Izuku was training with Aizawa, and it was becoming truly vexing how Aizawa somehow had chosen the most frustrating method of training ever. Over the past week, as they'd been meeting every school day during Izuku's foundational heroics lesson in the afternoon, Aizawa had gathered a variety of objects, some small—like the baseballs he'd begun using a week ago and a few pencils—and some large—like a lunchbox and even a plastic replica of a gun for some reason—and had taken to throwing them at Izuku at random intervals and demanding that he catch them with his hands while not disintegrating them with his Quirk. This was difficult, as he often had to use more than two or three fingers to catch these objects, and he had been dreadful at the task at the beginning, but after a week of doing this during his afternoon class, he'd been improving. Towards the end of the last day of the week, Izuku was even managing to catch a lot of the pencils and baseballs with a number of fingers that avoided his Quirk activating. However, the bigger objects, like the boxes and the replicas of things both mundane, like a dinner bowl, and odd, such as the aforementioned gun, were trickier to catch with just a few fingers of strength, and those things often slipped out of his grasp or were caught with enough of his hand that they turned to ash immediately. Aizawa had been relentless with his throwing, never giving Izuku a chance to rest during these lessons. He didn't regret starting this training, though, as he was getting much better at managing his Quirk's new requirements, and felt confident that, if he were to be caught in a situation without his new and improved gloves, that he would be able to manage without hurting anybody. It wouldn't stop him from doing this specialised training, but Izuku allowed himself to be satisfied by how he was progressing.
As the class was called by All Might to end, Izuku let himself land on the ground clumsily after having jumped to catch one of the lighter pencils Aizawa had brought along to this lesson. He had caught in between his pointer and middle finger on his right hand, as Izuku had developed a habit of taking advantage of his right middle finger not activating his Quirk, and thus he could use it as he pleased without worry. Izuku scrambled into a safe landing position, stumbling over himself slightly, and deposited the pencil in the container that Aizawa had given him on day two of their arrangement. An object caught without his Quirk activating meant a point scored in the system Aizawa had made up, and the goal was to get a number of points before the lesson ended. If he met the goal, the number was raised for the next lesson. If he failed, it was raised twice over. He'd failed the first four days, though the third day had only been a dud by two points, but he'd been winning their little game for the past few lessons, and Izuku was feeling the adrenaline rush fade as he realised that he had met today's goal as well. He looked over to Aizawa to confirm this, but saw that the teacher was mid-throw with a water bottle in his hand and a sly grin on his face. Izuku didn't even bother trying to catch it, simply stepping to the side as it flew by his head and bounced along the ground until it stopped halfway across the gym the rest of the class were practising hand-to-hand combat in.
"Class is over!" Izuku said, his voice raised slightly above his speaking volume.
"I never said we were done," Aizawa said with a devious smirk.
"Oh, sure," Izuku muttered as he let his shoulders relax.
"What was that?" Aizawa asked with an amused rise in his voice.
"Nothing, sir," Izuku clearly enunciated as he swept up his new and improved set of gloves and began to put them on. They were functionally the same as his old pair, they were simply put together differently. Instead of a single glove with some of the fingers cut off, they were instead, using his left hand as an example, three swathes of black fabric that each wrapped around a finger, those being his middle, ring and pointer finger specifically. Those pieces of fabric each caught on the tips of his fingers and ran down to the back of his hand, where they were wrapped around his wrist by the loop at the base of the strips. They ran over each other and layered themselves upon Izuku's skin as they were pulled taught against his hand, and as they were three separate objects and were each touching a single finger each, they were spared from his Quirk and allowed him to have the lightest possible contraption upon his wrist. On his right hand, it was the same general design, but wrapped over his pointer, ring and little finger instead. It was the best he was going to get, and he was fairly pleased with this alternative to his former method of restraining his Quirk. He finished putting these new gloves on by pushing the clip on the back of each, the thing that kept them attached to each other yet distinctly separate enough for his Quirk. It was a golden little button that he pushed in, which slotted into the identical one on the bottom layer, therefore trapping the middle layer between them and collapsing them together. "You just seem to enjoy throwing things at students a little too much."
"I enjoy progress, and you're making a lot of it. Let's make an agreement; if you win every day next week, you'll be ready for the sports festival. Deal?" Aizawa said, taking the container from Izuku as he approached with it.
"Okay …" Izuku said, getting the feeling that there was more to it than that. Standing there, looking at Aizawa and being on such terms with him as he was, Izuku remembered what he'd been thinking during the USJ, about Aizawa in particular. He remembered how he'd wanted to thank Aizawa for understanding him, for taking the time to consider him, the first teacher who'd done that in a long, long time. He felt the sudden urge to ask Aizawa something, but he didn't really know what he could possibly be curious about, so he just settled for saying, "I thought I'd hate you."
"Is that so?" Aizawa asked lazily, emptying the container into the bucket he'd brought the miscellaneous items in. He was facing away from Izuku now, so he couldn't read any expression Aizawa made, but he was sure he saw the man pause what he was doing for a fraction of a second before continuing to act normal.
"I guess I kinda went into this whole thing with a confirmation bias against you," Izuku admitted, though it made him cringe to do so, and he began to ramble to distract himself from this. "I mean, not you specifically, just the teacher I would end up with. I didn't think you'd be the type to help your students, just kinda leave them to their own devices and call it 'teaching'."
Aizawa took his time dragging the bucket over to the storage room across the gym from Izuku, but as he could see Aizawa the whole time and could clearly hear his footsteps over the occasional skidding of the bucket against the ground, Izuku kept talking.
"I don't think it's hard to tell that I haven't had very good teachers before, so I really expected to hate you, but when we talked after that first battle trial, I think that really showed me what kind of teacher you are. At least, I hope so. But then the USJ happened, and I don't really know anymore, since your idea of training is just throwing things at me, and it looks like you like it a lot, so … I don't know what to think anymore," Izuku asked as Aizawa arrived back at the spot where he'd left his student.
"Speak plainly; what is it that you're trying to say, exactly?" Aizawa asked, his lazy eyes roaming over the nervous expression on Izuku's face.
"I just … can't help but feel like you might not like me very much after what I did at the USJ. I mean, I disobeyed your orders, didn't I? I went directly against your orders as my teacher, as a pro hero, and I got really hurt. I even had to use someone else's Quirk to do so, so I can't really argue that it was an accident or anything like that. I just kinda feel like it's weird I haven't been punished, or that this training might be the punishment for all that. Am I … wrong?" Izuku explained, his voice sounding uncomfortably high and whiny as he did.
Aizawa looked at him closely, his narrow eyes searching his very soul, as it seemed as his bloodshot eyes peered into Izuku's own eyes. Then, after a moment, Aizawa, in his ever-deadpan tone, said, "You're right. I do hate you."
"What?!" Izuku asked as panic streaked through him like a lightning strike.
"It isn't because of what happened at the USJ, though. I've already gotten the story from All Might and Hound Dog about what exactly went on there, and I don't hold that against you. No, I hate you because you're loud and energetic," Aizawa said, his voice becoming a groan as he went on.
"Oh!" Izuku let out a soft huff of air. "So … are we good, because I really thought that you'd be mad at me or something."
"The only thing that could make me hate you more is if you were seven feet tall and blond," Aizawa said with a small frown on his face.
Izuku had to fight a smile at that. He felt his heart soar at knowing that he had attracted none of Aizawa's ire, and felt like he could keep up training for another hour at least. He didn't say this, as he did have something he wanted to do that afternoon, but it was to mean that he felt a rush of excitement and joy at having that weight lifted off his shoulders. It was such a rush that at the slightest indication from Aizawa that he should leave, Izuku gladly did, picking up a pace that could be mistaken for jogging as he exited the gym. He walked across the school as he made his way back to the changing rooms to reclothe himself in his regular school uniform, and then rushed back to the classroom so that he would not risk missing the person he wanted to see the most this afternoon.
When he made it to the classroom once again, most of Izuku's classmates had left, in fact, all had but Uraraka, the person he'd been planning for. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, the two of them pausing for a moment to take each other in. Izuku, despite having practically run over from the gym, became more out of breath and flushed in the face than he'd been expecting, and it took him a moment to regain himself. When he did, he took a deep, steadying breath and steeled himself for the task ahead.
"Hey, I was hoping you hadn't left yet," Izuku said breathily.
"I was waiting for you. Do you want to walk to the station together?" Uraraka asked, gripping the straps of her backpack as she, too, became pinker than usual.
"Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to go a little further than the train station today," Izuku said, a grin breaking out across his face. "Like, into town. For … y'know, for a date."
Uraraka made a noise that could've been a squeak, or a high-pitched croak not unlike the ones that Asui often made, and nodded furiously. "Of course!" she said, grinning ear to ear in the most beautiful expression he'd ever seen her make.
Izuku said nothing more, simply sharing her grin and reaching out and offering her his hand. He saw her eyes light up as she spotted the new gloves, and she gleefully placed her hand in his. As Izuku gave Uraraka's hand a gentle squeeze, her knew for sure that the unintentional benefit he'd thought of after being handed the gloves yesterday had turned out to be true—due to the multiple layers, Uraraka could put all five of her fingers on his hand and he wouldn't float away due to it only touching the glove. So, now they could do whatever they wanted, unhindered by the Quirks that had kept them limited.
It was then that the two of them took off, walking quickly out of sheer joy at being able to hold hands in this way. Izuku led the pair of them, already having a location in mind for where to lead Uraraka. As school was out, they were simply able to proceed at a near-run out of the front gates and jog into the city down the hill. Izuku led Uraraka by the hand, with the frequent gentle squeezes painting him with a constant blush, through the city streets and they eventually came across a market. Izuku slowed down as they reached the street-facing entrance of the market, when Uraraka seemed to recognise where they were by the breathy "Oh!" she uttered upon looking into the side-street marketplace.
"You remember this, right?" Izuku asked, knowing the answer.
"Of course! This is where we met after the entrance exam!" Uraraka said, looking around with a sparkle in her eyes.
"Yep. There's a shop around here somewhere, and I think you'd enjoy it," Izuku said, having to speak up a bit as they weaved around the conversations taking place at the storefronts they walked past. "I remember you mentioning a sweet tooth, so I thought we could check out some of the candy stores around!"
Uraraka gasped and smiled so brightly that Izuku felt winded, but he simply grinned back at her and kept guiding her throughout the marketplace. There was a cacophony of noises and faces rushing past them as Izuku and Uraraka pulled each other along, sometimes in equal measure as they pushed through the extraordinarily active marketplace. Izuku hadn't expected it to be very busy on a weekday, but since it was the end of the week, he couldn't say that he was surprised at all. Still, it didn't truly matter, since all the sensation in the world couldn't have distracted Izuku from the warmth of Uraraka's hand mingling with his own, and the times when they'd be pressed together when the way forward was too tight to move through side by side. Soon, they came upon the place he remembered, a shop that had no sign but which had a great amount of candies of all varieties on display, and which a kindly looking older man stood at the counter of. Izuku and Uraraka approached and the older man greeted them with a warm smile and a wide wave.
"Welcome to my shop! What would you two like?" the older man asked, causing Izuku to look toward Uraraka so as to prompt her order.
"Wait, what kind of money are we working with?" she asked, an adorable shock lighting up her face.
"Don't worry about it, just get what you want," said Izuku, gently squeezing her hand as encouragement.
"No, I don't want to just take your money!" she cried, waving her free hand in the air.
"Well, I do want you to. Please, this is on me," Izuku said, savouring the way it made him feel that Uraraka, despite arguing with him, did not do anything that would separate their intertwined hands. He gave her a smile that he hoped was encouraging, and said, "I don't do anything with my monthly allowance, so I'd much rather spend it on you."
"Well, if you're sure …" she said, taking her eyes away from Izuku's, which was disappointing, but if it was to order, he could deal with that. "I'll have, um, strawberry mochi?" she asked, looking back to the shop owner.
"Excellent choice! And you?" the older shopkeeper asked, turning to Izuku.
"Oh," he said, not having thought of what he wanted for himself. "I'll just have some, uh … green tea?" he continued, squinting at the handwritten menu the man had hung up behind himself.
"Fine choices, fine choices. I'll be with you in a moment, you can sit down over to the side there," the man said, leaning out into the open air and pointing to the right of the small storefront, where there was a collection of chairs and a few tables.
"Thanks!" Izuku and Uraraka said at the same time, making them chuckle at each other.
Regrettably, Izuku had to let go of Uraraka's hand to pay, and in the silence that had washed over them while sitting to the side of that tiny shop, Izuku didn't have the courage to ask for her to hold his hand again. So, instead, he looked for anything to start up a conversation, anything at all.
"So, green tea, eh?" Uraraka beat him to it, a sly tilt to her voice.
"Yeah, I know, it's a little on the nose, but I like it," Izuku said, feeling himself flush at being found out. "But can you really talk, strawberry mochi?"
"You bet I can! I've always loved it, ever since I could remember. It's just got a place in my heart, and I always order it wherever I go. What?" Uraraka explained with a shining expression on her face, which made Izuku smile even wider. She did, though, note a hint of something in Izuku's voice, something he, admittedly, hadn't tried very hard to hide.
"No, it's nothing, I just … haven't even really seen mochi since I was little. Like, really little," Izuku said, clarifying quickly after at the puzzled look Uraraka sent him
"Wha—mochi is good at any age!" she said with an indignant air.
"If you say so," Izuku said, beginning to drum his fingers along the edge of the table, relishing in the ability to do so.
"I do! Plus, can you really talk about taste, green tea?" Uraraka said with a laugh.
"Hey, it is a dignified drink, okay?" Izuku said, a similar laugh bubbling up from him as well.
The two of them were interrupted by the old man emerging from the shop with a tray, carrying a plate bearing four mochi balls and a cup of steaming tea. He placed the plate in front of Uraraka, and the cup in front of Izuku, on a coaster, and silently bowed before returning to his place in the shop after receiving thanks from both students. Izuku took his drink in his hands, enjoying the warmth it spread to his hands in the absence of Uraraka's hands. To some, it would be too hot, but because his gloves soaked up a lot of the heat, it was just right. He silently took the cup in his hands as he watched Uraraka inspect the mochi balls, picking one up and lifting it close to her face to examine it carefully, which made him laugh.
"I doubt they're poisonous," he said.
"Hey, you gotta make sure that they're perfect before you eat them. Focus on your green tea," Uraraka said with a cheeky grin.
Sighing, though wearing a similar smile, Izuku did just that. He looked down at his tea and brought it up to his lips to take a sip. It was nice, and Izuku, though he wasn't exactly an expert in tea, could tell it was brewed with the skill of a master. It had little obvious flavour, with mere undertones of a natural kind of taste. Izuku had never really pinned down what he thought green tea tasted like, as it was said to be variable, and he kind of liked that about the drink. It didn't have to be one thing for all time, it could change. Izuku smiled as he drank, and recognised the specific base of the tea, matcha, which wasn't cheap. That would explain why his tea had cost more than Uraraka's mochi. Luckily, she hadn't said anything about that, but Izuku hadn't really been looking at the prices when checking that menu. Oh, well, at least it was good tea.
"How is it?" Uraraka asked after chewing on her mochi for a moment and swallowing.
"Not bad. It's matcha, which is weird to sell in a little shop like this one, but I'm not complaining," Izuku said.
Uraraka snickered lightly, and said, "Don't tell me you're secretly a tea snob or something. Matcha is crazy to get from a place like this!"
"Oh, okay, mochi. You can have anything, but no, mochi. I mean, it's kinda cute, but still," Izuku said. He felt his mouth dry up at openly calling her cute, but he pushed through and committed to it. They were on a date, he should be able to say things like that. Besides, it seemed like it had much the same flustering effect on her, so that was a win in his book.
"Well, I guess it is sort of endearing that you're normally this self-aware guy, maybe a little too much, but then you go and call a drink I've never actually had 'not bad'," Uraraka said, sending Izuku a look that made his stomach do a flip inside him. Suddenly, he wasn't very interested in tea anymore.
"So," he said after a moment of eye contact with Uraraka, "do you want to talk?"
"Well, sure, we're talking now!" she said with another adorable laugh.
"No, I mean, really talk," Izuku said through his own laugh. "About us. Like, what exactly are we? I want to be your boyfriend, but we haven't talked about what we want out of this … relationship." Izuku almost flushed at admitting that they had a relationship in that way, but kept himself composed.
"RIght. Yeah, totally, we can talk. What do you want to talk about first?" Uraraka asked, placing the mochi ball she'd been about to eat back onto the plate.
"Well, I want to put a name to it. I don't really care about what that name is, if we're partners, or exclusive, or boyfriend and girlfriend, but I do want to talk to you about it," Izuku said.
"Okay. I'm not going to lie, the thought of being your girlfriend is …" she trailed off with a bright blush on her face. "Well, it's certainly flattering. I'd be more than okay with that."
"Yeah, I would like it. Uh, so yeah, I guess that's one item … checked off the list," Izuku said, but inwardly cringed at himself for his awkwardness as he lost focus and let the goofy grin spread across his face without even trying to hide it. "Um, I guess the other big thing I wanted to ask you was what to call you now. Using your surname feels a little too formal now, right?" he asked.
"Yeah, I did notice that, too. I guess if you wanna use given names, I'd be … fine with … that," Uraraka said, trailing off as she seemingly began to think of something that took her far away from that table.
Izuku, too, was in a similar situation. He imagined himself calling her by her first name, and immediately felt his hands go numb like they did after Aizawa's special training. He didn't think he could do it. Izuku saw Uraraka across from him say something, or perhaps only mouth a word without a sound, to herself, and it looked an awful lot like the syllables in his own given name. The suspicion was furthered by the way her face lit up red and she jumped slightly in her seat. Izuku had to laugh at that, but came to the conclusion that they were both too awkward for that just yet. He was just about to start thinking of dropping the subject, but Uraraka jumped in with a little bit too much excitement to be natural.
"Uh, what about something else? Uh … what about …" she said, seemingly struggling to think of an alternative. "Nicknames?"
It was then that the two of them turned as red as cherries, silently meeting each others' eyes for a moment before looking away with furious blushes across their faces. Izuku couldn't even call her by her real name, let alone make one up! It'd be impossible, but even though that was the case, he did feel a pull towards a specific spot in his vision, and his eyes flicked to it unconsciously, and in his vision were the mochi balls still laid upon the plate. Uraraka seemed to have seen him do this, as she snorted in a laugh that spread to Izuku, and they both sat and giggled for a moment at themselves. After that moment, it looked like Uraraka was much more interested in actually looking at the mochi instead of eating it, now, as if she loved them even more than she had before. She did take her eyes off the mochi to look at Izuku, though, which shot a jolt of warmth into his chest at the way she looked at him, those brown eyes almost glowing under the setting sun's light.
"Okay, I'm perfectly fine being mochi. In fact, I'd prefer it," she said with a smile that made Izuku's guts squirm.
"Oh, okay," Izuku said. He hadn't expected her to take him seriously, but if she was, then that was okay with him.
"Matcha," she repeated under her breath.
"Okay, I get it! I'm not living that down," Izuku groaned into the sky above as he let his head fall back onto his shoulders.
"Nope," Uraraka said with an amused glimmer in her eyes.
Izuku's face was burning, but he was smiling ear to ear as he laughed. This was somehow the worst torture of his life, and the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. He felt his insides roiling at him in embarrassment and nervousness, but his heart was leaping in his chest every time he met Uraraka's eyes, and he found it impossible to wipe the grin off his face. This was all he'd hoped it'd be. He looked over at Uraraka, feeling the hammering in his chest continue, and wondered how anybody could possibly bear this, or how even one person could ever bear missing out.
Izuku would admit that he didn't have a lot of experience with nicknames, and what experience he did have was decidedly negative, yet he thought he could enjoy this. He saw the look on Uraraka's face as she said the short word, matcha, and was suddenly far more interested in the tea than he had been even when he received it. He'd seen the way she smiled when she said it, and knew that the fondness in her voice wasn't for the drink. It was so undeniably different from his other nicknames that he couldn't help but love it already, and could already tell that there would be times when he forgot that mochi wasn't the girl sitting across from him. He briefly gave consideration to how others would react if they suddenly started calling each other that in front of them, people like Iida and Ashido, and how he'd tell his mother about all this, but he decided that it wasn't important. This wasn't for those other people, this was for the two of them, and the two of them alone. Izuku was all for Uraraka at that moment, and she was all for him.
Izuku, for what was possibly one of the first times in his life, was so happy that he didn't care what others thought of him. He just wanted to enjoy a date with a girl he liked, and that was enough for him. Sure, there were things to worry about; the sports festival was still coming up, and All Might's Quirk had taken up residence in the back of his mind lately, but none of that mattered when he was just a normal kid on a normal date with his normal girlfriend.
What could be more perfect than that?
End of Arc 6: Feeling is Healing
Author's Note: This was basically the trauma arc of this fic, but I feel that it was necessary to understand exactly where Izuku's head is at going into the next couple of arcs and to lay the groundwork for how he overcomes the severe mental blocks that he's operating with. Hope you enjoyed, and tune in next time when we start covering the leadup to the sports festival!