"Mineta!"
Taking off his tiny, purple mask, Minoru Mineta stared upward with a small smile. The happy acknowledgement from his pink teammate had made him feel strange, weirdly awake—so much so that the victorious ranting of Bakugou and unsure stutters from Midoriya had been completely drowned out, the proud room of 1-A boys feeling all silent and empty.
He remembers his stubby legs rushing and shouting for her to look out, as his cute grape shield stopped a speedy wheel with a dash of Twin Impact from hitting her, Mineta would be asking for a miracle to stop it himself. But the great Grape Buckler had saved them both from a ton of pain!
The short boy had to admit, that was sort of cool. But in that moment that he glanced up, before couldn't even compare.
Mina Ashido smiled at him.
For some reason, that simple gesture had been trapped in his head. For the rest of the match. After that match, and stayed even now.
Despite getting an accidental cheekful of breasts that he really didn't want for some strange reason, none of that feeling had stuck at all, even though she was a solid third on his 1A hottie list.
This is so unlike you, Grape Juice! Remember it, remember it, the softness, not her cute face!
Wait a minute—had he just called her face cute?
The usually pervy brain desperately tried to get back on track, scanning and searching a blurry trail to bring up any memory of that once-in-a-lifetime moment. A blurry trail indeed, and it all just lead back to her cute, pink face. Her cute expression, that he'd caused.
Mineta couldn't explain one bit of it, but it was just...a cute face. Bright and adorable, round and perfect. Nothing like the word "cute" had ever come to his mind in his vocabulary of girls, and what did…well, Mineta wouldn't elaborate for everyone else's sake. Without a doubt, it left his mind running in loops.
Maybe it was the sparkle in her yellow eyes, or the way her expression dazzled him, or the high holler of his name—but it stirred a warm feeling deep inside him that was so foreign he couldn't begin to understand.
Man, I don't get this!!
Though…thinking about it had also filled his heart with happiness—like dashing in to help really had been worth something. Like this journey from a whim might mean something more, he had felt something so much different, and he almost wanted more. Damn, Midoriya had really been rubbing off on him all these months, but Mineta was okay with that.
"OK! I've gotta get better, Minoru Mineta!" he declared to himself, punching a yellow glove up. But unfortunately for him, he'd made it known to the whole locker room. With a red face, he shrunk up with a pink face, trying to forget he had uttered such an embarrassing thing.
He felt the friendly pat of his partner-in-crime "Hoo, that's great to hear, Mineta!" Kaminari grinned at him as he took off his yellow glasses. But then his expression straightened out, as the rest of the class looked at the purple boy.
"What brought that on, though? You've been kinda quiet since your match ended."
As expected of his best friend! Wow, he had really been an open book the whole time…damn you, Ashido. Heat started to creep up on his face again as he looked up to Kaminari, chuckling embarrassedly.
"Sorry…just thinking about stuff from before." he answered, before looking at his gloves again with an optimistic grin.
Kaminari hummed, quickly noticing the wild difference in him—seeing him look so light was almost unreal. But a part of him told him that something great would come from this, as he gave a grin and 1A resumed changing into their uniforms.
Mineta couldn't make sense of any of this, no. Not the small beats of pint-sized heart or the weird heat spreading through strongly, unlike any other. He felt himself missing seeing that kind of look. Daresay, it felt more amazing than all of his old schemes put together. Was he smitten or head over heels, or just stupid? He didn't know at all. But just earlier, when he had saved her…
Mina Ashido was smiling at him—genuine and chipper.
If there was any way for him to see it again, working just a little bit harder was a small price to pay.