Izuku was perplexed.
He had tried to go to sleep for the past forty five minutes without success. At first he attributed it to residual fear over what Mineta might do to him in the night if he closed his eyes, but the more he thought about it, the more he came to realize that his thoughts kept circling back around to that strange fuzzy feeling he got around Mina. It had happened maybe a dozen times just during the session, and Izuku for the life of him couldn't figure out what it meant.
He certainly liked being around Mina, that much was readily admitted. She had a kind of boundless energy to her that, although hard to keep up with sometimes, made her very fun to hang out with. He'd laughed out loud at some of the random puns and wacky hijinks that Mina allowed herself to get up to as Joy, and he knew that would be just the beginning as the campaign went on. And more than that, she was just...really, really nice. When he'd first met her, of all of the Class 1-A girls, she reminded him of the handful of popular people that he'd learned to be wary of in middle school. The people who only interacted with nerdy, Quirkless losers like him because they needed something, be it homework, random errands, or just a cheap approximation of the warm feeling you get in your chest when you do a good deed. For that reason, he had been especially nervous around her, worried that she, and almost everyone else in U.A. for that matter, would fall into the same patterns as his previous classmates.
And yet...she didn't. Nobody did. When she talked to him, he didn't feel like he was being condescended to, or like there was some vague sense of danger in every word she spoke. Mina was an open book; she wore her heart on her sleeve, and he knew barely a minute into their first ever conversation that she wasn't going to trick him or pity him or use him for anything. He couldn't explain why he knew that for a fact, other than that he just...did. She seemed to genuinely care about him, in the same way that she seemed to care about each and every one of her classmates, with Mineta perhaps being an obvious exception. Mina was the shining example of someone that Izuku had thought only existed in fiction: a popular person who's popular simply because they're a good person. And of course, beyond that, she was strong, kind, passionate, funny…
Pretty.
Izuku's cheeks reddened at the thought. Where had that come from? I mean, he'd always thought that Mina was pretty, but he thought that about all of the girls in Class 1-A. In their own different ways, they were all very nice-looking people, as were many of the guys in 1-A. So why was it that he was starting to think about what made Mina pretty now?
The striking contrast of her brilliant golden pupils and black sclera, an inky blackness he could easily get lost in. The messy curls of her pink hair, which looked like they couldn't possibly be tamed by a hairbrush, but also that they almost shouldn't. That the random manner in which the curls were arranged from day to day, moment to moment, still managed to create hairstyles that seemed so uniquely Mina. The way her smile seemed to make even the darkest room just a bit brighter by its mere presence. The way she smiled her bright smile and giggled in her unique, bubbly fashion, which made it seem like the most natural thing in the world to her.
Izuku tried not to think about these things, but they kept coming back around inside his head, and with a start, he realized why this feeling felt so strange, yet also somehow familiar:
He'd felt something like it once before.
In the days between the U.A. Entrance Exam and the first day of classes, he'd found himself thinking about another pretty girl he'd met. A girl with rosy cheeks and gravity-defying brown curls. A girl who had a more subdued energy about her, and a less prominent beaming smile that managed to make him smile back almost without fail. A girl who made him begin to suspect that U.A. would be different than the schools he'd experienced up until then, even if he didn't want to believe it for fear of falling into a trap. A girl whom he saved, and who saved him in return. A girl who was willing to put everything she'd worked for on the line for a stranger she barely knew. A girl who became his first real friend.
In that time right before his life truly changed for the better, Izuku found himself thinking about that girl and getting a weird feeling in his chest. He'd assumed that this must have been what many of his peers had allegedly experienced when "crushing" on other people. After all, she was definitely very pretty, and he'd never felt that way about any of the other girls he'd met. He'd been left unsure how to deal with that feeling then too, worrying that he'd let it slip whenever he saw her again. And yet, when he finally did see her again, and they had time to talk, the feeling...disappeared. Not overnight, of course, but with every passing day it seemed to get a little fainter, until finally it went away almost completely. He and Ochaco's friendship was purely platonic, and after he saw the way Ochaco smiled at Tsuyu with their hands interlocked, he wouldn't have it any other way.
He wasn't quite sure whether that meant it just wasn't a very strong crush, or if he had mislabeled the feeling as something completely different than what it actually was. Perhaps it was more of a platonic crush for a girl that he really wanted to get to know better, which he had mistaken for romantic attraction because he had never had a friend who was a girl before. In any case, what he was feeling now was similar, but different than what he'd felt back then. And, he was willing to bet that if anyone would be willing and able to help him figure this feeling out, it was Ochaco.
Izuku: Hey, Uraraka. Sorry to interrupt Midnight Movie Night, but I'm kind of dealing with some weird stuff right now. It's, uh, it's about a girl in our class. I'm feeling...something, and I'm not quite sure what it is, or what to do about it. I was hoping you could offer some advice?
After a moment of silence, Izuku got back a reply.
Ochaco: Is the girl Mina?
Izuku gulped quietly. How did she figure it out so quickly? As he debated how to answer that, Ochaco sent another text about five seconds later.
Ochaco: If the answer's yes, that might complicate things.
Izuku: Uh...why?
Ochaco: Because she's sitting right next to my bed watching the midnight movie with us.
Izuku gulped again, a little louder this time. That definitely complicated things.
Izuku: ...So let's say the answer to that question is yes.
After a few seconds, Ochaco replied.
Ochaco: You're gonna need to give me a minute.
Ochaco sat in bed with her phone held securely in her right hand, her pinky finger set aside in order to keep the phone from floating. She quickly glanced over at Mina, whose golden eyes were glued to the screen, before turning onto her other side and meeting the eyes of her girlfriend lying beside her.
"Hey, Tsu. I'm in the mood for a midnight snack. Do you want anything?"
Although Tsuyu's eyes remained fixed onto the screen, and her long tongue remained fixed on its task of scooping up popcorn from a bowl resting on her stomach, Ochaco could tell her words had had an effect on the frog girl. Tsuyu knew Ochaco better than anyone she had ever met, and that relationship worked both ways. Tsuyu remembered the persuasion she had to employ just to get Ochaco to accept that Midnight Movie Night required popcorn, and that this was non-negotiable. As such, Tsuyu knew for a fact that Ochaco adamantly refused to have midnight snacks, other than Midnight Movie Night-sanctioned popcorn. Midnight snacks required you to eat more food than was strictly necessary to continue living, and food costs money. Eating more food than you needed to eat meant spending more money than you needed to spend. And Ochaco never spent more money than she needed to spend.
"See if there's any candy in the pantry. The popcorn is getting low," she replied completely deadpan, as clear a signal as any that Ochaco was free to leave for whatever she needed to do.
"Got it, babe," she said before leaning over and planting a quick kiss on Tsuyu's cheek. This done, she rolled over so she could look at Mina again. "What about you, Mina, you want anything?" she asked, to which the pink girl shrugged as she ate from her own separate bowl of popcorn.
"Nah, I'm good."
"Cool. Lemme know when it's revealed that the butler did it." As Ochaco moved to get up without requiring Mina to move, Mina scoffed playfully.
"Ochaco, we've been over this: it was the milk lady!"
"It was most definitely not the milk lady," Tsuyu replied before briefly looking away from the screen to look at Ochaco. "Be careful," she said, a habit she had fallen into after everything the two of them had been through.
"Always," Ochaco replied with a bright smile, the same way that she always did.
Her feet touched the floorboards and she exited her dorm room, phone still in hand, her texts carefully hidden from Mina's sight. When she managed to get to the elevator and the doors shut, leaving her alone, she punched in the button for the ground floor and moved to call Izuku. He picked up after two rings.
"Ah, uh, hey, Uraraka," Izuku began, making sure to keep his voice lowered. "Sorry, didn't expect you to call."
Ochaco chuckled. "You're 'feeling something' about Mina Ashido. A call is the only way we're going to have this conversation." Izuku chuckled awkwardly, but Ochaco knew he was growing incredibly nervous. "So, what's this feeling like, huh?"
"Uh, well, it's, ah...warm? Yeah, it's a kind of warm feeling in my chest, you know? Like, the kind of warm, fuzzy feeling that just makes you wanna start grinning like an idiot. And you kind of don't want it to stop-"
"Yeah, you're crushing on her," Ochaco interrupted completely deadpan, causing Izuku to sputter awkwardly on the other end. She tried not to laugh out loud as the elevator doors opened.
"Agh, uh, n-now hold on a second, how-?"
"Warm? Fuzzy? Grinning like an idiot? Congratulations: you just summed up my entire emotional reaction to dating Tsuyu Asui in ten seconds." As she spoke, Ochaco swiftly walked from the elevator down to the pantry, where she began to look around for some candy. Izuku was silent on the line for several seconds before Ochaco heard him take a deep breath.
"Okay, so, uh, assuming you're right-"
"I am."
"-w-what am I supposed to do?"
Ochaco shrugged. "Hell if I know, what do you want to do?" she asked, frowning slightly as the pantry appeared to yield no candy. She was ready to return empty handed when she noticed an unopened bag underneath the central table of the common area. "Huh, wow. Someone left a whole bag of chocolates down here," she said nonchalantly, to which Izuku stammered out a response.
"T-that was one of the snacks Kaminari got for our Dungeons and Dragons session tonight. He bought two, and everyone had had enough after clearing out the one. I guess they just forgot to pick it up."
"Sweet! You think he'll mind if I take it?" she asked.
"Uh, probably not. You can always text him and ask."
"Yeah, I'll do that in a minute," Ochaco said as she plopped down onto the couch. "Anyway, you didn't answer my question, Deku. What do you want to do?" She rolled her eyes with amusement as Izuku continued stammering before eventually coming up with something coherent.
"I-I don't know, I mean, what you and Tsuyu have sounds...really nice."
Ochaco chuckled before sighing wistfully. "Ha ha...yeah," she said, momentarily overcome with a similar feeling to what Izuku was experiencing.
"A-and...now that I think about it, having that, uh, with Ashido would be...really nice."
"Oh, totally, she's great! You two would be, like, insanely adorable."
"B-but it's not like that's going to happen, right?" he finished, an awkward chuckle failing to hide the slight pain in his voice. Ochaco, meanwhile, let out a short scoff, as if she'd just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world.
"Well, what makes you so sure of that?"
"I, uh...w-well, you know."
Ochaco's gaze hardened, and the way she spoke next sent a chill down Izuku's spine. No doubt the tone she used would be feared by many villains and heroes alike in the years to come.
"What do I know, Deku? Tell me," she said, as calmly as she could manage, every word carrying a threat that Izuku immediately understood.
Izuku stammered for a while before eventually mustering up the nerve to answer her. "I, uh, well, I-I'm just completely out of her league, it's-"
"False. Try again."
Izuku sat in stunned silence for a couple seconds in response to Ochaco's immediate and blunt dismissal, before attempting to speak again. "I-I can tell you for a fact that she doesn't feel the same way about me, that's just-"
"False. Try again."
"Look, I just know, okay? None of the people I've met in my life have been interested in me in that way, and Ashido probably isn't any different."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because I'm me!" Izuku snapped, catching Ochaco slightly by surprise as he continued. "I'm awkward, and I sweat a lot, and I mutter to myself without knowing it all the time, and I still get nervous just talking to any girl except you for too long, and I never know what to say or what to do with my hands and it's all just-!" Izuku paused for a moment, taking a breath before finishing his thought. "Who'd want to deal with all of that?"
Ochaco put her free hand to the bridge of her nose as she sighed deeply, trying to figure out how to respond to that as calmly as she could manage.
"Deku, you're my best friend, but I swear to God, I am this close to marching up there and slapping you upside the head right now." Ochaco held up a finger as soon as Izuku tried to respond. "Nuh-uh, let me finish, okay? You're amazing. You're incredibly kind, extremely smart, by far the bravest and most selfless person I've ever met, and to top it all off, you're freaking cute, dude. Like, ridiculously cute. You're like an adorable bunny rabbit that got turned into a person, for God's sake." Ochaco realized a little too late that she was blushing a good amount, and was thankful that Izuku wasn't looking at her face at that moment. She hurried to finish her thought. "None of this is to say that Ashido definitely likes you back, obviously, but like, it's certainly not impossible. And yeah, maybe you go for it and she says no, but it's not like that's a complete certainty. Besides, it's Mina. You know she'd be nice about it if she didn't feel the same way, at least."
Izuku let out a deep, long sigh, weighing what Ochaco said as he put a hand to his forehead. He had to admit, hearing her say all those things made him feel warm and fuzzy in a different way, but a small part of his brain was still warning him not to trust it. Of course, another thought occurred to him shortly thereafter, one which made him lock up instantly. "Honestly, I just thought about actually trying to ask her out, and I think my heart stopped for a second," he admitted, a mixture of sheepishness and anxiety in his tone. Ochaco couldn't help but chuckle a bit.
"Hm, yeah. Understandable. Every time I thought about asking Tsu out, the anxiety would leave me feeling like I'd overused my Quirk. That's why I'm lucky she asked me out instead." She chuckled a bit as her thoughts returned to her amazing girlfriend for a moment. However, it wasn't long before she made an unexpected comparison, one which led her thoughts down a completely different track. After a couple of seconds, her eyes widened, and she laughed softly to herself, as if she'd just realized something that she should've picked up on immediately. "Uh, Deku? I think I just had an epiphany at, uh...12:45 A.M."
"W-what are you talking about?"
"Your Dungeons and Dragons session. Mina said that she had you thinking you were playing with her one on one, yeah?"
Izuku paused for a second before replying. "Uh huh. T-that was just so she could surprise me with the others showing up, though."
"Okay, but think about it. From what she mentioned to me and Tsu this morning, she invited a lot of people. Us, Iida, Todoroki, Tokoyami, Aoyama, Kirishima...who showed up to your session again?"
"Uh, Jirou, Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, Hagakure, and Koda, who Jirou invited."
Ochaco nodded as she glanced down at the candy, feeling the urge to start digging in immediately and a part of herself furiously fighting to keep her from succumbing to what it saw as sloth and wastefulness. "So that makes 12 people that were invited for this thing, seven of which didn't end up going. Factoring in that Bakugo and Mineta probably weren't ever considered for obvious reasons, that means that she ended up drawing on three-fourths of the people in our class that could have shown up for this thing. The only ones who weren't invited by somebody were Sato, Shoji, Ojiro, and Sero."
"...Okay..." Izuku said, following along with Ochaco's reasoning as best he could. He wasn't sure on the conclusion she was trying to reach, however.
"Now, assuming that your group couldn't have made it, and that those last four people couldn't have made it, what do you think she would have done then?"
Izuku thought for a moment. "Well, she could've tried asking some other people that we both know. Like some of the Class B students, or Hatsume, or Shinsou."
Ochaco shrugged. "Maybe, but you gotta be honest, for the most part, we don't really know those guys too well. You and Mina at least live with all of us in Class 1-A, but the students in other classes, we only ever interact with them out of class or as part of some competition. I don't think Mina would invite anyone she couldn't be sure you'd be comfortable playing with for several hours." Izuku muttered something unintelligible on the other end of the line. He had to admit, Ochaco had a point. "It's a lot more likely that she intended to just go with what she'd planned originally if no one in our class could come. And it sounds like what she'd planned originally...was you and her. Alone. For several hours, playing a fantasy roleplaying game." Izuku fell silent, and his eyes widened as he dared to consider the possibility Ochaco was laying out before him. Ochaco knew she had him now, but she figured she could lay it on a bit more as she shifted the phone to speaker and drew the phone closer to her. "Sounds like a pretty fun first date, if you ask me," she said, smirking a little with satisfaction.
Izuku shook his head. "No. No, that's not-"
"Deku, seriously, if you finish that sentence with 'possible,' I'm going to find you and slap you as hard as I can with the back of my hand," Ochaco warned him as she began writing up a text. "You are an amazing, kind, and caring person who anyone in our year would be lucky to have as a boyfriend, and if anyone tries to make you doubt that for even a second, I will immediately introduce them to my goddamn fist. Do you understand me?"
Izuku was left completely stunned at Ochaco's swift and merciless rebuttal, only able to manage a short "Y-yes" in response to Ochaco's statement. He had to admit, in some ways, Ochaco was pretty much just a nicer version of Bakugo. He wasn't quite sure who was the scarier of the two.
"Good." Ochaco sent her text and continued on as if nothing had been said. "Anyway, it's the perfect plan. If people show up, you all have fun, and there's no way you could possibly think it had ever been a date, because who would plan to invite a bunch of friends to a date? If people don't show up, then you've got the perfect conditions for a date without her actually saying it's a date. In that case, if she thinks it's necessary, she can easily backpedal and claim that it was nothing more than a nice get together between friends. She could continue to hang out with you without you ever having to know how she really felt. If she doesn't think she needs to backpedal, though..." Ochaco trailed off for a second before the reply to her text came in, faster than she had expected, and she looked at the candy bag with even more indecision now that she knew she was allowed to eat it. "You gotta admit, it makes sense when you think about it," she said instead as she shifted the phone back to normal and pressed it up against her ear.
Izuku remained silent for a solid thirty seconds, lost in thought before he finally dared to ask a question that would've been ludicrous a few minutes ago. "Y-you really think she likes me? T-that she asked me out, kind of?"
Ochaco shrugged. "It's the explanation that makes the most sense to me. I've never asked her whether she likes you to her face, so I obviously don't know for sure, but I would be legit surprised if that wasn't the case." Having gotten her fill of sitting down on the couch, she decided to pick up the bag of candy and begin walking back to the elevator. "So...what are you gonna do about it, buddy?" she asked, betraying the giddiness in her tone.
As Ochaco waited for a response, Izuku paused for a moment, thinking the whole situation over. He still felt a great deal of apprehension, but at the same time...he wanted to make a move. He really, really wanted to. Now that he was seriously thinking about what he was feeling, he realized that a part of him might have wanted to for...a while now, actually. He could ponder that later. For now, though, even though he had no idea what that move might look like or when he'd muster up the nerve to do it, he knew one thing for certain.
"I, uh...I'm definitely doing something, at least."
Hey, everyone. I know I promised to put this up yesterday, but things have been pretty hectic in my personal life as of late, so I just kept forgetting to do it until now. I also was planning on this chapter including a second scene with Mina and Tsuyu, but again, hectic, plus I'm working on another fic I need to finish, so I ended up scrapping it. Sorry that this is a shorter chapter than the last few, and that it's late, but I hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless. As always, let me know what you think, have a fantastic day, and take care.