I am not dead! Apologies that I haven't written anything in a while. Life has a way to dump all the bad things at once on you and then give you writer's block in between those things. But that is all sorted now and I can focus some more on writing. Enjoy!
Tora yawned, unable, or too lazy, to cover his mouth while he was tying his shoes. Wearing his gym outfit, he was getting ready for his morning jog. He usually woke up this early, but he just couldn't fall asleep last night and he was feeling it now.
The call he had made had solved little. He was pretty sure he had some feelings for Kaira, but he didn't know if these feelings went deeper, were just feelings of a close friendship or were just teenage hormones running havoc in his body. His mother had done little to help him. Their talk came down to 'just do what your heart tells you to do', which meant walking up to Kaira and telling her that he liked her, but knowing his volatile classmate, he was just as likely to get a bloody nose as getting a kiss.
Although speaking of kisses. They did almost share one last night and she didn't push him away then. Did she lean into it or was that just his memories being warped by his desires?
His musings were interrupted when he heard shuffling behind him. In the hallway stood the only other person in the dorms. Kaira clearly just got out of bed. She had morninghead, her eyes were bleary and she was shuffling around in her slippers.
"Mmmmh, morning…" She groaned.
"Morning Kaira! You're up early."
She was and until now she didn't know why she had set her alarm this early. But now that she saw Tora in his gym outfit, she remembered why. Yesterday, after their date-that-was-totally-not-a-date, she had decided she wanted to spend more time with her crush and that would start with running with him in the morning. It would also help with her daily rhythm. She knew she slept in too much, but never had to motivation to change it. Until now.
"I wanted to get some training in," she yawned, "Miss Himikori said that increasing my stamina would help me stay heated up longer before I burned out. Figured it would be more fun to run together than each of us running alone."
She technically wasn't lying, just omitting the fact that their PE teacher had told her that more than a month ago.
"That's a great idea!" Tora's expression of confusion and concern changed to one of joy. "You might want to get changed though. I don't think going jogging in slippers is a good idea."
Kaira joined in on his laughter. "Yeah, lemme just quickly grab a cup of coffee and I'll be right there." She felt awake, but that were probably the nerves. She needed caffeine for some actual morning energy.
After downing a cup of brown gold and putting on her clothes, Kaira was back downstairs in the blink of an eye. Thank goodness she had the foresight to put a running outfit ready the night before.
Tora, on the other hand, was still not used to Kaira's clothing style when she wasn't forced to wear a uniform. The moment he saw her coming down the stairs, he averted his eyes. A sports bra and sport shorts were all she was wearing and because they were almost the same colour as her skin, you'd think she wasn't wearing anything at all at first glance.
He knew he shouldn't be looking at her like that, but something kept drawing his eyes to her thighs and midriff. Both were toned with not an ounce of fat to be seen and yet they looked so soft. He wondered what it would feel like to lay his head down on-˗
No! Bad Tora! What was happening to him? He wasn't usually like this around girls. Why did Kaira do this to him? Well, he knew why, but why was it so bad? He was fine with everyone else, but Kaira somehow just blew the fuses in his brain. God, his face felt hot.
"So, we ready to go?"
Tora had to stay calm. He could do this.
"Y-yeah. We'll take it easy for a first run. Get into it, you know."
"What? You think I'm not good enough? I can handle whatever you can handle."
Kaira put her hands on her hips and puffed out her cheeks in indignance. She was cute when she was offended.
"But I've been running for years. You sure?"
"Of course I'm sure! You think I'm some kinda weakling? Lead and I'll follow at whatever speed you got. Just don't be surprised if I decide to pass you by."
"If you say so…"
"Just watch me, ye of little faith."
Pain. Pain and agony were all Kaira felt. Every breath felt like a thousand needles piercing her lungs and every step was like moving a leg-shaped cinder block.
Tora, meanwhile, was just casually jogging along. Not that he didn't try to slow down for her, but she refused his help. She would've preferred if he got smug about it. Then she could've been angry at him instead of at herself, but of course, that was not how he was. Instead he'd suggested to slow down or take a breather and resume at a more reasonable pace. She told him to continue his routine while she just went as far as she could.
Now, she was struggling to put one foot in front of the other.
She was managing, but then the inevitable happened. Her toes grazed a slightly too large pebble and she did not have to energy to regain her balance. She fell down on her hands and knees, staring at the drops of sweat that fell from her face to the ground. She was relieved she hadn't eaten breakfast yet, otherwise it'd be making its way out of her stomach onto the ground. She was just dry heaving now.
The crunching of gravel under shoes heralded Tora coming around and passing her by again. How many times was that? Third time? Fourth? She lost count and didn't care anymore. She was frustrated with herself. She wanted to be the best, but couldn't even keep up with Tora on a simple jog. How was she going to be a Hero if she couldn't even keep this up for ten minutes? All a Villain would have to do is run away from her for fifteen minutes and she'd lose them.
Suddenly, she felt two hands hook under her armpits and pull her to her feet. Kaira looked behind her to see Tora holding her up, making sure she could stay standing. A soft look of enjoyment contrasted against his slightly reddened and sweaty face.
"If you stand up straight your lungs can expand further and you'll catch your breath more quickly." He said while dusting her off, still making sure she stayed standing. "Did you hurt yourself?"
Kaira turned away to hide her blush. He was so close. She could feel the muscles running up his arms into his hands, holding on to her. Was it weird that she didn't want him to let go?
"I-I'm fine. Just scraped my knees. How do you keep going like this?"
"Practice," his voice was way too chipper this early after this kind of exercise, "I've been running since the start of middle school, when I set my mind on becoming a Hero. I was terrible when I started, much worse than you. And you've got the best Hero school in Japan to help you. You'll be catching up to me in no time."
"If you say so… You didn't have to stop for me, you know."
"I know, but I wanted to. It's the right thing to do. Friends look out for each other."
She smiled while her blush deepened. How had she managed to become friends with such a sweetheart of a guy?
"Well, thanks anyway. I appreciate it."
"Come, let's go sit and rest at that bench for a bit."
The bench was a low-effort, metal bench, right angles everywhere and uncomfortable to sit on, but the cool metal was all Kaira cared about. A wave of relief washed over her as the cold metal eagerly absorbed the heat radiating off her. She would like nothing better than to just spread herself out on metal construction and have as much contact with it as possible, but she needed to show some dignity in front of her crush. As much dignity as she could muster while sweating and just having fallen on the ground anyway.
Tora stayed standing, hands on his sides.
"Everything hurts! Even if you got better at it, how do you push through this crap? Punching stuff hurts as well, but that's just my knuckles and maybe my arms. Now, I hurt in places I didn't know could hurt." Kaira whined. Seeing Tora was going to stay standing, she laid down on the bench with as much decency as she could, keeping her lungs expanded as he had said while allowing her to rest her body as well.
"That's the pain of progress."
"Oh, don't start with that motivational nonsense!"
"But it's true though. Training basically breaks down your muscles, so they can grow back stronger. There's a lot of medical jargon that I don't understand myself, but that's the gist of it."
"Really? That's weird. Why's the human body so weird?"
"I dunno, but it only got weirder when Quirks started appearing. Breaking just about every known natural law in existence tends to make things weird."
"You got that right."
They both laughed, not sure about what. They weren't talking about something funny. Maybe the situation was just absurd and that made it funny. They had just run their legs off and started talking about the strangeness of their world in a matter of minutes. Or maybe they were just happy. Relieved that despite what they, unknown to the other, felt for them, things did not get awkward between them
Whatever it was, they were happy in the moment and happy to be with each other.
Yui stepped through the gates that led to U.A. campus and could feel her spirit lifting. She always came early to spend some time on school grounds before classes started.
There were many reasons why she liked coming to U.A. It was the best Hero school in Japan, maybe even the world, and her being here validated that her wish to become a Pro Hero wasn't just some pipe dream. She had already made so many friends here and loved hanging out with them. But most of all was the freedom they had on campus. Out in the world, Quirks were heavily regulated. Using your Quirk was forbidden unless you had a license to use it, and even then they were usually very restrictive. A Hero license being the most permissive, but it also put a ton of responsibilities on your shoulders. All of that fell away on U.A. grounds. Here they were allowed to freely use their Quirks, within reason of course.
With a sigh of relief, she unfolded her wings, the tiny scales glittering in the morning sun. She took one more daintily step, pushed off on her toes and let her wings carry her through the air. She had done this almost every day since she'd gotten accepted, but the feeling of liberation never diminished. The rush of wind through her hair and antennae felt amazing and seeing the buildings pass underneath her was like dream come true. Some of the birds had grown used to sharing airspace with her and flew up behind her to make use of her slipstream. She dove down to pluck a flower and with perfect grace flew back up in the blue vastness.
Yup, she loved this. She loved this more than anything in the world. Well, not anything, but those were thoughts for later. Right now she was enjoying flying too much.
After a few more minutes of flight she landed on top of one of the buildings and took a deep breath. She let the adrenaline subside and looked around. Lost in the moment, she hadn't noticed where she was flying to and just now saw she had ended up on the rooftop of one of the dormitory buildings.
She heard something. Well, not quite. She sensed something. Her antennae allowed her to pick up vibrations in the air. Usually it was just a lot of white noise of the surrounding area, but she had learned to isolate certain wavelengths she was familiar with and she sensed something she was very familiar with: Tora's voice. Better yet, he was laughing. She loved his laugh. It was a warm laugh, one that invited you to join in. A laugh that you could cuddle on a cold winter night to keep you warm.
She looked over the edge of the building and saw her friend standing next to another classmate that was lying down on the bench. The classmate's skin colour was a dead giveaway to her identity. Even from up here, it was clear Netsuka was laughing along with Tora. An unfamiliar feeling overcame Yui, a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to jump between them and interrupt whatever joviality they were having.
Yui took a step back in surprise. What had come over her? She wasn't this spiteful of a person. She wasn't the only one that could have a good time with their class rep.
She decided to jump down to the duo nevertheless. Not to interrupt, but to join them and to talk to Tora before class.
"Good morning you two." she called out while she floated down.
Both sweaty teens turned to look at the mothgirl joining them.
"Oh, morning Yui. Where did you come from?"
"I was doing my morning flying and noticed you here. I see you decided to join him today Netsuka. How did it go?"
"It went fine," Kaira grumbled, "still getting used to running this much." Her mood had definitely soured the moment Yui had joined them. Why though? Whatever the case, she decided to brush it off as Netsuka not being a morning person. Tora had warned that she needed her coffee before she was 'safe to talk to'.
"Are we still good for your lesson tonight? I hope you didn't forget." Tora was a lot of things, but forgetful was not one of them, but she liked teasing him regardless.
"Oh no no, I've not forgotten at all. I even got some stuff ready that I'm having trouble wrapping my head around."
"That's great! I'm already looking forward to it." She smiled, rocking her body back and forth and holding her schoolbag behind her.
"While you two figure your tutoring out, I'm gonna go take a shower. Need to get ready for class." Kaira pulled herself off the bench. She was pretty sure the others could hear her peeling her sweaty skin off of the bench, but she didn't care. She wanted to get out of here. She and Tora had this wonderful moment. Why did Tobuga have to come and ruin it? She didn't dislike the girl, but her timing could be horrible at times.
"Oh crap! Right, school!" Tora smacked himself on the forehead. "I gotta go as well Yui. I'll see you in class and we'll meet up after school for tutoring, alright?" He yelled as he started running off after Kaira.
Yui weakly raised a hand and waved goodbye. She had done something wrong in Netsuka's eyes. That much was clear and Tora seemed oblivious or didn't let it show that he knew.
"Is everything alright? You got out of there quick." Tora asked when he caught up to Kaira.
"I'm fine," she huffed, "just tired. I'm still getting used to waking up early."
"You sure? You can talk to me if–"
"I'm fine, Tora." She emphasized, shutting down the conversation. "I need a shower and I hope you got some good food ready, cause I'm starving."
Kaira hummed as she entered the classroom. Her mood had improved considerably after the wonderful breakfast Tora had made. Though it may have more to do with that he made it than what he had made. An American breakfast of toast, bacon and eggs was nothing to write home about, but she was pretty sure Tora could make dry noodles taste like a five-star meal.
"Well, somebody's happy today~." Tsuchioru came up behind her, a mischievous smile adorning her face. "I recognize that expression! You've fallen in love!" She clapped her hands together and wiggled her body in excitement.
Kaira's expression fell like a brick. If Tsuchi figured out she had a crush on Tora, the entire school would know by tomorrow. She had to stop her, but she couldn't get a word in sideways with her friend's rambling.
"I wonder who it is. Is it someone from our class? Or maybe an upperclassmen. There's some cuties walking around there. Though you do strike me as liking the buff guys more. Oooh, maybe some rough man from the support course who's good with his hands. Have you told anyone yet? I bet you told Saotama. I'm gonna ask him. He can probably tell me more."
"No, Tsuchi, wait–" But she was gone before Kaira could do anything. She ran up to their president, jumping up and down and gestured wildly while she gave her lengthy explanation with undoubtedly her own fantasy running wild.
Kaira plopped down in her chair and put her face in her hands. So this is how it was gonna go? She wouldn't even get the chance to confess to him. He'd hear the gossip, gently turn her down and she'd have to pretend they were just friends, hiding her feelings for maybe the rest of her life.
Before long, Tsuchioru came walking back with possibly the smuggest smile Kaira had ever seen.
"I know who you liiiike~," she sang, "Saotama had no idea what I was talking about, so you didn't tell him anything and the only reason I can imagine you not telling him about your crush is because he is your crush. Am I right? Am I right? Come oooooon, tell meeeee."
"Fine! Just not so loud." Kaira slouched on her desk and murmured into her arms, "I have a crush on Tora."
"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" Yukai was jumping with excitement, "I've been calling it from our first week. Spending so much time together, you can only develop feelings love or hate for each other and you've been getting along well." She looked proud of her prediction as if she hadn't had theories of every possible pairing in class. "Anyway, you clearly haven't told him yet, so what's the plan? Are you gonna woo him with your raw sex appeal? Oooh, or are you going to leave a note in his locker to meet up on the roof and confess to him there? I so love a romantic cliché. Or are you–"
"I'm going to do nothing. He doesn't like me like that. He likes Tobuga. He hangs out with her even more than he does with me."
"Whaaaat?! Where'd you get that idea? They hang out because they're class rep and vice-rep."
"Then why is she going to tutor him after school today? I could've done that too, but he didn't ask me."
"Because… She suggested it? You really don't pay attention to what happens in class, do you?"
"Oh…" Kaira looked dumbfounded. Maybe her case wasn't completely lost then. She pumped her arms. Yeah! She could do this. She just had to find a way to make Tora see how she felt.
"There we go! That's the Netsuka I know. Now," Tsuchioru pulled Kaira out of her seat, spun her around and pushed her towards Tora, "you got a confession to make."
"W-w-wait? What? I'm not confessing to him yet. I-I'm not ready."
"Sure you are. It's just like punching things. Take a deep breath and say it."
"B-b-but–"
"Oh hey, Kaira, Tsuchioru. What's going on?"
Kaira stood petrified in front of Tora. He and his two friends were looking at her with confused looks on their faces while she was glowing teal.
Tsuchioru popped out from behind her with a toothy grin. "She has something important to tell you, don't you Netsuka?"
"I uh… I w-wanted to t-tell you that…" Tell him. Tell him! She could do it. Just three simple words. That's all she had to say. He was looking straight at her so expectantly. Why did this feel so much worse than any other time. Was he hoping for her to say it? Why was she even so nervous? This wasn't like her. Now was her chance to be the first to confess to him, but… "That I… That I'm sorry for my behaviour this morning. I shouldn't have been so irritable. Please forgive me." She bowed forward in apology, hiding her blushing face. Tsuchioru sighed with disappointment behind her.
"That's quite alright. You're still getting used to waking up that early. It's okay to be grumpy on so little sleep. I happily accept your apology." Tora's smile melted her heart all over again. Without saying another word, Kaira scurried off to her seat and hid her face in her arms.
"Well, at least we tried." Tsuchioru joined her shy friend again, looking disappointed. "I'm surprised you didn't just blurt it out though. That's the first time I've seen you hesitate like that." She cupped her chin in thought. "I was sure that was gonna work."
"Because you didn't give me time to prepare!" Kaira snapped back. "At least tell me what you're going to do."
"Since when do you need time to prepare? In class you always want less time to prepare."
"Because this isn't school stuff." Kaira's long ears fell beside her face and her voice turned to a whisper. "What if he doesn't like me and it gets awkward between us? If he says no he'll doubt how close he can get to me without giving me false hope. He'll probably want to keep his distance then and I don't wanna lose what we have now…"
"Man, you got it bad, huh? Think about it this way. You're worried about him saying no, but what if he says yes? How would that make you feel?"
"I-I dunno. I think I would be really happy. We held hands yesterday and–"
"Waitwaitwait. You already held hands, but you're not sure he likes you. Are you crazy?!"
"It wasn't like that! Neither of us were aware that we were holding hands and the moment we did we jumped away from each other." Kaira fiddled with her hands and a goofy smile appeared on her face, but it quickly disappeared as she continued. "It felt really nice, but he seemed so apologetic. I don't think he wanted to hold my hand. I probably grabbed it subconsciously and he was too busy to notice…"
"What's gotten into Netsuka?" Itsuki turned back to Tora from looking at the two girls. "She's been acting strange lately, but that was even more out of the ordinary."
Tora looked worried. His brow furrowed deep, lost in thought.
"Tora?" He was pulled out of his thoughts by Itsuki shaking him. "Did she tell you anything? You're close to her, aren't you."
"Yeah, but she hasn't told me anything. She tried to last week and I think that just now was another attempt. I have no clue though."
It looked like he'd have to figure out his feelings, if there were any, later. Right now, Kaira was struggling with something and he needed to help her.
Teiden looked on with a knowing smile. He could probably just tell Tora what Kaira was struggling with, but he'd rather let this grow naturally. She'd kill him if he said anything anyway. No, this was something he'd just have to enjoy from the sidelines. If only he had some popcorn…
I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter, but you can keep fiddling with something and it will never be what you want it to be, so tell me know what you guys think. Is it not as good as it could be or am I full of crap and is it great? Let me know
