wished that she would just stop growing. Her Quirk didn't listen and continued to make her the tallest person in any room.

Some of her classmates and friends had wanted to be taller for ages but Ikumi didn't see the appeal. Ikumi found that her height gave her a tendency to loom over people when she didn't want to, neck cramps from both parties trying to simply make eye contact and having to fit into a society built at half scale. Pens and pencils not built for increased strength shattered in her grip.

To the despair of the P.E teacher at her junior school, Ikumi was never particularly interested in sports. She always felt too uncoordinated, too out of place. As far as he was concerned though, Ikumi's sheer size and strength made her a shoe-in for practically any sport. People always told her that she had the build for basketball and volleyball, but she would have rather not.

Still, it was her Quirk. Like all Quirks, it came with upsides and downsides. Even if it seemed that there were more downsides than normal.

—

Eight year old Katsuki glared up at his taller friend. "Your Quirk's kind of unfair," he grumbled. He'd said it every winter they'd been friends.

Midori giggled, the traitor. Katsuki was completely bundled up in thick winter gear and boots, restricting his movements and making it harder to get around. Midori, on the other hand, only needed a pair of boots and a jumper to shrug off the cold. Her fur had thickened up slightly, making her seem larger than she normally was.

"It's just how my Quirk works, Kacchan!" She patted her chest. "I-I keep my fire inside my body, and I've got a fur coat of my own!"

Katsuki scoffed. "Maybe your Quirk works better in the winter, but that's just a starting edge! It just takes me longer to warm up, that's all!"

Midori shrugged, walking through the snow in the park at an impressive pace. Katsuki growled, managing to keep up with his friend. Midori was officially slightly over two metres tall now, and still growing. In Katsuki's opinion, that was what made Midori the coolest of his friends.

That you could feel the heat emanating off her if you leaned against her was a nice touch.

Katsuki had everything he could ever want - top grades, a powerful Quirk and a friend who could keep up with and challenge him. About the only thing he didn't have was a Hero licence, but that'd come when he and Midori crushed U.A and became Heroes together.

Sure, Katsuki knew he was great - pretty much everybody around him said so! And he knew Midori's Quirk, even if it wasn't quite as cool as his, was great as well. Not many people thought Midori was great like he was, though.

Katsuki didn't give a damn what other people thought. Midori was great and everybody who thought otherwise was a poophead. A bunch of adults had said that Midori was a 'bad influence,' but Katsuki thought that was stupid. Midori didn't start fights, she intervened in them and tried to defend the other guy.

As far as he cared, that's what Heroes did - they went in and beat up bad guys. Midori didn't do much hitting, so that was up to him.

—

Ikumi grumbled as she ran a comb through her mop of hair in a futile attempt to untangle it, then switched to a different one. "Spring sucks," she mumbled, combing along her arms and legs and across her torso, excess teal fur being dragged with it.

Winter was her favourite time of the year, but springtime was when she started to shed her winter coat. And that meant that until her body decided to stop shedding, there were small piles of teal and white fur getting everywhere. It gathered on clothes (hers and other people's in equal amounts), it stuck on couches. Not to mention that Ikumi felt hot and bothered, since her winter coat stuck around for a while.

At least in summer her coat got back to a normal thin layer and she didn't feel like she was boiling. Once she was satisfied with having removed as much excess fur as was humanly possible she pulled on the rest of her clothes, resignedly running over them with a lint roller to purge the excess.

Ikumi looked at herself in the mirror, doing a little twirl. Gang Orca T-shirt and shorts, and her favourite red sneakers. She winced when she saw that the T-shirt was a little too short, clutching her midriff tightly. But it was the only thing she really had.

Beaming, she turned back to her bed and the bag of fur that she'd pulled off her body. It wasn't going to be enough - there was always fur in some stupid, unexplained place that she would miss. But at least most of it was in one place.

It was practically routine at this point, to get the bag ready, swipe a lint roller up and down her bed to grab any loose fur that had fallen out when she was sleeping and tie it shut. Then double check that there's no shed fur on her clothes and run the lint roller over it again when she potted some fur that she'd missed.

Ikumi took one last look at herself, then hurried downstairs, collected fur in hand. Dumping it in the bin, she quickly went to the door, trying to ignore how close her ears were getting to the ceiling. "I'm going to hang out with Kacchan and the other kids!"

Her mother popped her head around the corner. "Have fun, dear!"

Ikumi waved goodbye, heading out into the spring sunshine to meet with Kacchan. "Morning!"

Kacchan sighed, walking with her. "How the hell does your fur keep getting everywhere?" He gestured to his black T-shirt for emphasis, where a couple of teal strands had already gathered.

Ikumi let out a long suffering sigh. "Spring sucks," she moaned, causing Kacchan to laugh.

—

Ikumi swallowed nervously, holding out her wallet. "O-one ticket for All Might versus Alien, please," she managed to get out, pitching her voice slightly lower than normal.

The cashier gave her an odd look as he accepted the money. Ikumi tried to act natural as she stood there in an oversized coat. Tsubasa had grabbed it from an aunt apparently.

She fidgeted slightly as the cashier finished up. "Alright, here you go," he handed her the ticket.

Ikumi smiled widely as she got the ticket back. "Thank you!"

Ticket in hand, Ikumi carefully walked into the movie theatre, getting a seat in the back. Carefully looking both ways, she opened the coat. "O-okay Kacchan, the coast's clear," she muttered.

He hopped out, Tsubasa and Hitosashi following. Ikumi anxiously looked, checking that the theatre doors were closed. "Good one, Midori!" Kacchan hissed, pulling out a bag of popcorn.

Ikumi gulped nervously as the trailers started. It seemed like a good idea at the time to do this. Sure, All Might versus Alien was a MA-rated film and looked scary, but it had All Might in it! So the four of them had pooled their pocket money to get a ticket.

Kacchan grinned. "This is gonna be great!"

Ikumi had her doubts. Still, how scary could it be?

…

About two and a half hours of gore, swearing and in the climax All Might hitting the Alien so hard it exploded, Ikumi managed to stagger out of the theatre, her disguise haphazardly in place.

Once out of the theatre, Tsubasa cheered. "That was awesome!"

Hitosashi joined him, fingers stretching for emphasis. "Yeah! Like that bit where that other Hero's chest exploded-"

Ikumi managed to get to a trashcan before vomiting, tears coming from her eyes.

Bakugou awkwardly patted his friend on the shoulder. "I didn't think it would be that gory, Midori," he managed. He brightened up a bit. "You wanna choose the next movie?"

It was the closest he would come to an apology. Ikumi wordlessly nodded as she managed to recover.

—

Inko couldn't help but worry about her daughter. Ikumi was self-conscious about the way she looked, and had known from preschool that there was something fundamentally different about her. Inko wasn't a tall woman, but it had still been a bit of a shock when Ikumi had grown taller than her when she was only five years old, and then her father at six.

Her height had only increased, and with it her difficulty in navigating their apartment. It was an old one from before the dawn of Quirks. Ikumi's long ears almost brushed against the ceiling, and she had been ducking through doorways for a while. Probably too long, Inko supposed, if she was so used to it.

Inko had asked her parents about inviting Ikumi over, and they had declined. Not because they thought that Ikumi wasn't cute, or because they had anti-heteromorph prejudices like so many people out of the cities did. But because Ikumi wouldn't have been comfortable in their place out in the country.

She didn't want her baby girl to have to deal with that. Inko had been looking at some options already. There was a block of flats nearby that had been constructed specifically for heteromorph Quirks, so that might be the best place to go. If there was no other option, there were some warehouses that had been retrofitted for habitation.

"Ikumi," Inko called hesitantly. Ikumi was doing her homework in another room, but could always hear her from anywhere in the house. Ikumi came over, slightly distracted.

"M-mum? What's-"

Inko winced when her daughter's snout impacted the doorframe with a thud. "Ow!"

Inko ran over to her daughter as she rubbed her snout. "Ikumi, are you okay? Do-do you want me to get an ice-pack-"

Ikumi shook her head. "Y-yes, I'm fine! I-I should have been more careful about where I was going-"

Seeing her daughter try and brush it off was what firmed Inko's resolve. "Well, Ikumi… we were thinking of moving to a different apartment-"

Ikumi's eyes widened in panic. "Y-you don't have to! I-I'm fine-"

"Ikumi, that's the third time you've hurt yourself trying to go through a doorway!" Inko hugged her daughter, grateful that she could at least wrap her arms around her. "I-I wouldn't ask you to change schools, but I… I just think you should be able to walk in your own home without banging your head on anything!"

Ikumi sniffed. "But… that'll be expensive, and I-I already eat too much-"

"Please don't say that, Ikumi. You're eating the normal amount that a girl your height should."

"M-maybe I won't get any taller! I-if I drink some coffee-"

Inko nearly teared up. "Ikumi, there's-there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, you know that? Besides, it's not such a big deal. I've seen a place that's still close by."

"But what about-"

Inko reached up with a shushing motion. "We'll work it all out. Together."

—

AN: slice of life stuff is surprisingly hard to write. Ikumi's Quirk has upsides as well as downsides. Some fun slice of life stuff, which I rewrote a fair chunk of. And now Ikumi is moving out to a place big enough to handle her.

At this point, Ikumi's about 220 cm tall, or 7 foot two inches in Freedom Units. The average height of an apartment in Japan is 2.4 metres.

Next time… I'm not sure. Some talk about Heroes probably. I don't really have a plan for this so I'm winging it. Also, I added some cover art I drew myself! I'm not a good artist, and I have learned aong other things that Izuku's hair is the devil, as are hands.