The evening went by fast for Midoriya and Jirou, as they continued to play their basses together. They talked about things related to heroes, school, and even life in general, before they both gasped when they caught eye of a Deep Dope themed clock on the wall. It was 11:00pm already.
"Oh wow! Time really does fly when you're having fun, right?" Midoriya said, as he took the bass off of his body.
"It sure does… I wish it wasn't a school night," Jirou said.
"School night… crap, I still have one more assignment to do for tomorrow!" Midoriya said.
"Me too, probably - actually I finished earlier today. Good night, Izuku," Jirou said with a frown.
Midoriya pushed himself up from his stool, taking his time to savor the moment. As he reached the doorway, he could have sworn that he saw a twinkle in Jirou's eyes.
"Good night, Kyouka," Midoriya said.
As he shut the door quietly, Jirou's frown turned into a feint smile. Not a cheeky grin when she cracked a joke, not a smirk when she teased someone. A true, small smile. She felt her eyes water a little as well.
"I've never had so much fun playing music before."
Midoriya, meanwhile, was already going to the elevator to head back to his room. He too enjoyed the evening, but he was stressed upon realizing that he would have to complete an assignment so late at night. Regardless, he smiled as he remembered their conversations, and cracked a laugh thinking about a joke Jirou had said.
As the doors of the elevator opened to the second floor, Midoriya stepped out, but was stopped in an instant by one of his floormates.
"Gasp! Izuku Midoriya, not in his room studying on a school night, this late in the evening? Okay, who were you with, you won't hide it from me this time! Tell me all about it, too!" Mineta said, as he rubbed his hands together.
"Um, how did you know I wasn't in my room, Mineta?" Midoriya said while he scrunched his eyebrows.
"I knocked on your door a few minutes ago to ask for some advice. So I went downstairs to check on the common room, and what'd ya know, you're nowhere to be found. So you had to be with some girl upstairs then!" Mineta said.
Midoriya was mortified. He was not naive of Mineta's daily thoughts, but he was even more creeped out by him suggesting… what he had said. What made it even worse for Midoriya was that he was upstairs with a girl, but not in any situation that Mineta would dream of.
"It was nothing, really! I was just hanging out with a friend, nothing else. I hate to cut this short, but I have to do some homework. I'll see you tomorrow," Midoriya said, dashing past his classmate as he entered his dorm room.
Mineta smirked as he saw Midoriya's reaction. "We'll see about that, you secret lover."
About an hour passed for Midoriya as he continued to work on his assignment. It was a math worksheet with ten problems related to algebra. Generally, he would knock out a worksheet like this in thirty minutes tops, but he was still on question seven. His mind raced as he tried to compute the problems.
All he could think about was Kyouka Jirou.
The night they had shared was filled with fun. Learning how to play bass, along with talking to her more and more about different things, was so enjoyable for him. He had plenty of nights like this in the past, especially with Uraraka and Ilda in particular. But it never ran this late on a school night. And he was never so absorbed by it after the fact, either.
Another half an hour passed, and he finally finished the worksheet. It was 12:30am. No normal eight hour sleep for him tonight. Ignoring that, he turned off the lights and climbed into bed. He was relieved to finally have all of the day's homework and studying off of the table.
But now in bed, with his eyes closed, his mind continued to focus on Jirou. The way she strummed the bass for each note. The way her hair whipped as she sang. The way she used her earphone jacks for small tasks.
It was everything to him in this moment.
He rubbed his eyes again, rolling around on top of his covers, trying to find a comfortable position to drift into sleep. One roll later, his eyes caught his All Might clock, which read 1:30am.
"I need you to slow down, brain! I need to sleep!" Midoriya said.
But his demand was to no avail. Another hour passed. He focused on her voice. Yet another hour passed. He thought about her trademark grin when she poked fun at him.
"Someone, please, help me…" Midoriya said.
Sleep finally came for Midoriya. When the hour exactly was, he had no idea, but he knew he did eventually drift off due to one thing - the dream he experienced.
In the dream, he sat in the classroom, and he was the only student in there at the time. Aizawa slammed his fists on the desk as the clock hit 8:00am.
"Damn it! Izuku, where the hell are all of your classmates? Are you the only one who cares about being a hero?" Aizawa said.
Midoriya was taken aback. While Aizawa certainly had chewed out students before, it was never as serious as this. It even rivaled the lecture Midoriya got all the way back in the Quirk Apprehension Test.
"I-I don't know, Aizawa Sensei. They all said - "
"You know what, I'm out. I got shit to do. Midoriya, go to Class 1B if you want. I don't even care anymore," Aizawa said, as he somehow ripped his sleeping bag in half and stormed out of the room.
"B-But Aizawa Sensei! I - " but it was too late. Aizawa was gone.
Midoriya did not even know how to respond to that meltdown. It was at this point that he realized that he was in a dream, as he saw that several features of the classroom he had meticulously studied over the past few months were different. There was no chalk board at the front of the room, the chairs were arranged in a different order, and there were twenty All Might posters plastered over the windows. Plus, Aizawa was acting different than his normal self, so Midoriya knew he had to be in a dream.
He moved his fingers and shuffled his feet. There was six fingers on his left hand, and his shoes were the brightest shade of yellow imaginable. This was his first lucid dream, so he took a few moments to gather his bearings. Just as he was about to get up from the desk to explore, he heard footsteps running towards him. Looking up to see who it was, he saw one of his classmates enter the classroom.
"Hey Izukuuu!" Jirou said with the widest smile he had ever seen anyone have.
"O-oh! Jirou - I mean Kyouka!" Midoriya said, as Jirou approached his desk towards the back of the room.
"I want to know something," Jirou said. She placed her hands on his desk.
Jirou's face was now inches away from Midoriya's. Before Midoriya could ask what she was doing, she placed her lips onto his. Midoriya's eyes shot wide open as she continued on, backing away after five seconds.
"U-u-u-uhh, what a-are you d-d-doing?!" Midoriya said as he backed his chair up.
Jirou grinned. "Even better than I thought. I've waited so long for this, green. When you left my room last night, I wanted to do that. But I couldn't. Wanna try it again?"
With this, Midoriya woke up. His heart was pounding and his bed was now a pool of sweat. He had never kissed anyone before, so to experience it in a dream - a lucid dream, nonetheless - was a very vivid experience. After he finally calmed down, he began to process what happened. He smiled. There was a twinge in his heart as he imagined if they had indeed "tried it again."
"I - I liked it?! I… don't even know what's going on anymore."
He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and turned off the alarm on his clock. A few swipes later, he composed a text message, and slammed the 'Send' button with his thumb.
Izuku Midoriya: All Might, I need your help as soon as possible. Like today during lunch if you could.
Before Midoriya could even turn off his phone, his mentor responded.
All Might: Sure, kiddo! See you then!
Midoriya shuddered. There was no denying what had just happened. Not only had he dreamed of kissing Kyouka Jirou, he also longed to do it again. In real life. And he would be seeing her in class in less than an hour.
He then heard a knock on his door.
"Please don't be Kyouka, please don't be Kyouka, please don't be Kyouka," Midoriya muttered under his breath.
Midoriya paused. When in the hell did anyone knock on someone's door this early in the morning, anyways? Usually everyone was running around to prepare for the day ahead.
"Bonjour, Midoriya. Are you okay? I heard you scream from next door," Yuga Aoyama said, still in his pajamas.
"Aoyama! I'm fine, thanks. Just… stubbed my toe, that's all," Midoriya said.
"Ah, I see. Well, I have to get ready to look sparkling and fabulous aujourd'hui! And that all starts with a healthy dose of cheese. Care for a piece?" Aoyama said, as he held a chunk near Midoriya's face.
"Nah - actually, sure," Midoriya said, realizing 'yes' was the only acceptable answer.
He plucked the cheese from Aoyama's hands, and the two parted ways. Midoriya remained in the hallway while chewing the hard, cold cheese, almost laughing as he tried to process his morning so far. He certainly hoped the rest of the day would go smoother.
"Hey, green."
Midoriya choked on the cheese. He recognized that voice from anywhere.
Kyouka Jirou entered the hall, already dressed up for the day. He noticed that she had a dash of makeup on as well, which was a rare sight to see from her. Midoriya's voicebox, however, was shut down. His face was exploding with warm colors of red and pink. He was trapped.
"Tomorrow I'm going home again for the night. Usually I tell everyone that it's to help my parents clean… okay, that's part of it, but it's also for a music lesson. Want to join? My parents could totally help you learn bass better than I ever could," Jirou said, as she smiled and twirled her left jack.
"I…"
Midoriya was exasperated. Minutes ago, he dreamed of kissing Jirou. Then, he thought Jirou was at his door, but it was just Aoyama. Now, Jirou was actually in front of him? He pinched himself to see if he was in another dream, but he felt pain, signifying this was reality. Realizing Jirou was still at his doorway expecting an answer, he hastily said anything he could manage to say.
"Of course I would, sounds fun!" Midoriya said.
"Cool, I'll pack the extra bass then. See you in class, Izuku," Jirou said.
As she walked away, Midoriya's knees were shaking. He had officially experienced the craziest morning of his life not involving a villain.
"Thinking about her again, huh? I'm still ready for the details, bro," Mineta said, walking out of his room to check on the commotion, but Jirou was long gone by the time he joined in.
Midoriya turned around and slammed the door to his room. Mineta scratched his purple head, and did the same. They both had to get ready for the school day ahead.
While they got dressed, Jirou was back in her room. She wiped off the makeup as she stared into her mirror.
"I can't believe he said yes. I-it's not like this is a date or anything, but still, it kinda - "
Her thought process stopped. Midoriya coming over to her house meant that he would be seeing her mother, Mika Jirou, once again. And he would be meeting her father, Kyotoku Jirou.
"What did I just do?!"
A/N: This is my favorite chapter yet, personally. I've never wrote out a dream sequence like that before, but I've always been fascinated by them, so I wanted to include one. I've never experienced a lucid dream before, unfortunately.
"When Our Passions Unite" has officially reached 100 FAVORITES! Honestly I can't believe that it's reached this milestone, but I'm so thrilled that you all enjoy it. Plenty of more chapters will be coming soon!
Next Wednesday, Midoriya gets a music lesson from the Jirou's, and what else will transpire? Thank you for reading, and thank you for the favorites, follows, and comments!