This was probably the closest he'd ever been to a girl.
Naturally, after he tamed the slightly feral Rumi, she had decided that what was his was hers, and what was hers, was still mostly hers. This meant that not only were they sharing text books, but that she was sharing his desk, her chair pulled in close enough that their hips were touching the entire time. Which wasn't that big of a deal—except it kind of was—but it was hard not to notice.
Was his first crush going to be this foul-mouthed-violent-and-slightly-crazy bunny girl? He didn't want to say yes, but puberty—and Rumi—might have other plans. For now, he was just happy to have a friend in this place. It felt downright claustrophobic at times, and not just because they were a dozen kids over the classroom limit.
There was just this general sense that everyone here was walking on eggshells.
It honestly made running from the police seem like fun. At least then he didn't have to pretend to be normal.
His senses tingled as the teacher continued to give a lecture on mathematics. The formula on the board was pretty easy to understand; it was just a pendulum's motion, and how its position and speed would be changed by a second object in the middle of the string.
Basically it was just a double layer—
Right! His phone!
His hand flew to his pocket, giving him just enough time to silence it right as it started to ring and vibrate.
Their teacher stopped, a sharp look in his eye as he turned to glare at the class with a look that all but demanded silence. Or coffee. For a long moment, that glare was focused directly on Izuku while the rest of the class also looked their way.
Then Rumi moved in her chair, making it squeak loudly. "Sorry, the chair is uh—"
The teacher held up their hand and returned to their lecture.
Rumi leaned close and scribbled an ominous note on his paper.
"You owe me."
Clearly Rumi was not above extortion.
The moment class was over, Izuku pulled out his phone and saw that there was a frightening number of messages all from a number that he had honestly thought came from a fever dream.
"Who's Mei?" Rumi asked, leaning in close and looking at his phone. She tucked a bit of her long white hair behind her ear and gave a wicked smile. "Your girlfriend?"
"No." But he did know her three measurements.
"You sure? She's texting you like one."
"You make it sound like you've had experience with a girlfriend."
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't." She gave a haughty huff and shrugged. "Who's to say?"
Well that was a thought.
"Well, no, Mei's just a uhh." Izuku blinked as he stared at the text Mei sent him and angled his phone away from Rumi's prying eyes. "She's just a friend."
"You're acting like she's your drug dealer."
That might be more legal. No, instead Mei wanted to meet him. Apparently she had a new 'baby' for him to test out, which, if her prototype was anything to go by, was either going to be promising, a complete let down, or both. Still, he was excited to see what she had in store for him.
After a quick confirmation that he'd be there tonight, Izuku pocketed his phone and acted like he didn't just make a deal to meet with a bootleg weapons dealer.
He shouldn't refer to Mei like that.
Actually, maybe he should; he really didn't know much about her.
…besides her three measurements.
"Hey!" Rumi punched him—lightly—in the shoulder, and pouted at him. "What's with that look on your face? are you going to tell me what happened?"
"She just wants to meet up, is all."
"So she is your girlfriend!"
"Nope."
"Drug dealer?"
"No, that's me."
Rumi snorted, "Pfft, that explains why you came out of a dead end alley with your shirt untucked."
"You caught me." He gave a short awkward laugh and rested his head against his desk for a moment. Last night had been nothing but running around pointlessly looking for crime to fight. But, he couldn't find any. Which would have been good, as it meant that it was a quiet night.
But last night wasn't quiet.
There had been a massive bank robbery, and several other large crimes committed that night. All of them quirked. He had just been unaware of them until he watched the news. Maybe he'd need to get some kind of police scanner so he could at least know when shit was going down?
"Hey, so, do you know what club you're going to join?" Rumi tapped on their desk, her expression practically oozing boredom.
"I was thinking of the 'go home club', but apparently that's only a middle school thing." Izuku leaned back in his seat and listened to his classmates all have their own conversations in the room while they waited for the next period. "Football (soccer) could be fun again, but I think I want to do something else."
"Like what?" Rumi asked, her ears twitching even though they were still tied up in a ribbon.
Ideally, it would be something that would give him an excuse for coming home late without actually requiring that he be there, but clubs like that wouldn't be exactly useful. Really, he needed something that would help him fight. He blinked, and then smiled. "Something violent."
"Oooh, go on."
XXXX
"Kota! Bring that hose over here!"
"Yes sir!"
It was frustrating.
Kota rushed towards the fire truck, the countless hours of training he had undergone being put to great use as he knew exactly where to go and what to do during the initial stages of fire control. He flipped open the heavy metal lid and drew out one of the long, ugly brown hoses that had more than a few patches along it. The hose would leak; even the newer hoses tended to do that just a bit because of the sheer amount of water they moved. He found the hydrant and began the process of securing the hose to the pump. His heart was racing as two other members of his crew came to help him with the set up. They all knew their part to play.
But it was so frustrating.
With a thought, he could unleash just as much water as this hose would from one hand. His quirk was made for this. It was why he wanted to be a firefighter. He had hoped, dreamed, and prayed that one day, he would be able to use his quirk to save people. He could be up in that burning building right now, saving people extinguishing flames with the flick of a wrist while being far safer than aimlessly spraying a hose.
With the hose secured, Kota began to unroll it all the way back towards the fire. An older family home had caught fire and needed to be extinguished before it spread to its neighbors.
"Udon! Water!" Kota shouted as he angled the nozzle towards the flames.
He could already be doing this!
He could already have that fire out!
He knew it!
He could feel the water inside of him storming, just eager to be unleashed against something. Was this what doctors were calling 'The quirk itch'? The need for quirked people to use their quirks?
It felt like such a basic human right.
The hose filled with water, and in less than a second, a stream erupted from the nozzle, nearly sending him back were it not for his training and some natural understanding of how to stand against water pressure. The chief ran over and helped secure the hose, aiming it towards the flames closest to breaching the property line. The house would likely be lost, but the fire would be stopped before it could spread.
"Remember your training, Kota!" The chief said over the roaring hose, a smile on his aged face.
Kota nodded, and once the aggressive flames were quelled, he adjusted the hose nozzle to aim it inside the building, the stream widened and effectively blanketing the inside of the building with a torrential downpour that smothered the flames through brute force.
The flames were quelled in short order, and the clean up process began.
"Sir." Kota approached his chief with a bit of reluctance, his helmet in his hands.
"Ahh, Kota!" The chief gave a great big smile and placed an arm around Kota's shoulder. Despite the older man being a fair bit shorter than him, there were still decades of strength in the chief's form. "You did well today, and the others have been listening to you as well."
"Yeah, umm, about that Chief." Kota scratched the back of his head. His hands were a bit on the moist side. "You see, you know I'm quirked, right?"
The Chief's smile vanished and his general cheerfulness completely disappeared, his arm sliding off of Kota's shoulder. "Aye, your physical said as much, but I let you in my crew despite that disability of yours because you passed the test with flying colors. So don't bring it up again."
"But that's just it sir." Kota held out his hand and aimed downward, summoning a constant stream of water from his hand. "This is my quirk. It's—"
"No." The Chief growled, his fists clenched tight. "I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no. And if you ever bring—" he gestured towards Kota's hand, "—that freak shit up again, not only will I never let you be captain, I'll kick you off the crew and make sure you're arrested."
Kota stopped the flow of water coming out from his hand and let his shoulders slump as he watched the chief walk into the now destroyed house for inspection.
It was so fucking frustrating.
XXXX
When it came to after school clubs, it felt like the majority of students were picking team sports like baseball, football, or track and field, and there was even some draw to kendo or archery, though a lot of non-physical clubs were probably just as popular. But the club that stood out to Izuku and Rumi seemed like the majority of students were avoiding it.
Karate.
For Izuku, his reason for joining was to learn how to throw a punch without breaking someone's arm. For Rumi, well, he was pretty sure that she just wanted to punch people. Or that she was just following him around because she was bored and they were friends.
Either way, when they reached the Karate club room, they found that while the room was clean and in order (despite the mats being more patch than actual mat). There were surprisingly few students in the room. There was a tall, orange-haired girl guiding a smaller blue-haired girl through some stances, a blonde girl that was in their grade but in a different class, and then there were the two in the center: a very familiar blonde haired boy, and the red-haired boy he was currently flipping over his shoulder.
"Oh!" Mirio Togata of the Disciplinary committee raised a hand and nodded towards them. "If it isn't the two trouble makers from a few days ago!"
"I didn't do anything." Rumi huffed, crossed her arms, and turned her head to the side, exposing to the entire world her tsundere side.
"It's nice to see you again, Senpai."
"Hehe." Mirio rubbed his nose as he approached them. "Still not used to people calling me that, but I guess I'll get the hang of it. Are you two here to join the Karate club?"
Izuku nodded. "Yeah, it sounded like fun."
"I just like the idea of hitting people." Rumi, muttered unhelpfully.
"Itsuka-senpai!" Mirio shouted toward the tall orange-haired girl and waved her over. "We got two new recruits for you to scare off."
"I'll scare you off!"
Izuku blinked and stared at his newest upperclassmen. Why did it feel like all the girls in his life were going to be inclined to violence?
Itsuka was tall, green-eyed, and had a long orange ponytail that extended all the way to her butt. She had a serious look on her face as she stood in front of Izuku and Rumi, her hands on her hips. For a moment, she just stared at them before she sighed. "Alright, well, what's your reason for joining the Karate club?"
"I want to hit people and not get in trouble!" Rumi raised her hand and bounced on her feet.
"Go to the boxing club then!"
"They won't let me in."
"Why?"
Rumi sighed and pulled on her ribbon, freeing her long bunny ears from containment. "I can't wear the head guard, and you know, the whole quirk thing."
That gave Itsuka pause and she gave a slight sigh before looking at Izuku. "And you?"
"I…" Izuku bit his lip and looked at his fist. "I want to learn how to fight without hurting people."
Itsuka blinked at him. "Do you have any idea how little sense that makes?"
He shrugged.
"Alright, well, I do need more first years besides Ryuko over there," Itsuka gestured to the blonde girl that gave a slight eep in response, "so let's go fill out some paperwork. Oh, and there's going to be two conditions for you to join."
"What are they?" Rumi asked, a sour look on her face.
Itsuka snapped her fingers and her hand doubled and then tripled in size as she revealed her quirk. "You, Bunny Girl, no hiding your ears here. If they get in the way, we'll deal with it, but it shouldn't matter."
Izuku would have thought Rumi would have been happy about that, but she looked rather unsure.
"And me?" he asked, still looking at Itsuka's giant hand.
"You're going to tell me why you really want to learn Karate at some point."
AN: So, this is going to be the last update I do for this story on FFN, with all future updates being for Ao3 only. Why? Because I'm leaving FFN because I can't turn off guest reviews and people are using that to attack me. I'm so tired of the near constant harassment I've been getting for damn near two years now on this site. Special shout out to "YouKnowWho" who I don't actually know who they are, and to my stalkers on reddit, ya'll win.
Anyways, here's my twitter. Yoji19816784
You can find a link to my Ao3 there. Sorry to those of you that have been supportive of me on here, but, I'm just so tired of it Yo. I hope you can still enjoy my stories over on Ao3.
(There will be one last update for Blood Ink and maybe a few others here as well)