As usual, archives is small stories that I couldn't include in the main storyline but ARE canon. Next true chapter is as usual on Tuesday. And now, let us see what the best wingman is doing.
(xx)
FALSE LOVERS' BEST FRIEND AND…
False Lovers' Best Friend and Class Cleaning
"… And then Tooru kicked him in the balls." Mustard concluded. Dark Shadow's laughter roared upward as the shadow beast bent backward and started rolling on the ground.
"Hagakure truly is a master of maneuvering in the shadow." Tokoyami sagely said. "I hope I never have to face her unaware."
"Yeah last thing we need is for her to send your balls to meet your stomach." Dark Shadow less sagely provided, and the two students shook his head.
"Must you be so crass?" Tokoyami asked.
"Well one of us has to." The shadow monster replied with a shrug, with Mustard laughing heartily at the back and forth while Tokoyami shook his head. As they walked down the corridor, heading for home after the day of class, they spotted Present Mic. They both waved at him and he stopped.
"Good day listeners!" He shouted back, before wincing, "Ugh, still hurts. Ow. Can I ask you two a favor actually?" He added.
"Sure." Mustard nodded. Himiko had already left with Yaoyorozu and Uraraka for the station while he stayed behind for cleaning duty, and Izukun had done the same with his bodyguards. 'He seemed under the weather today. If he is like that tomorrow too, I will try to push for some answers.'
"Of course." Tokoyami added, with Dark Shadow giving a thumb up.
"Great! See, I need to print three hundreds of those." He said, walking into the teachers' room and coming out with a leaflet that Mustard recognized as one of the Sports Festival's publicity pamphlets. It not only listed the day of the event, but also the timeline for the First, Second and Third year individual events, as well as the base ticket prices and the price of food and beverages at the arena. "But uhm, today's training has left me a bit sore in the back."
"What training are you doing, Professor?" Mustard asked curiously.
"I'm not." He said with a sad expression.
"But you said…"
"I said it was training. Never said it was mine." He replied, and Mustard hummed. So a student? Must have been a skilled one if he got to train with a Pro Hero and actually pushed him that much. Probably a Second or Third Year. "Anyway, with my back still hurting and the tiredness from Recovery Girl's healing, carrying three hundred papers can be quite difficult. Do you mind doing it for me? I can start the printer and you then take them to Hound Dog's office."
Mustard nodded, and Yamada led them inside the teachers' room, sitting down at his desk, he started the printer and the papers started to pile. The two picked them up and after saying goodbye to their teacher walked out toward the other Hero's office.
On their way, they passed by another class, spotting inside a girl still cleaning. "Uh, isn't it a bit late for that?" Mustard asked Tokoyami.
"Indeed. The sun will soon prepare to set and the darkness shall encroach on us all." He nodded.
"He means yes." Dark Shadow provided, and Mustard nodded, before stepping in the room.
"Are you ok?" He asked. The girl in question had white hair, and jumped in surprise hearing the two walk in.
"Ah!" She blinked, and Mustard suddenly recognized the equally white eyes.
"Hana?" He asked.
"Ah! M-Mustard, hi?" She tried, waving slowly, "What are you doing?"
"We are taking those to Hound Dog's office." He said, showing the pile of papers, "What about you?"
"W-Well, it was my turn, along with a classmate of mine, to clean up class, but she had something important coming up and asked me to cover for her, so…"
"But why are you still here? We were on duty too and we finished half an hour ago." Mustard pointed out.
"Well, I think it was an accident but some of my classmates have dropped ink around the class, and it's proving really hard to remove, so…"
"How many of your classmates?" Mustard ask, getting a hint of something wrong in that story.
"Five of the girls?" She scratched awkwardly the back of the head, "B-But I'm sure it's nothing."
"Mh… Just to ask, how popular are you in the class?" He asked, sending a glance at Tokoyami, who nodded. They had reached more or less the same conclusion apparently.
"I-I wouldn't say I'm popular, though some of the boys c-call me 'c-c-cute' or 'p-p-p-precious'…" She turned into a stammering mess. Was it weird that Mustard thought she was Izuku's relative that acted the most like him despite knowing she was adopted?
Either way, it was painfully obvious what was going on here. He sighed. "Tokoyami, can I ask you and Dark Shadow to take care of this?" He said, showing the papers, "I think she can use some help."
"Of course." Tokoyami nodded, "I'll be back and try to get some bleach on the way." Dark Shadow dutifully picked up the stack of paper Mustard had been carrying, walking away, while Mustard walked to the closest drawer to recover another mop.
"What are you doing?" She asked, confused.
"I'm helping you." He replied, pushing the mop in the bucket of water, "I really don't like what those girls are doing, you know? It…" He sighed, "It brings back bad memories. Let's just sort this out, alright?"
Hana nodded, and they both started mopping two different patches of ink. "Thinking about it, couldn't you just use your Quirk to clean those off?"
"M-My Quirk removes everything from a surface, and some of this stuff spilled on the walls, the desks or the drawers. If I use it, it would pull the paint off the wall, for example." She sighed, "Also, it's an area-of-effect Quirk, so I can't fire it with precision…"
Mustard hummed. It made sense, he supposed. He sighed and returned to cleaning in silence. This gave him time to think. 'What am I doing? I wanted to become a Villain, and here I am cleaning the floor of a random class in a Hero School.' He sighed. "By the way, if an 'accident' like this happens again, make sure to tell your classmates that your friends in the Hero Course will help you." He said. It was weird to say about the adoptive daughter of a Yakuza boss, but Mustard was fairly sure she wasn't going to swing around her status, so he needed to solve this before things got bad.
'Izuku better pay me back for this.' He told himself, walking back to the bucket.
And promptly stepping on a patch of wet floor and falling forward.
Hana, who had been standing right in the way of his fall, got dragged down, and the two fell together in the most classic cliché in romcom history, proudly standing next to such pillars as 'accidentally switching bags' and 'forgetting the umbrella the day it starts raining'.
Of course the fact this was a cliché wasn't helping Mustard as he found his face inches from Hana's, the girl looking up at him stammering and blushing.
"I'm sorry…" He managed to say.
"I-I-I-I…" Hana repeated.
Mustard looked at her, panting and blushing some more.
Looked at himself, looking like he had just pinned her down.
He sighed in resignation knowing what was coming.
Tokoyami opened the door. "I'm back…" He stared at them both, "Uh. Should I… come back later?"
"Would you believe me if I told you this was all a wild coincidence?"
"You have a hand on her breast man." Dark Shadow pointed out, and Mustard's hands both immediately shot upward while Hana's hand covered her face that was turning supernova red.
"It's not what it looks like." Mustard repeated, standing back up.
Tokoyami hummed, helping Hana up.
Dark Shadow gave him a thumb up.
Mustard sighed again.
-x-
Half an hour later, the classroom was finally clean of all the ink, and they had managed to dodge further embarrassment. "Are you going to be ok going home this late?" Mustard asked.
"Y-Yes, no problem, my brother can pick me up anyway." Hana replied with a nod, "Thank y-you for helping me today…" She blushed madly once more, and he nodded.
"No problem, no problem, Izukun would have done the same." He replied, walking away, along with Tokoyami, looking at her walking in the opposite direction.
Maybe he could pretend this had never happened.
"Could you not tell anyone?" Mustard asked Tokoyami.
"I can." Tokoyami nodded, "But your dark secret is unfortunately going to be told to the herald of love by my dark powers."
Mustard was about to ask what he meant when he saw Dark Shadow levitate to his right, phone in hand. "Yo, Mina!" He said, receiving a strangled gasp from Mustard and a resigned sigh from Tokoyami, "You'll never believe what happened…"
Mustard was a good friend. He was a really good friend.
That was the only reason why he didn't strangle Tokoyami then and there to kill Dark Shadow.
-x-x-x-x-x-
False Lovers' Best Friend and the Mechanic
"What did you do?!" Mustard shouted, slamming his Projectile Launching Multifunctional Support item that was definitely not a revolver on the workbench in front of a smiling Hatsume Mei, goggles covering her face.
"Me?"
"Yes, you!"
"Do I know you?" Mei asked, tilting her head to the side.
"I'm…"
"Oh my gosh, what a beautiful baby!" She said, holding the gun Support Item in her hands almost like a mother with her child, "Oh, I remember you, we met at the mall right?" She asked, still looking down at the weapon.
"Yes!"
Mei looked up, "Oh, we did too? I was talking with this baby."
"I- You know what, forget it. Just explain what you did to my ba- to my g- to my Support Item." He said.
"Are you ok? You stammered a lot there. That doesn't sound normal." She replied, "There really are some weird people in this school."
"The Support Item…" He managed to say through gritted teeth.
"Oh, right! So, what's the problem?"
"It doesn't shut! That's the problem!" Mustard pointed it at a pile of scraps on the side of the room, clicked the trigger, and nothing happened.
"Did you turn the gun safety off?" She asked.
"Of course I turned the gun safety o- this isn't a gun." He replied.
"Wait, it's not a gun?" She started looking at it up and down, "No I'm sure this is a gun. It's a beautiful baby." She nodded, "And it's also a very well kept baby. You take good care of it."
"Thank you. But that's… uh… Well anyway, you had it the other day and since then it has stopped firing."
Mei nodded and looked it up and down, before nodding. "Ah, I see the problem, you accidentally forgot to turn completely the weapon shift switch."
"The what now."
"Here." Mei turned the weapon around, pointing to a small switch next to the safety. It was almost invisible, but it read "Pistol" on one side and "Automatic" on the other.
"I repeat, the what?"
"So, you know how you can only shoot a bullet at once? That's so boring, right? So instead I decided to add an automatic function. Observe." She leaned down and came back up with a box of rounds, then moved the switch on automatic and charged all the bullets before aiming at the box of scrap. Six bullets shout out almost simultaneously, the hammer clicking madly as she did so. Without stopping she charged the weapon again, shooting another hail of six bullets. "See! Automatic fire!"
"That's… Wow, that's pretty cool!"
"Thanks. Now, I was thinking that we could make some other modifications. Or you could add another baby to your arsenal. You know, in case this one has a problem. I was thinking…"
"Mei!" Melissa shouted, rushing in the room.
"Oh hi Melissa!" Mei replied, waving gingerly, gun still in hand.
"Is that a gun?!" Melissa asked.
"No, this is a Projectile Launching Multifunctional Support Item." Mei replied, Mustard's eyes growing wide as he stared at her.
Melissa sighed. "Whatever it is, don't fire it inside. Mister Power Loader said that if he finds another hole in the walls he will force you to leave it there instead of fixing it."
"You fiend!"
She sighed, "Oh hey Mustard. What are you doing here?"
He made to reply, but Mei beat him to it, "Me and Masutaro are planning our next baby together!" The girl replied with a serious nod.
Unfortunately, she said that just as Himiko was turning the corner to enter the lab. The girl's eyes went wide and without uttering a single word she turned back around.
"I can explain!" Mustard shouted.
"I don't want to know what you do in your free time!" Himiko shouted back, without stopping for a moment before power walking away.
Mustard felt a mounting headache. "This can't get worse."
Pink hair and yellow horns appeared from behind the corner. "Hello, Masutaro, I couldn't help but overhear a very juicy conversation." She said.
Mustard whimpered.
-x-x-x-x-
False Lovers' Best Friends and Rainy Days
It was raining. Normally, this would have been unremarkable, but Mustard had the weirdest feeling that this was really important for some reason.
He sighed, preparing his umbrella to leave the school, and stepped out.
That was when he spotted Tooru, her umbrella clearly broken if the fact it was currently boomerang shaped was any indication. "Are you ok?" He asked.
"No. My umbrella is broken." She said. Yeah, fair, Mustard could have guessed that himself.
"What happened?"
"… I spotted Mineta and Kaminari trying to peak at some girls and bashed them in the head with it. Unfortunately, umbrella-kun had to die for the cause of all womenkind." She said, sighing. Mustard pinched the bridge of his nose and swore then and there that he would castrate Mineta and Kaminari then and there.
"Weird that Kaminari got involved."
"Well he was just holding up Mineta so he could peek through the window."
"Ah, makes sense. Did you hit them hard?" He asked.
"Yeah."
"Good. So, uhm, any plan for the whole 'rain' thing now?"
"I guess I will just wait for someone with an umbrella big enough." She replied with a sigh. And then she looked at him. Mustard had the weirdest feeling that she was telling him something.
He glanced at the umbrella he was holding.
She glanced at it too.
Back to her.
Back to him.
Back to the umbrella.
'Oh right.' "… Want to come with me?"
"Thank you!" She replied, moving under the cover. "I just need to go to the station."
"What a coincidence…" He muttered, trying in as manly way as possible to sound unbothered. He wasn't. He was very, very bothered by the girl that was basically snuggling to him. Granted, she was invisible and he couldn't see anything, but she had her arm intertwined with his and her hair were touching his face, bot testament at how close she was.
They walked out of the school and he was just busy trying to figure out why his brain was trying to tell him that the girl he couldn't even see was cute.
"So." She asked, "I've heard the weirdest rumor this week."
"Really?"
"Yeah, they say you first were found fondling Hana in the middle of a classroom and then talking about making babies with Hatsume. Is that true?"
"… No?" He could tell she was staring at him with an unimpressed look, "Ok, I wasn't actually 'fondling' Hana, we fell and my hand landed on her chest."
Hagakure hummed.
"And Mei calls 'Babies' her Support Items, so she was talking about making a new one."
Hagakure chuckled, and Mustard sighed in relief.
Then he paused. Why had he just felt relief?
They walked to the station, him trying very hard to neither blush nor thing about the fact Hagakure's body was gently pressed against his own, and as they arrived he sighed and sat down on the train, Hagakure next to him.
"So, uhm…" She coughed, "Thank you for the ride. Can I… Ask you something?"
"Sure."
"After the Sports Festival, would you like to…" She looked out of the window, or so he figured given the way her neck turned to the window, "What I'm trying to ask is…" She sighed, "Want to see if Kaminari, Mineta and Tokoyami are free to go out for a day?"
Mustard blinked, then nodded. "Sure, that sounds fun." He said finally. He smothered the hint of disappointment he was feeling.
"Alright!" Hagakure said, suddenly cheerfully. "Thank you Sako!"
"No problem Hagakure." He replied with a shrug, "I'm sure we will have fun."
"Yeah." She nodded energetically, "Me too!"
Mustard nodded.
That would be fun.
-x-x-x-x-
False Lovers' Best Friend and his Best Friend
"… And that was my week, what do you think?" Mustard asked Izuku, the two teenagers sitting on Izuku's couches as they watched an anime on tv, "Weird, right?"
"So you are saying that this week you fondled Hana, got into a weird conversation with Mei and then walked to the station with Hagakure?" Izuku asked.
"Yep."
"… And you are saying that was a terrible week."
"It was all so embarrassing!" He shouted, "I wanted to just be part of the League – like my father – so why am I stuck in some… romcom shenanigans events generator without the actual romance part?! No one had a worst week!"
"This week I had to promise to join the Clan as a leader, only to save my cousin, who turned out to be an HPSC assassin that I then accidentally recruited into the Clan. And you are saying my week was better?"
"Geez, no need to say it, I know you had a funnier week." Mustard replied.
Izuku's eye twitched.
If anyone asked, the All Might pillow that hit Mustard in the face had flown on its own.
(xx)
Aaaand, cut. That was it, Mustard's very busy week at ripping both the benefits and the horror of being the best friend of a romcom protagonist, making friends, and maybe even more. Just some short vignettes.
And yes, nothing on Uraraka's Vtuber past, that one has to wait.
Izuku really doesn't understand the woe of his best friend smh.