"Midoriya."
Izumi glances over as Nejire calls out to her, already frowning. She's not really sure what she should expect from the other girl, but her instincts seem to scream 'nothing good.' So, she prepares herself accordingly.
"Hm, yeah?"
"I need to use the washer."
Right. Well, that's … fine. She's welcome to it. All of their appliances in the apartment are to be shared, Izumi never expected to have sole claim to them, but: "My stuff is almost done. Just wait a little while longer and I can take them out to dry."
"I need to wash them now, though."
Izumi sighs but puts it out of her mind, turning back to the notebook in her lap. On the page, she's half-sketched out a hero from the day before—a young woman with a strong emitter quirk that allowed her to form creations of jade. She primarily uses it to form blunt, spiral cones which she then fires at villains. Uninspired, but quite beautiful in spite of it.
Her brows furrow as she traces the curve of the hero's lip, drawing as best she could from memory. They'd had a more androgynous appeal, yet striking all the same. Their costume had given them a more regal aesthetic, as if a member of the imperial family themselves had taken up the mantle of a hero.
She's so drawn into her work that she fails to hear the distinctive sound of the washing machine door opening, nor the strange pause in the humming that follows. By the time she decides to take a break, stepping away from the paper and pen at long last, it's already chugging away again, and nothing seems amiss.
She wanders into the kitchen and grabs a glass from the cabinet, filling it with water from the tap and leaning against the counter as she drinks. Her phone sits on the sofa's armrest, so she uses her quirk to drag it across the room to her palm. The clock on it reads 10:33 a.m. so she still has plenty of time before her meeting that afternoon.
"What to do, what to do … " There isn't much that could be done, honestly. Classes weren't set to start until next week, and she couldn't commit to anything too time consuming without risking being late. She could continue work on that hero's analysis, but it would only be beating a dead bush.
She fiddles with her phone for a bit, mindlessly swiping through apps as she sips on her water, only to sigh as she once again comes up empty. Her forehead lands on the counter's surface with a clunky thump as she spreads her torso out across it, and she lets out a groan of absolute boredom. "Man, this sucks."
Elsewhere in the apartment, she hears the shower turn on, and she drags her chin around so she can look at their bathroom door. If Nejire was a creature of habit, she'd likely be busy for another half hour, minimum. That much hair was not easy to care for, Izumi hated to even think of it. Their poor shower drain was fighting for its life.
Izumi hums before pushing herself upright and floating up to the cabinet above the fridge. From within, she grabs the box of dessert mix she'd purchased a few days prior.
"Let's see." The image on the front shows a short, round cake with nice splotches of purple. Lemon flavored and blueberry topped, she reads, and supposedly easy to make. Perfect for a baking novice like her. "Just add eggs and water? Really?"
She shrugs and follows the instructions as they were written. A coil of aluminum paper is placed at the bottom of a large pot, and water filled to just below the top of the band. A greased cake pan is laid atop of it, in which the prepared ingredients are poured. Then, the stove is turned on, the pot's lid is replaced, and she leaves it alone to steam.
After cleaning up the mess she'd made and turning the mixing bowls over to dry, she checks on the washing machine. "Taking your sweet time, aren't you?" She pats its lid sympathetically and walks away. "S'okay girl, you go at your own pace." Just so long as that pace had it ending sometime soon, she still had to hang everything to dry, after all.
The next hour had yet to come by the time she sits back down again to work. And it continues ticking closer as she settles in. The washer still hadn't chimed, which she thought strange, but there wasn't much she could do except wait. So, wait is all she did.
Her roommate emerges from the bathroom like an idol at her very first international concert—with a satisfied smile on her lips, her chin held high, and a thick blanket of fog at her heel. Izumi's eyes track her movement over the edge of her journal, watching her float swiftly through their shared apartment.
She's a little distracted by the girl's choice of apparel (namely, a towel), but does her best to put it out of her mind.
Nejire moves past her bedroom door and into the kitchen, obviously checking on the washer's progress. Izumi grimaces behind her journal, but still forces herself to say something polite. "Sorry," she calls out to the other girl, "It's taking longer than I thought it would." Yuuei must've skimped on the model. "It should be done any time now, and you can put your stuff in."
Again, an olive branch extended and an olive branch spurned. Nejire Hado spares her not a word, not even an acknowledging nod. Instead, she merely glances at Izumi through her lashes as she silently escapes to her bedroom to change. The door clicks shut behind her, and Izumi sighs in annoyance. "Rude."
Her mind drifts into a series of increasingly unrealistic scenarios with equally impossible outcomes. In her favorites, Nejire always bows low at her feet, performing a picture perfect dogeza in penance for her unjust cruelties. And in the especially delicious ones, Izumi lords it over her from the seat of her chair, reclining in it as if she were a queen and it, her throne.
They're nice fantasies, if reckless and impolite, but that's all they ever were, likely all they ever would be. Izumi just didn't have the guts for cruelty. She's forced to leave them behind when the washer chimes, anyway; the sound shoving her from the clouds of her imagination and back down to reality.
She briefly pauses to check on the cake, removing the lid and peering inside. It turns out to be a horrible idea, and she's stonewalled by the plume of steam that billows out. While she's busy slamming the lid back on the pot and coughing, Nejire emerges from her room. Attempting to sneak behind Izumi unnoticed, but not quite succeeding.
"I baked a cake," Izumi tells her, "Baking it, I guess. I thought we might share it if you'd like to have … some … " She trails off as she hears the door to the washing machine open, turning just in time to see Nejire pull a load of bed sheets from within. She frowns, and though she has a pretty good guess, she still asks, "What happened to the clothes that were washing?"
"I'm not sure," Nejire lies, meeting her gaze with apathetic, blue eyes, and skirting past her shoulder, moving to their patio door.
Izumi lets her go without complaint, but enters the washer's room as soon as she can. Her clothes sit to the side, shoved deep into the corner by a foot, and they're sopping wet. She bends over to touch them, squeezing the fabric of a sweater and cursing when her hand comes back sudsy.
She storms off after Nejire, catching her as she begins to hang her sheets on the clothesline. Her feet grind to a stop on the edge of the patio as she shouts, "Hey!"
Nejire doesn't even turn to look at her, only sighing. "What do you want, Midoriya?" As if she doesn't know.
Izumi fights a losing battle with a scowl and stomps her way across the grass. "So you just throw my clothes on the ground and don't say anything?"
"Would it have been better if I'd said something?"
"What? Of course not."
She has the nerve to shrug. "Then why would I have?"
"I don't know!" Walked into that one, really. "Common decency? A shred of kindness? You can usually trust hero hopefuls to have at least that much. I'm still stuck on why you thought it would be okay to throw my stuff out anyway."
"I told you. I needed the washer."
"You—" A growl tears from her throat and she reaches out with her quirk, grabbing a firm hold of Nejire's shirt, and using her telekinesis to force the girl to spin around and face her. It's all too easy to make it happen, and her heart trills at the surprised gasp the other girl lets out. Less so at the dangerous narrowing of her eyes that follows. "At least look me in the eye, damnit."
Nejire's pinky twitches and spiral shockwaves fly from its tip tempestly. Her cheeks are flush with what must be anger as she says, "Don't touch me."
"I didn't." Again, she waves her fingers, this time grabbing at Nejire's shoes and dragging them forward. The other girl flails as she tries to keep her balance, only saving herself by sending out more spiral energy from her hands. "See," Izumi waves her hands from where she stood, giving Nejire her best, ugly smirk, "No touching."
For a second, it almost looks as if the other girl might retaliate. Golden light gathers around her hands, and Izumi takes a half step back before lowering herself, but it dissipates quickly. Nejire fixes her twisted shirt and turns, picking her sheet from the grass where it fell and starting to pin it up again. Izumi would almost rather they fight.
There are so many things she wanted to say to Nejire then, most of them unkind. She forces them down with an elbow and a knee, but one slips through the cracks in her stalwart defense. It's simple, and far too honest for her liking.
"I don't understand why you hate me so much." Had she done something wrong? Was there something she could fix? Their relationship has been this way ever since Izumi started joining in on the hero department's lessons—following her relative success during the school's annual Sports' Festival. Nejire had been cold then, yet distant. But as time went on, Izumi would always catch the other girl watching her, and the few times she tried speaking with her, she was harshly cast aside. It only grew worse from there.
Nejire still doesn't turn, doesn't bother looking her in the eye. It's probably to hide the way she rolls her own as she says, "And I don't understand why somebody feels the need to hog the only washing machine for only a handful of clothes."
Izumi—the fight gone from her chest—can only sigh. She's not even sure why she tells her, but she does. "Those were the only nice clothes I brought with me. The dean asked to meet today. I just didn't want to embarrass myself." She's done that enough already, even one of the bouts in the festival that earned her a seat in heroics gets her mocked endlessly in online communities. It's always an uphill battle for Izumi Midoriya, she's come to just accept it.
With her piece said, Izumi turns and leaves. She doesn't wait for a response, nor would she likely get one had she. And it's for that very reason that she doesn't notice the way Nejire's hands pause around a clothespin; it's why she doesn't hear the soft noise the girl lets out as soon as she's gone.
Once safely inside her own room, she wipes her eyes with the heel of her palm and takes a deep breath. She quickly scans her closet for something acceptable to wear, but nothing seems good enough. Her hands shake and her heart thumps achingly in her chest as she checks them all again. She rubs aggressively at her temples, tugging the skin up and away from her brow.
"Fuck," she mutters, pacing back and forth, "Fucking shit." There isn't enough time for her to rinse her clothes and have them dry in time, and the rest of her wardrobe is still at her mother's.
She shoots a text to Tamaki, asking to borrow a sweater or something, and he's quick to reply with an unconditional 'yes.' Whatever he offers her will be big, there's no doubt about that, but it won't be nearly as bad as something of Mirio's. Tamaki was tall, but slight. She could at least match him there, as opposed to Mirio's forever building muscle mass.
The apartment is suffocating and the only window in her room opens to their backyard; cracking it would only make things worse; Nejire is still out there. She starts to leave, but even angry she can't justify negligently leaving the stove on. The friendship cake could burn for all she cared, but she'd rather if her belongings didn't go with it.
Tamaki's apartment is only a short walk from her own. Their community is a little further into campus than their sister class's, but not by much. He opens the door with a yawn, still fighting down a nasty shock of bed head, and holds up several options.
Izumi blinks at them all, not really sure what to say. "Did you grab your whole wardrobe?"
"I didn't want to disappoint you with my awful choices." She sees he's starting the doom and gloom early today. It's a welcome and familiar distraction for Izumi, who huffs good naturedly and plucks the pale green one from his shoulder.
"Never," she assures him. "Thank you for this, Tamaki. You're really saving my neck."
He shrugs and offers her a trembling smile as he leans against the door frame. "O–Of course." A black cardigan slips from his elbow, and Izumi only barely manages to catch it with her quirk. She waves her fingers and it flies into her palm. Tamaki quietly thanks her as she hands it back to him. "Why did you need it?"
"The dean asked to meet with me and my parents. But I didn't really bring anything nice enough for it." Hardly the full truth, but that was a well that didn't need dug.
His head tilts. "Couldn't your mom just bring something from your house when she comes to campus then?" Izumi shifts. The answer is apparent, at least to him. "You didn't tell her."
There's a distant stroke of trees she finds keenly interesting. "She had work."
Her and her mother's recent come to blows wasn't inobvious. The truth had already been pulled from her teeth kicking and screaming—her friends were ruthless when it came to things like that. She'd never stood a chance against their united front. Tamaki didn't benefit from that now.
She glances around his arm and into the apartment behind him, seeking out a distraction. "Your new wifey in?" When he answers in the negative, she grins like an imp. In her mind, she's rubbing her hands together like some kind of animated supervillain. There's nothing more beautiful than a plan coming together. "You want to continue our modded run?"
Anything beats going back to Nejire.
Izumi slips Tamaki's sweater over her tank top and ducks beneath his arm, moving into the apartment and diving onto his couch. She steals one of his retro console controllers from the coffee table and settles in for an afternoon well spent (until her meeting comes, at least).
It's late by the time she gets back. Really late. She ended up hiding at Tamaki's again once her meeting had concluded, staking out until he'd had enough and kicked her out sometime after dinner for some privacy. She'd tried Mirio's next, but it was his roommate who answered. Apparently he was out.
With nothing else to do, Izumi raids her rainy day bag in their class's locker room and scurries off to the gym. And then she just … never really leaves. When her legs grow tired, she moves on to upper. When she nearly drops the bar on her throat, she switches focus to core. When it feels like she'd die if she planks for another second, she tries running. When her lungs threaten to strangle her, she collapses beside the campus's lake and starts practicing her quirk on the sand under toe.
By day's end, she looks like a thrice damned tragedy. Likely smells worse.
There's some trepidation in her as she nears her apartment, which is stupid. She shouldn't feel ill at ease in her own home, that's supposed to be her refuge. Yet the commission and Nejire Hado get to rob her of that safety for their inane, government mandated, super-powered teen pregnancy programs and their bedsheets. She's one mild inconvenience away from joining the immortal picket line outside the National Diet for that alone.
A scowl flits across her lips as she slides her key into the lock, grumbling obscene curses to herself. If her mother could see her now, the things she'd say.
Whatever anxiety seeing Nejire again wrought, it was not outweighed by her bone deep need to shower and sleep. She swings the door open and steps inside, quietly muttering an 'I'm home' to the shadows as she slips her shoes from her feet, trading them out for a pair of house slippers. A moot point, considering her choice to use her quirk to float through the apartment.
The common areas of the apartment are all dark as she moves further in. She's forced to perform a twirl to stabilize herself long enough to make a beckoning motion with her index finger, forcing the light switch up. The impending flood is bright, but not hideously so.
She's nearly to her room when an unhappy groan rises up from somewhere to her right. Nejire is asleep on the couch, her eyes fluttering before she tucks her face into the top of the back cushion. Izumi frowns at her, confused and annoyed by her presence.
Her gaze flicks all around as she observes the other girl, halting at the sight of the outfit planned and laid out beside her. They weren't Izumi's clothes—though she did see those to the side—so she can only assume this was Nejire's own attempt at peace. Belated though it may be.
She sighs before turning away and continuing into her room. She gathers some sleepwear quickly, an oversized All Might shirt and some sweats, before ducking into the bathroom across the way.
By the time she's clean and her hair is pulled back in a spartan braid, Nejire is awake and waiting. "Hey," the other girl greets, her voice quiet and groggy. She tries to smile, but can't meet Izumi's eyes. "I waited for you to come back." When no response comes, she continues, her lips lifting weakly. "I wanted to offer some of my own clothes for you to wear to your meeting, but … "
Izumi shrugs and tries to end the conversation before another fight could break out. She just wants to sleep and forget about today. "I borrowed something from Tamaki."
"Oh." Nejire turns and pats the pile of clothes on the table. "I, uh, I finished your laundry. It's all right here." Again, there's nothing Izumi wants to say, so she keeps her silence even as the other girl looks to her and smiles. If a 'thank you' is what she wanted, she should prepare herself for disappointment. Izumi wasn't in the business of thanking people for solving problems of their own creation.
When the silence stretches for long enough for her reticence to be perfectly clear, Nejire tries a new angle. "And the, um. The cake?" She scurries off to the kitchen, casting a quick glance back just to make sure Izumi hadn't taken the chance to run away. When it was clear she hadn't, Nejire dips out of view to grab something, showing off a frosted plastic cake container. "You said you wanted to share it, so."
"Look," she tries, rubbing at the skin beneath her eye with a knuckle. "It's late, Hado. I'm tired. Can we just forget about everything that happened today? Call it water under the bridge?"
"Ah." The other girl stops walking, only half of the way back to her. The cake balances in her hands precariously. "That's … yeah. Okay." A nod. She chews her lip. "We can do that." Her back straightens up and she nods again. Suddenly she's distant; Izumi hadn't even noticed she wasn't until now. She finds herself already missing the openness.
Sighing to herself and silently cursing her own weakness, she steps forward. Nejire must've found the icing that came with the box, because the top of the cake is decorated with a wonderfully drawn 'sorry' surrounded by several simple hearts and flowers. It's cute and annoyingly earnest and Izumi finds it impossible to keep the corners of her lips from rising.
She glances up—finding Nejire already staring down at her—and demurely tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "A piece of cake wouldn't hurt, I suppose."
"Really?" Her wife's expression lightens, if only slightly.
Again, her lips twitch as she nods and says, "Really really."