Fuunu - Aye.
Shahryar - Absolutely :P And you'll get more of Dadmight down the road.
yomunot - Nice :D
Jpx0999 - Nope, no quirks :P And you have no idea how much of a walking mystery Midoriya is, heh.
Detrametal - Let's just say that it's going to be a while before we get anywhere.
(***)
When Izuku shows up at school the next day, he looks… well, honestly he's a zombie. Mostly an emotional one, but still a zombie. It's naturally bad enough that Bakugou realizes that something was sus.
"What the fuck happened to you, Deku?" He asks, with his… typical degree of sensitivity towards the woes of his childhood friend. "Did you confess to Messy Hair and she told you to fuck off or what?"
Yeah, classic Kacchan.
"No, I didn't confess to Toga." Midoriya replies. The homeroom just ended, and he is about to leave the classroom. Kacchan took that occasion to speak to him. "It's… look, it's really hard to describe what just happened and…" Kacchan's stare grows angry. "Look, family problems, okay?"
"Elaborate." Kacchan refuses to stand down.
"No." Deku refuses to stand down either.
"Elaborate." Kacchan, once again, refuses to cooperate.
"Dad still didn't return and I'm kind of worried he just dashed to… uhm… he just dashed elsewhere, you catch my drift?" Midoriya replies. He didn't crumble under the threat, he just recognized the look on Kacchan's face. His best friend was going to keep asking until he was going to get his answer.
The last time it happened, Midoriya heard the same question over and over again for THREE. DAYS. Nothing but said question left Kacchan's mouth the whole time. He was just this stubborn.
"Did I ever mention that your dad is an asshole?" Kacchan snarls. Midoriya stares at him in shock. "Why are you staring at me like that, Deku?"
"You rem…" Wait, that's a weird question. He isn't sure if the Censor will cover for him asking his best friend if he remembered anything about his father. "Wait, I'm going to ask you a weird question. What was his hair color?"
"Black, the same as yours," Kacchan asks, staring at him questioningly.
"Are you sure about that?" Midoriya asks, hopeful that maybe the spell missed out on something.
"Yeah, it was always weird to us that your hair was black, while his was blonde, so we thought that you got yours from your mo… what?" Kacchan stares at him strangely. Midoriya lets out a disappointed sigh.
Of course, it didn't work. The magic was messing with his memories. It couldn't make him forget Hisashi Midoriya entirely, as then Bakugou would realize that something was sus with Izuku missing a father entirely and just… being there, the whole time, without parents. Especially as Kacchan DID visit him in his home a few times.
"Nevermind." Izuku tries to dodge the subject. His best friend's stare makes it obvious that it didn't work. "Look… meet me in the library after the classes, alright? I'll explain everything to you."
It's time to do that. Because if he won't have at least a single person to just… vent to, without a risk of a foul play on their side… he's going to just explode. Absolutely, goddamn, explode.
"You better fucking do." Kacchan groans. It's almost adorable how he can show that he worries about his friend while still sounding slightly aggressive.
(***)
"I'm…" Midoriya says to Toga after borrowing a chair and sitting on it in front of her school desk. She hasn't gone anywhere, despite it being the middle of the break. Then again, where is she supposed to go? Cafeteria? "...going to initiate Bakugou Katsuki today, after school, probably in the library."
That elicits a reaction.
"Really?" She looks at him questioningly. "Initiating other students isn't exactly forbidden, but it's also not…"
"I have the Principal's permission, apparently," Midoriya says. She stares at him in honest shock. Honestly, what the hell's the deal with the UA Principal? He expected to at least learn his name by now, but… "No, I don't know why, but if Kacchan agrees, he's guaranteed the spot as a Candidate. The thing is, we need to talk about it."
"What is it, Izucchan?" She asks, once again wearing a wide smile on her face.
"Kacchan is…" How to properly describe the situation? "... someone very important to me." He reads what she's about to say from the mischievous grin on her face. "Not in a romantic way, Toga…"
"Himichan!" She corrects him, a cheerful smile blooming on her face.
"Right. We're both perfectly heterosexual, Himichan." Midoriya continues, trying not to think about how emotionally disturbing it is for him to refer to a man-eating ghoul as 'Himichan'. "However…"
"I'm bi." She announces with an almost innocent smile while leaning back on her chair. Not loud enough for anyone to hear her, then again, no one was anywhere close to them. "But recently, I think that I consider myself to be more… Izusexual."
She really isn't making it any easier for him, is she? He came here with a plan for the talk, but she was just…
"Well, that's good to know, but…" He tries to say. That's when he feels her foot (certainly devoid of any sort of footwear whatsoever) coming into direct contact with…
Oh.
He looks down a bit and… wow, she even managed to take down the sock without making him notice anything. That's quite some… uhm… flexibility.
"To… Himichan, that's a bit… distracting." He says while trying to not look in her direction at all. And trying to fight his own body's natural reaction that she was clearly aware of (aware of - and ready to… exploit). And, maybe, suppress the blush on his face.
"Tell me to stop." She says with a wide grin and a slight blush of her own. "And I will."
"E-errr, I mean, Himichan, could you…err…" Midoriya tries to fight himself but the result is… not what he hoped for (did he hope for it honestly?) " … accompany me during the initiation?"
In a way, it was a victory. Because he managed to say what he came here to say. Except, the circumstances changed severely, so it was…
Worst of all, judging from the grin still being on her face, she took that as permission to continue. No, wait, it got worse from that. Because Izuku (or, at least, the non-hormone-addled part of his brain) realized that he, by all intents and purposes, gave her permission to continue.
And he somehow couldn't force himself to regret that choice.
ohmygodI'mgoingtodie
"Of course, Izucchan!" Himiko says cheerfully. "That's what friends are for, right? Anything else you wanted to talk about?"
She knows what he also wanted to talk about. But she wanted him to tell her about that, he just knows it. Because she was clearly enjoying watching his struggle.
"I… errr… as I said, he's rather important to me, so…" C'MON IZUKU, FOCUS. "... I'd like to m-make it clear that if you'd-do something bad to h-him, I'd…"
"You don't have to worry about that, Izucchan!" Toga smiles at Izuku, who worries about that a lot. "Your friends are my friends! There is just no way that I'd lay my hand on them! In fact, if someone from the school will be a meanie to them, I'll be a meanie to them!"
Looks like this is slowly shaping up to be a rather unorthodox cabal, just… Midoriya really isn't in the mood to think about it right now.
"That's e-er, that's great." He says, trying to ignore… okay, screw that, he just can't ignore that. "I'll be com… I mean, going." Her smile grows slightly wider for a moment.
"Now, will you?" She asks. Once again there is THAT grin on her face and… Izuku can't decide if he wants to slap her face for messing up with him or push his tongue between those lips. "You don't look like you're in a hurry anywhere."
"E-er, I mean…" Midoriya tries to say something, but… that's when the bell rings.
And it ends. Midoriya has some very conflicted responses to the fact that it ended.
"There goes the mood." Toga sighs, leaning towards him once more. "Our classmates will be back in a while, so… drop by my lair if you want to continue." She winks at him. "See you after school, Izucchan!"
(***)
"Deku, what the fuck, the class is in that directi…" Kacchan starts yelling when he sees Izuku hurrying in the direction opposite to the one he was supposed to take.
"I'llbebackintheminuteIneedtogotothetoilet!" Izuku shouts back in the passing before vanishing behind the corner.
The fuck?
"The hell did you do to Deku?" Bakugou decides to ask the question to the most likely perpetrator. He does that a few seconds later, when he gets back
"What do you mean?" Messy Hair asks. She is bent to the side of her table. Correcting her shoe, if Katsuki sees it correctly.
"You fucking know what I mean." He replies. "Stop messing with him, will ya?"
"No, I don't think I will." She smiles at him. Bakugou doesn't like that smile. There is something… unnerving to him in it. "You'll find out the truth today after school, either way. Just wait until then, alright?"
What the hell is it all about?
(***)
Less than thirty minutes later Midoriya Izuku is consistently ignoring the lesson (he is starting to get a serious feeling that the knowledge about math won't be of much use to him as an Initiate) while trying to…
… he has no idea what he is trying to do, but screaming loudly and slamming his forehead into the table sounds too excessive and the teacher will probably send him to the nurse's office. And he'll be seen by his classmates as an even bigger weirdo than he already was.
It was time to face the truth.
He WAS reacting to Himich…Toga's… HER teasing. Way too goddamn much. There was only one logical explanation. Okay, three. All of them are pretty bad for him.
Except for, well, him being a teenager (and a certified - okay not literally if you exclude that pretend diploma that Kacchan made for him for his last birthday and Izuku threw into the incinerator - virgin) with a quite pretty girl doing stuff like that to him.
But Midoriya is vaguely aware that a normal teenager would freak the hell out if the girl doing that to him was a ghoul. He might have not seen her kill and eat someone, but… he knew for certain that she was doing that.
So he was either having a crush on her strong enough to override his self-preservation instinct, or he was having an inborn tendency for considering the scarousal to be the highest form of arousal (he can't genuinely disregard that option after remembering his browser history, his horror nerd tendencies were visible even on that field) or he was an idiot.
Like, a total idiot.
Unless magic was involved.
Because despite knowing full well what Toga has done to who knows how many people, the concept of actually going to her safehouse and asking for a continue felt incredibly… tempting.
That or… well, he still has slight flashbacks to that kiss and…
Maybe even… invite her to his home again and…
"That's how it will all end." He says quietly to himself while staring down at his desk. "Midoriya Izuku. Age: 17 and a half. Cause of death: being horny."
He almost freaks out when he feels something stabbing him in the side. He looks at the direction of that and…
Oh.
Kacchan stabbed him with a pencil.
"Pay attention, Deku." He says quietly before returning to a normal position and proceeding to pay attention to the teacher with extreme prejudice.
Midoriya realizes now that he actually forgot about his whole 'strange family situation' thing. Toga was making him… react just so goddamn much.
He is going to die. He also absolutely needs Kacchan initiated because he needs someone next to him with an actual self-preservation instinct.
Actually, Kacchan with his self-preservation instinct, and Midoriya with his horror movie trivia sounded like a good team-up.
He just needed him to say yes.
(***)
"Look, I'm going to say some really odd things now, but I really need you to answer them seriously. Alright?" Midoriya says. Kacchan gives him a strange look, before looking at Toga, who was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room. "She's here to… uhm… help me in asking you the right questions."
Toga smiles widely. Midoriya is trying to NOT think about her. And about what happened in that classroom earlier. It's not easy.
"What about him?" Kacchan decides to not make it any easier for him. Midoriya looks in the direction that Bakugou is pointing at… and sighs.
Todoroki is still standing behind the bookshelf. Worst of all, he just opened a bag of popcorn. Midoriya can see the concealment glyph drawn on the bag in question from here, added probably to hide it from the librarian (regardless of her status as a Shade). Bakugou certainly can't see the popcorn, so for him, Todoroki is… probably standing there, while staring at him.
"Todoroki, why?" Midoriya asks, staring at him incredulously.
"It sounds fun," Todoroki replies, his face completely blank.
Midoriya thought that glyphs should be used carefully. Is that how Todoroki defines 'careful usage'? Or did he misunderstand the nature of glyphs and they actually could be used freely?
How confusing.
"Is that your friend, Deku?" Bakugou asks. "Because that's the first time I see him AND his stare is creepy."
"I'm aware," Todoroki replies before putting a handful of popcorn in his mouth. Bakugou probably still perceives him as just… standing there and staring at him.
"I… kind of?" Midoriya replies. Todoroki's eyes are suddenly on him. "I mean, we didn't get a lot of interactions so… an acquaintance with an option for friendship?" He asks, still very confused about it.
He is, in general, confused about a lot of things nowadays.
"Sounds fun." Todoroki announces. Despite that, his face is still that of a corpse.
"... he's starting to freak me out for real." Kacchan announces. Todoroki doesn't feel hurt by it. Midoriya doesn't feel surprised by it. Toga… honestly, he has no idea. "Alright, Deku, so what the hell is this all about?"
"Magic, apparently, exists." Midoriya has no idea how to say it. "And I really, really need you to help me figure it out."
Kacchan clearly decided that Deku was making fun of him, so he started to explode.
"What the fuck are you talking about D…" Only for the explosion to suddenly die, with Bakugou staring at Midoriya in shock. "... how the hell did you do that?"
"Did what?" Midoriya realizes that they are already off-the-script, so he promptly freaks out.
"How the hell did you change your uniform color to black?" Bakugou asks, before glancing at the others present in the room. "How the hell did you all change your uniforms?!"
Oh. It's working. Midoriya glances at Todoroki for confirmation. He gets a scarce nod.
"So, as I said, magic basically exists, but it's hidden." Midoriya decides to quickly elaborate. Before Bakugou explodes again. "You're a muggle, I just told you about it, if you decide to stop being a muggle, you will. But if you don't agree to it, you'll just forget about the whole thing."
Silence. Then, after like ten seconds of it, Bakugou inhales.
"Deku." He says. Softly. "Deku, what the fuck."
"I've only known about it for a few days, Kacchan, I swear!" Midoriya quickly corrects himself. "And I've decided to offer you to be initiated like I was because the magical world is super goddamn scary and I need someone I trust!"
"... yeah, there are so many scary things preying on people!" Toga decides to say. Because of course she does. "Like you wouldn't believe! Izucchan is on the verge of being eaten up by them almost on a… nightly basis." She says, giving Izuku a thirsty stare that makes him slightly shiver on the inside. "Might be on a daily basis as well, I'm not that picky." She then adds, while… seductively… licking her lips… her very tasty lips.
Goddammit, Toga. And, also, goddammit, Izuku.
"Deku." Bakugou clearly missed the subtext. "I let you out of my sight a bit more often than normal for a few days. How the fuck did… wait, did you take any drugs?"
Disbelief is probably understandable in a situation like that. It is not exactly helpful.
"I think this calls for a… demonstration." Midoriya decides. "I don't really want to fire off Ignition if I don't have to, especially in the library, so err, Tog…" Her gaze sharpens, so he quickly corrects himself. "...Himichan, could you show him, err… something?"
Toga smiles at him. Then she smiles at Bakugou. Then she puts fingers in the edges of her mouth… and pulls them.
Her cheeks split off, displaying her… that was a LOT of nasty looking fangs. She only had fangs, in fact.
It was… wait, why the fuck was Midoriya finding that scary look actually… attractive?! What the actual hell?! He should really cut down on watching horror movies, Kacchan was right, they are turning his brain to mush.
"What…" Kacchan remains remarkably unfazed. "...the fuck." For him. He's remarkably unfazed for Bakugou Katsuki.
"Oh, she is a… ghoul," Midoriya says while trying to not look at her anymore. Bakugou looks at him questioningly. "She… eats people. I'm excluded from her… menu, and so are you, and she's actually quite… friendly."
"I totally want to eat Izucchan!" Toga announces. "Just… in a manner of speaking." She adds, before, once again, visibly licking her lips. All while looking at Izuku, who once again shivers internally.
Midoriya can practically see it on Kacchan's face. Bakugou is connecting the dots. Such as Midoriya's answer to 'what do you feel towards her', the answer being 'confusion and slight horny'. And the french kiss. And Midoriya still being around her, despite all of that. And her being, well, a ghoul.
"Deku." He says, while glaring at Izuku. "What is fucking wrong with you? Why am I always the reasonable one?! I'm not supposed to be the fucking reasonable one!"
"This is so sad." Todoroki comments. Midoriya looks at him and… oh god, now he has a large cup of something black (with a straw) in his hands. The concealment glyph is right next to the large McDonalds logo. "Alexa, play Despacito."
Silence. Everyone is staring at him. Todoroki ignores it entirely, before putting the straw in his mouth and loudly slurping what Izuku thinks is coca-cola. What Izuku HOPES is coca-cola.
"... ignore him." Midoriya then says to Kacchan. "Wait, how did Todoroki even find out about the whole thing?" He clearly came prepared. Is he seriously having some magical means of finding out about strange things or…
Todoroki doesn't feel concerned about becoming a subject of the talk at all.
"I told him!" Toga announces with a smile. "I kind of hoped that he would go home earlier, but instead he bought a bag of popcorn and then ordered a Big Mac with coca-cola from the local McDonalds. He ate the burger before you arrived, though."
"I was hungry." Todoroki announces. Then he slurps coca-cola loudly once again.
"That really ruined the mood." Midoriya sighs, before turning back to Bakugou. "The thing is, the real world is apparently super scary. Like, Call of Cthulhu level scary. And I really, really need someone with me."
"What about me?" Toga asks, waving her hand towards him.
"The more the, err, merrier?" He replies. Trying to not bring up the whole 'someone who will certainly not eat me alive'.
"Fair enough." She nods. If she figured out the unspoken words, she didn't make it visible. "Please continue."
This whole meeting is an absolute clusterfuck. Midoriya has no idea if Initiation already concluded, or if it didn't, or if they were still in the middle and… honestly, what the actual hell?
"So, basically…" Midoriya tries to say something, but Bakugou speaks faster.
"The answer is yes, Deku." He says while pinching the bridge of his nose. "The answer is fucking yes."
There is a wave of relief washing over Midoriya. Right before he freaks out.
"K-Kacchan, are you sure?! You can't take that back, and it means being in danger and…" He isn't allowed to continue.
"Deku, you fucking idiot!" Bakugou explodes. "I'm your childhood friend and we both know that we're sharing a single braincell and it's rather clear that I'M HOLDING IT FOR MOST OF THE FUCKING TIME! If I'm not there for you, you're going to fucking die in a week. I'm not letting my best friend die, even if he's fucking asking for it."
"He'll totally die in a week." Todoroki agrees with Bakugou with a nod. "It's like he is courting death. I think the faculty is already betting on how long he'll survive, and most bets are on rather short options."
Silence in the library.
"I didn't want to know that." Midoriya mumbles. "Any ideas what Yagi-sensei bet on?" He doesn't expect Todoroki to know, but… it would be nice if that one particular teacher felt like he was going to get anywhere and…
"He bet that you'll live until graduation." Todoroki surprises them all by actually knowing the answer.
"How the hell do you even know that?" Midoriya asks, while staring at him incredulously.
"I just do." Todoroki replies. Then he, once again, loudly slurps his cola.
Midoriya has so many questions, but he isn't sure if he wants to know the answers. Also, he sincerely hopes that Yagi-sensei isn't so friendly and helpful because he wants to win the bet.
Ugh.
Judging from the amount of suspicions that he has for everyone around him, he's clearly adapting well to the scary world that he is now stuck in.