I do not own these characters or the world, that belongs to our lovely author of MHA, Kohei Horikoshi. Also, cover art was a commission by me from the artist Krumbs. Follow them on if you'd like! They are extremely talented!

A/N: This chapter starts with Mineta's POV and then switches to Deku's POV half way through. The chapter following this marks the beginning of the plum blossom festival which will be the final parts of this story. It's looking like I'll probably wrap up at about 57 to 58 chapters with an epilogue.

Forty-Three
Isshoni

Mineta leaned against the wall beside the handicap toilet, looking up at the clock on the wall across from him. Lunchtime was almost over which meant that he didn't have much time left to discuss what he'd set in motion once Ashido got there.

He'd tried to privately snag her that morning but she'd shrugged him off so he'd resorted to spamming her with text messages that they needed to talk about the plan. They hadn't had an official plan talk since the disaster that was the Pocky challenge. Even thinking about that made him shudder with alarm. He was still convinced that had Ashido not allowed her turn with Kirishima to end in a draw, things might've gone the way they were supposed to.

After spamming her with what must have been ten to fifteen texts, Ashido had reluctantly agreed to meet him at the end of lunch. In the usual spot. So, here he was, still waiting on the pink girl to show up. If she stands me up, I'm gonna be so annoyed, he thought to himself as her pinched his nose in frustration.

"Lost in thought?" The playful melodious voice of Ashido cut through his frustration. His eyes snapped open and he took in his taller classmate. She looked…different. Something about the playful smile, the twinkle in her eyes, and the fact that she seemed to practically be bouncing all seemed a little different than usual. Not that Ashido wasn't that bouncy on any other day, but today she seemed especially bouncy.

Weird, he thought to himself as he eyed her suspiciously. "You're a little…brighter than usual," he started then narrowed his eyes at her, "and you're late! We've barely got any time to talk about what plan I've already set into motion!"

Ashido snorted at him and crossed her arms over her chest. "What does that even mean, I seem brighter? I'm always bright and sunny! And I wasn't even sure I was going to meet you except I knew if I didn't you'd send me like one-hundred more messages, so here I am…yay."

Minta scoffed and motioned toward the toilet. "I've decided we don't need to talk about your failures with the last plan." Ashido rolled her eyes at him and opened the door to the bathroom and stepped inside. Mineta followed shortly after her.

He was mildly surprised as he entered the bathroom and locked the door behind him, that the handicap toilet was quite clean today! There was no garbage on the floor and the usual dingy water stain that adorned the floor looked like it'd been removed. Of course, there was still some graffiti but even that looked like it'd been cleaned up a bit. He'd to dedicate some time later in the day to changing that.

"This place doesn't seems so disgusting today. It doesn't even smell that bad. Wow!" Marveled Ashido.

"It's missing its usual charms, shame," mused Mineta as he moved over to the toilet. He flipped down the lid and hopped up onto the porcelain throne and stared seriously at his classmate. "So, I assume you've heard about the plum blossom festival that's local and that some of our classmates are going to go to it?" Ashido just blinked at him. Okay, maybe she hasn't heard that. I'll need to bring her up to speed, he thought to himself with a sigh. "Okay, so on Friday I ran into the super hottie Hado and her lesbian friend—"

"Lesbian friend? What?" Ashido interrupted in confusion.

"Yeah, ginger chick with short hair. Haya might be her name? I don't know but that doesn't matter, what matters is that—" Ashido interrupted him again.

"Is she gay? Wait, are you assuming she's gay just because she has short hair? What the hell Mineta?! How narrow minded of you!" Chastised a clearly very annoyed Ashido.

"What? I don't care if she's gay, more power to her, that's like super hot—you know how often I beat it to les—" He started explaining only to suddenly be slapped across the shoulder by Ashido.

"Don't finish that sentence you little pervert!"

"Fine! And sorry I assumed; it was narrow of me, but whatever her orientation—which really doesn't matter—she was with Hado and I ran into both of them and—"

"I don't know why I even bother putting up with you. You are the literal wo—" this time Mineta interrupted her.

"Stop interrupting me! I said I was sorry. It was a douchey thing to assume and honestly I don't care if she's gay in fact, I was probably just hoping she's gay because the thought of her and Hado together is like mega hot," he had to stop briefly because Ashido had slapped him yet again. "Ouch! Knock it off!"

"Don't project your lecherous fantasies onto others!" She scolded him.

"Okay! I won't, now shut up and let me get to the point, damn!" He looked at her expectantly. Her eyes were still narrowed and she was glaring at him. She looked legitimately irritated with him. Guess it was kind of a dick thing to assume, he reluctantly thought to himself.

"Fine. Proceed and make it quick, the longer I spend with you the dirtier I feel," she said curtly.

"I ran into them on Friday and that's when Hado gave me a flyer for a local plum blossom festival and an idea struck me. Why not share that same flyer with our class? Specifically, with Midoriya?" Mineta explained in an almost teasing manner.

Ashido stared at him and raised an eyebrow questioningly. "She just gave you some flyer for a plum blossom festival without any reason? That seems…odd. Are you just using that as some pervy exc—"

"Oh for fuc—look, I literally ran into them and she dropped the flyer. I didn't think about it for more than a second because I'd just run into two hotties, so I just picked up the paper she'd dropped without even really looking at it. Only after I'd given it back to her and was about to leave did she suggest that I give it to the class so that more of us could go to the festival. As much as I'd like to make up some pervy story about it, that was it. She gave it to me and once I had it I was struck with the brilliant idea to pass it along to Midoriya." Mineta explained in a huff.

Ashido's arms were still crossed and she looked on at Mineta with skeptical eyes. "Go on."

"I got the idea that I could pass the flyer along to Midoriya specifically, but casually too, so as to not raise too many alarm bells," he paused briefly to repress a shudder as he recalled his unpleasant interaction with and the warning from Bakugo. "I kind of waited in the bathroom until he passed and intentionally bumped into him and gave him the flyer. I told him to share it with the rest of the class and all that but that going was a great idea that he should definitely do!" Mineta continued exuberantly.

"I see the direction of your plan but I gotta ask, how can you be certain that Midoriya will take the flyer you randomly gave to him and do what you want him to do with it? Like, what makes you so certain that he'll go? Or even go with Uraraka? That would be kind of obvious and if they are like together, well that would be really obvious. Plus there's the fact that he's like crazy busy with his work studies same goes for Uraraka and all of us."

"Yeah, all of that is true, it's assuming a lot but then we got our most recent stupid sex ed assignment and you were his assigned partner. So do what you gotta do to find out if he's planning on going solo or for a party of two," explained Mineta.

Ashido dropped her arms to her hips and gave a sigh. "Assuming I can get him to spill something—which is super unlikely—what do we do then? Follow him to the festival? That seems…creepy and I don't think I'm okay with it. Scratch that, I'm not okay with it."

"Well obviously we'd have to follow him or them! You find out if he took my bait and is planning on a romantic evening for two and then we sneakily follow at a distance!"

Ashido looked her nose down at him and gave a doubtful sniffle. "There's a lot wrong with what you just said. Number one, I'm not sure I'll be able to get him to reveal anything so betting on that alone is stupid. Two, neither Uraraka or Midoriya are stupid or particularly unobservant; if you or I follow them, I'm almost certain that they will notice us. Three, you are assuming that I will happily go to a plum blossom festival with you, a known pervert! Like the social implications of that all by itself would just be like, ew, disastrous! And finally, fourth the most important one, following our friends on what could be a date for just them makes me uncomfortable. I feels really wrong."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Going with me is terrible for your reputation, cry, cry. Fine. So we don't go together, we leave at separate times and meet there. One of us tailing whoever leaves UA first, the other one of us already at the festival. I've thought a lot about it and I think that they'll likely go on Saturday or Sunday which means they'd need to be released from their work studies but since Midoriya's work study is like live in, he probably won't come back to the dorm so he will most likely meet Uraraka there. If he meets her there then her leaving for the festival won't look suspicious at all," explained the pint-sized boy.

"Okay so what's stopping Uraraka from going to the festival with like Asui and Yaoyorozu? Or a whole bunch of our classmates or even Hado? If she goes with a group of our classmates then her going to the festival isn't suspicious at all and if they happen to meet up with Midoriya it'll probably be like a group thing and not a date at all. That's a very real possibility. In fact, if she went with others the chances that she'd branch off to meet Midoriya are like really slim since it would be super obvious then," countered the pink haired girl.

"That is a potential problem, yeah, but for her to go with a group would require that a lot of our classmates get released from their work studies, assuming they even want to go. And I gave it to just Midoriya, though, Todoroki and Ida were there too, and you didn't seem to know about it so I think there's a strong chance that a lot of our peers won't know or won't be inclined to go to it simply because of how busy we area," he paused briefly recalling the other reasons she'd given him that made her hesitant. "If we try really hard to blend in with the crowd I think there's a good chance that they'll overlook us. Think about it, if they are going to be with each other, are they really going to be paying all that much attention to the crowd? And as for your feeling bad about this…just don't think about then. It's for…for science!"

Ashido stared at him, her eyes narrowed in annoyance, mouth twisted into a frown. "You're a real dick, you know that? And being sneaky or not or being there together or not, they will still definitely catch onto us. If they're planning on like a date thing they're going to be sweating bullets for lots of reasons; one of those reasons is definitely going to be seen together as a couple. And I don't think just trying to blend in with the crowd is an obvious solution."

Mineta huffed out an annoyed sigh. "Look, this is the best I have! Play your cards right and try to sus out if he's planning on going and then we watch them closely on Friday and watch Uraraka on Saturday and Sunday and if festival flags start going off we enact the plan!"

"But I don't even really know what the plan actually is and I'm not comfortable with following the—"

"Ashido! Come on! It's really simple! First part: you spend some of your partner time trying to get info out of Midoriya and if any signs point to he's going and maybe going with Uraraka plan B goes into effect—" Mineta started only to have Ashido interrupt him.

"You mean part two, right? A plan B is usually like an alternative plan to whatever you originally come up with," She questioned.

Mineta sighed again in frustration. "Yes! Yes, part two, part two goes into effect and we watch for weird stuff during class on Friday and then we try to watch what actions Uraraka is taking on Saturday and Sunday. Parth three happens if at any time during part two we see her give any festival red flags and if we see that then I'll immediately branch off to the festival and you continue to watch her and if/when she leaves you covertly follow her."

"Is there a part four?" Ashido asked doubtfully.

Mineta felt so irritated with Ashido's less than enthusiastic reaction to his plan that he felt like he was close to crying tears of frustration. "Yes. Part four is we meet up at the festival and watch what they do and if we see them do like couple stuff then we, uh, well, honestly, I hadn't gotten to that part."

Ashido was silent and simply stared at him with an unreadable expression. Mineta heaved another dramatic sigh at Ashido's continued silence. It wasn't that bad of a plan. Sure, there were maybe one too many parts, but it wasn't that farfetched. Why couldn't she just cooperate!? And since when had she decided to be all high and mighty and too good for some good old-fashioned spying?!

"If this is all some elaborate scheme to like get with me, I'm flattered, but no thanks."

Mineta found that his only reaction to her statement was to stare at her in shock. As if this entire thing was some convoluted way of getting closer to her and getting her to go out with him. As if! He was legitimately offended at that assumption! He was a pervert, yeah, but he wasn't so perverse and desperate that he'd stoop to creating a whole fake scenario involving a maybe love affair between Uraraka and Midoriya, just to make Ashido like him. Puhlease.

"Don't flatter yourself. While yes, I am a confirmed pervert, and you are smokin' hot and I'd definitely go out with you if you asked, this is not that. This is me trying to find out and then prove that Midoriya and Uraraka are an item," he explained in a deadpan voice, completely serious.

"But, why? Why go to all these lengths? Why does it actually matter if they're together? This creeping on our classmates is shady and actually really kinda shitty. I feel bad doing it which is why I've been ignoring you…so why go to all this trouble? Why does it matter?" Ashido questioned.

"Because if they're together that means that Midoriya might be getting some action and I must know if one of my classmates is getting some. It is my right as the class pervert to know if someone as nerdy and awkward as Midoriya is getting laid by a total hottie like Uraraka!" Mineta desperately explained. Why was that so hard to understand?

Ashido was silent a moment before responding. "Okay. Fine. I'll help you. For the record I don't think that your multistep plan is very good or very well thought out, but whatever. I'll help you. But this is the last time. Got it? The last time I will help you with this."

Mineta could've cried tears of joy at that moment. He was so elated by her agreement to help that he practically leapt off the toilet seat and into Ashido's arms. Ashido was taken off guard by the leap and for one split second, Mineta's head was blissfully smashed between Ashido's ample breasts. A moment to be truly cherished, he thought to himself joyously. That moment, however, was short lived when Ashido snorted in disgust and swiftly extricated herself from him.

"Try that again and I'm going to knock all the teeth out of your mouth," she warned as she shoved Mineta back toward the toilet.

Still high from her agreeing to work with him and also from being smashed between her funbags, Mineta smiled blearily and said, "When you say that you kind of sound like Bakugo."

Ashido snorted in disgust and left the bathroom, leaving Mineta alone in the bathroom.

"What a wonderful lunchbreak!" He murmured to himself.

Izuku Midoriya sat across from Mina Ashido, the desks they were sitting in pushed close together. They were in their last classes of the day and after they'd had a short lecture by Recovery Girl on the second trimester of pregnancy, they'd been allowed to work independently with their assigned partners. He'd had his nose practically glued into their book, learning all he could about weeks 33 to 37.

The fetal development during this time was impressive! By 33 weeks the fetus's brain and nervous system were now fully developed, bones were hardening up aside from the skull which had to remain soft to survive the trauma of the birth canal, the immune system was functional, and it was roughly the size of a pineapple! He marveled at the fact that something as small as microscopic cells could grow to the size of a pineapple in just 33 weeks. It was amazing!

Meanwhile, he was less then enthused about what he'd learned of the maternal aspect of it. The more Izuku learned about the maternal side of pregnancy, the more sympathetic he felt toward his own mother and all women who'd ever chosen to be pregnant. It seemed like a horrible and incredibly taxing state on a woman's body.

By week 33 the fetus had grown so large that it was squishing the mother's lungs, making shortness of breath common. The uterus would often begin 'prepping' for labor by randomly contracting, a symptom referred to as Braxton-Hicks contractions. The mother might start or possibly continue with sleep troubles, develop stretch marks, back and joint pain, heartburn, leg cramping, feeling too hot, swelling in the hands and feet, painful breasts—the symptoms seemed endless! Honestly the more he read about it the more it felt like reading about a terrible disease rather than the miracle of producing life. Women were so amazing! He was going to have to call his mom later today and just thank her for being his mom.

"Honestly all of this pregnancy stuff sounds like something awful disease. Like reading about it makes me never want to get pregnant," Ashido's voice interrupted Izuku's focus on his reading.

He raised his eyebrows from the book to gaze briefly at his classmate. She was leaned over her own textbook, idly flipping through pages depicting the third trimester. There was a sucker in her free hand that she'd occasionally pop into her mouth to suck on. The first few times she'd done that it had made him blush, but he'd grown accustomed to it now.

"It seems pretty intense, yeah. It's crazy that our moms all went through this stuff!" He paused briefly to look over more fetal physiology related weeks 34 and 35. "As awful as it sounds though, it's pretty fascinating stuff. Did you know that the fetal circulation is essentially reversed from an adults? So, veins are like arteries and arteries are like veins for them. Weird." He flipped to the index to see if he could find out more on the what and why fetal circulation was opposite from a non-fetus.

"The last half of what you said didn't make any sense," Ashido murmured as she popped her sucker into her mouth. While Midoriya was nose deep in his book her gaze briefly shifted across the room toward Bakugo and Uraraka. They appeared to be quietly working but every now and then she'd see Bakugo shoot an irritated glance at Uraraka and Uraraka in turn do the same. Why did I ever think that they might have had something going on, she thought to herself disbelievingly before shifting her gaze back to the green haired boy sitting across from her. "So any big plans for the weekend, Midoriya? I heard there's a plum blossom festival nearby, think you'll go?"

Izuku was only half paying attention to what his partner was saying, entranced by the physiology of fetal circulation. Wow, the fetuses blood basically skips the lungs and instead uses something called the ductus arteriosus to bypass it, he thought to himself. Apparently, this vessel was unique to fetal physiology and closed between twelve to twenty-four hours after birth. Crazy!

"Hello?" Ashido's voice interrupted his reading, causing to blink in surprise. Did she say something else that I missed?

"Uh, what?" he questioned, looking across the desks at his partner.

"I asked if you had any big plans for the weekend. I mean aside from your work studies, that is," repeated Ashido with a small eyeroll.

"Oh, uh, did you want to work together or something this weekend?" He asked innocently.

"No, I was just curious. I'd heard about a plum blossom festival that's supposed to be close by and I was thinking about going and was just wondering if you'd heard anything like that," Ashido replied and gave him what looked like a mischievous grin. It made him think of a cheshire cat.

"Uh yeah, Mineta actually gave me a flyer about that that I gave to Ida. I'm not sure who is all planning to go. Things are kind of busy with the work studies and all," Deku mused thoughtfully.

The sucker came out of Ashido's mouth with a pop and she leaned forward ever so slightly, her eyes locked onto his. "Things are pretty busy with work studies, yeah. You think somebody like Endeavor wouldn't be willing to let you free for that kind of thing?"

Izuku paused, perplexed by her line of questioning. "No that's not it. Endeavor is reasonable, I'm just saying that I don't know if much of our class is going to be going considering our homework load as well as the demands of work studies. It'd be a bit of a risk to take that time off."

Ashido leaned a fraction closer. "So Endeavor would approve of you, Todoroki, and Bakugo going to it?"

Swallowing he replied, "I don't believe Todoroki or Kacchan are planning on going." He swore he saw her eyes widen just a sliver at his words.

"Then are you going?"

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind going. I haven't been to a festival since we did our school festival," he explained, uncertain why her gaze was making him feel uncomfortable. Why does she want to know? Oh no, does she want to go with me? That can't be it! No! There's no way that Ashido would want to go with me…but if she did, I'd feel really bad saying no…His thoughts raced away from him and he felt a blush start to wash over him. "Wh-why, do, you uh, ask?" Dark golden eyes were watching him carefully and under that gaze he felt himself start to sweat. He'd never been intimidated by the pink girl before, but now, well now he was.

Her demeanor instantly changed and she abruptly leaned back in her chair and put the sucker back into her mouth before giving him a lopsided smile. "I'd like to go but I'm not sure that I'll go if no one else from class is going, so if it's just you going, well sorry Midoriya, but that just isn't enough for me to go. Do you know of anyone else who might be going? I think I might've heard Hagakure or Uraraka talk about it. If my girl Hagakure is going then I think I'd be more inclined to go, but I dunno…"

An immense sense of relief washed over him like an ocean wave and he let out an audible sigh. Phew, I thought she was trying to hint at going together or something and that would've been a little weird, he thought to himself. He was so distracted by his sense of relief that he began responding to her in earnest, failing to shield what he actually knew.

"I think Ida might be planning on going since I gave the flyer that Mineta gave to me to him. I hadn't heard anything about Hagakure going. I actually asked Ura—" the words suddenly froze on his tongue as he heard what he was about to reveal. Panic gripped his heart like a vice for a moment and he felt certain that literal beads of sweat must be visible on his face. Oh no, oh no, oh no! You've got to make a save and come back from this. How do I redirect what I was just about to say? How? Think! Think! I actually asked Uraraka and Asui, no no, stupid, and probably weird. The longer I take thinking of some response to explain everything away the more untrue it looks. Think of something, anything!

"Uh, er, that is, I uh, I asked Ur-Uraraka if uh, if, she and, er, uh, I asked Uraraka if she and Asui were going to go! Yes, that is what I was trying to say!" He bumbled through that sentence in spectacular fashion.

With wide and probably terrified eyes, Izuku looked to see what Ashido's facial reaction was. Ashido looked back at him with eyes that somehow seemed far too knowing and just the hint of a smirk in the corner of her mouth. The sucker was sticking out the side of her mouth now and she was still casually leaned back in her chair. It wasn't all that telling of a reaction but there was enough there to make him feel certain that she knew what he said wasn't the truth.

"I see. Well maybe if they go, I'll go, though it would probably be more fun if more of the class went," she paused to give him a smile that filled him with unease. "Like you said, everyone is pretty busy with their work studies."

"Yeah. Yes they are…um how about we start looking over week 36?" He suggested in a small voice.

"Sure thing," she agreed.

So what if she thinks that my response was made up, I don't know that, but so what if she does? I'm still going to go to the festival with Uraraka! Even if we see Ashido at the festival and she see's us together and we have to explain, well then, I guess we will either have to make up a story to explain it or just admit that we're together. Together. Do I want for us to be seen as together together? I'm not sure but I think maybe that I'd be okay with that. Maybe.

Izuku shot a tentative glance over toward where Uraraka was seated across from Bakugo. They were currently locked in a glaring match. He focused on the auburn haired girl and felt his chest tighten.

Together.