Izuku recoiled in pain as yet another fist smashed against his face, his head snapping backwards as his teeth rang out from the impact against his jaw.

Laughter echoed around him as he was pushed around in a circle between Tsubasa and his friends, each one taking their turn getting a few hits in on his prone body. He tried not to yelp or cry out, since that just emboldened the group in their attack, but it was tough when Izuku was getting turned into a human punching bag.

"Did you really think you could keep running away, Deku?" Tsubasa sneered, shoving him to the ground just to have one of the other boys yank him up by the back of his collar, "You're pathetic!"

He socked him in the stomach, which would have made Izuku double over in pain if he were able to. As it was, he could only gasp in shock as the air left his lungs, shaking in his tormentor's grip.

Tsubasa turned his back on Izuku, and through his hazy eyes he thought he could see the portly teen rummaging through his backpack.

"H-hey!" Izuku tried to shout, but it turned into a wheezing fit. He could feel blood dripping down his face as he hacked up a lung. "G-get away from that!"

"Make me!" Was the only response he received.

He struggled to free himself from his classmate's grip, but another boy came up to him and held his arms back.

Tsubasa, ever impatient, didn't bother rifling through his bag - instead, he simply turned it upside down and dumped all the contents out onto the grimy tile floor. Izuku kicked and cried in protest, but that just led to someone else coming over and hitting him square in his solar plexus.

"!" Izuku froze, his body locking up as his nerves erupted in pain. The student holding him up by the back of his neck dropped him, and he hit the ground unceremoniously.

"Do you still write in those stalker notebooks?" Tsubasa asked, not waiting for an answer before he continued, "Or was Katsuki able to get it through your head that you were a fucking freak?"

He was a little busy trying to remember how to breathe, but even if he wasn't Izuku wouldn't have responded. He knew better than to humor them with a response - his only hope was for Tsubasa and his cronies to get bored and give up on messing with him.

A boy with blue hair and an extendable neck for his Quirk that Izuku remembered from Aldera peered over Tsubasa's shoulder. "Whatcha got? Anything good?"

Tsubasa rolled his eyes. "Nope. Just regular notebooks, paper, and some other useless junk. Must've known better than to bring them to class today, little rat."

He kicked Izuku's stuff down the hall, before turning back towards his vulnerable form on the tiled floor. "You know Deku," he began coldly, "You really should just give up. You're worthless. The world would be a better place without you, obviously. You used to worship Katsuki, didn't you? Why don't you do us all a favor and take the advice he gave you last year?"

Tsubasa kicked him in the gut for good measure (with his cronies laughing up a storm at the action), before stomping down the hall with his friends in tow. Izuku, for his part, just laid there and tried to keep himself from sobbing. If he started crying, they won.

They won a lot.

Taking a shuddering breath, he slowly crawled back towards his backpack, wincing at the way the teeth on one of the zipper tracks was completely ruined.

He liked this backpack…

This wasn't the first time he'd been suicide-baited this year. After Bakugou told him to take a swan-dive off the roof and pray for a Quirk in his next life last year, it was like a dam had been broken - spider lilies wound up on his desk more often than not, and 'helpful' notes constantly found their way into his locker. It was still better now than it was during middle school, but Tsubasa and the others made sure that Izuku knew exactly how valued he was.

It took Izuku longer than he would like to admit to finally pull himself off the floor. He stumbled as he started walking towards his scattered belongings, nearly falling over more than once and leaning against the lockers for support. It took some time collecting them, with most of the papers winding up in the trash due to the dirty footprints smudged over them.

He grimaced as he wiped at his face with the back of his sleeve, realizing that his lower lip had been busted as a result of one of the punches he had received. Blood marred his uniform, and was likely smeared all over his chin. That wasn't going to be fun to explain to his mom.

At least they didn't take his phone. It was still secure in his pocket, as silent as it had been all day.

To be honest, that was kind of surprising. Hadou usually texted him a lot, and he didn't think he'd done anything wrong on Saturday to warrant her ignoring him, but what did he know? Maybe she was just crashing out from all the sugar in her system.

Already brainstorming excuses for when he got home, he slowly made his way downstairs and towards the entrance. Izuku really hoped nobody was waiting right outside for him.

It had happened before. More than once, actually, so if he was smart he'd actually–

"Hi Midoriya!" A now familiar voice called out to him the second he pushed open the door.

His stomach sank faster than the Titanic. How was she here?

Izuku had barely stepped foot outside into the cool spring air before Hadou had spotted him, and he was strongly considering slamming it shut and running for the hills.

Unfortunately, she didn't give him the time to do so.

"Surprised to see me?" She asked, bounding up the steps in front of the school, "Because you should– woah! Are you okay?!"

Hadou gasped in shock. He tried not to react as she cringed at the state of his face, but it didn't look like Izuku did a very good job at that because Hadou immediately looked guilty.

"Are you okay?" She repeated, softer this time, "What happened?"

Izuku looked away, unable to meet her eyes. "I-I-I'm f-fine," he stammered quietly, "U-um, what are you d-doing here? H-how did you even find m-my school?"

She ignored his questions, gently reaching out with one hand and using it to tilt his head towards her. He squirmed uncomfortably beneath her scrutinous stare, but her eyes showed nothing but worry. "You look horrible!" Hadou commented, "How can you say this is fine? Were you in a fight?"

He shook his head to the best of his ability, which wasn't very well considering she was still grasping onto the bottom of his face. "N-no!" Izuku insisted, "I-I, uh, f-fell. D-d-down a s-stairwell."

To him, that wasn't the worst excuse in the world, but it clearly didn't work on Hadou. She raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "A stairwell?" She repeated.

"Y-y-yeah."

Hadou's frown deepened. "A stairwell that gave you a black eye?"

Welp. That wasn't good.

Izuku froze like a deer in headlights. "U-uh, I… m-must've hit my h-head on the r-railing?"

If the first lie didn't fool Hadou, there was no chance this one did either. Still, he could hope for a miracle.

The thing about miracles, though, was that they didn't come around too often. And for Izuku, they didn't really come around, period.

"I don't know," she said slowly, clearly not enjoying the fact that Izuku wasn't telling her the truth, "But if I'm not mistaken, didn't you have bruises on your face the first time we met too?"

Fuck.

Izuku was trembling by this point - he knew exactly what she was talking about. That day, Tsubasa had been taking his deep-seeded frustrations over failing Shiketsu's entrance exam out on him, and had left him quite a few parting gifts in the process. Nobody had questioned them then, and for good reason (since he had been thrown into a pole), but now?

He felt like a dam about to burst. Hadou was looking increasingly concerned as he stammered and stuttered out nothings. "I-I guess I'm just c-c-clumsy?"

The sentence was punctuated with a smile, but it came out as a twisted grimace.

Izuku really hoped Hadou would buy it. But he kind of knew she wouldn't. He squeezed his eyes shut, already preparing for the worst–

"If you say so," she said slowly, sighing as she pulled her hand away from him, "Sit down on the steps for me."

He blinked. "Huh?"

Hadou had already turned her back to him, dropping her own bookbag and pilfering through its contents. Not wanting to upset her any further (because she could definitely tell he was lying), he did as instructed, dropping his own backpack to the ground alongside him.

It only took a few moments for the periwinkle-haired girl to find what she was looking for, and once she turned towards him he realized Hadou was holding a small first-aid kit. She spared his scuffed backpack a single, unhappy look before dropping down in front of him.

"W-what are you doing?" Izuku asked, leaning backwards in surprise and nervousness from her proximity to him.

She cracked open the tiny teal box before responding, pulling out a small piece of cotton and a bottle of peroxide. "What does it look like?"

While Hadou didn't sound mad, per se, she certainly didn't sound pleased. It made Izuku wince guiltily, and he couldn't help but realize that he was the reason for her ire.

"Y-you d-don't have to h-help!" He said quickly, taking the older girl by surprise, "I-I, um, s-sorry. I'll be okay, really! I d-don't want to t-trouble you."

Hadou stared at him, eyes wide, until something clicked in her head. She poured some of the alcohol onto the cotton ball, leaning forward with it until she was only a few inches from his face (something that made his head feel really warm).

"You're not troubling me, Izuku," she whispered kindly, meeting his gaze evenly, "You're my friend, and I'm a Hero. It's my job to help people. Can I help?"

Izuku gulped. She was really close. And using his first name. He felt like his judgment might have been a little clouded, but he jerked his head up and down anyways. "O-okay," he mumbled.

Hadou smiled. "Thank you," she replied, before it immediately dimmed, "Brace yourself, this might sting."

She pressed the cotton against his cheek (he must have been bleeding more than he thought) and he flinched back slightly, an apology already forming on his lips. "S-s-sorry–"

"It's okay," Hadou assured him, "It's not your fault."

They both fell silent for a few moments, with Hadou tending to his cuts and Izuku hissing a little bit whenever she moved onto a particularly painful one. It went on for a while, but he never really became any less on-edge.

In the middle of placing a bandage across his forehead, she suddenly spoke up again. "Do you trust me?"

"Huh?" Izuku breathed out, confused. "Y-yes?"

She hummed, choosing to let silence pervade for a few moments before she locked eyes with him again. "You can talk to me if something's bothering you, or if you need help with anything, you know. People shouldn't have to deal with their problems alone. Okay?"

He shuddered as she pressed a small ice pack against his eye, but only partly from the cold. "G-got it."

Izuku was glad that Hadou didn't keep pressing him on it, but he couldn't help but feel more than a little worried about what her opinion of him was now. Did she think he was a compulsive liar now? Did she dislike him for lying? Did she think he had lied to her about other stuff, too?"

"I don't think you're a liar, Izuku," Hadou replied.

He slammed a hand over his mouth faster than should have been possible - miraculously not hitting Hadou in the face in the process - completely mortified.

He thought he had finally got control of his muttering.

Clearly not.

"S-s-sorry," he mumbled after a few seconds passed, face as red as Mars. "I-I, uh, I know my m-muttering is creepy, b-but I–"

"It's not creepy," Haduo murmured, "You're not creepy."

He didn't have the energy in him to argue with what was an undeniable lie from her, so he just looked away in shame. Hadou watched him with keen eyes before continuing on her job, a worried frown on her face.

It wasn't very hard for Nejire to figure out that Izuku was hiding some things from her.

–

"Done."

It took longer than Izuku would have liked for Hadou to finish with the first-aid kit, with it getting to the point in the day where the sun was starting to dip, but he wasn't about to complain about her taking the time to clean up what he was sure looked like a crime scene on his face.

"T-thanks," he muttered, "U-um, really though, y-you didn't have to–"

She cupped his face again, and that was enough to shut him up immediately. "It's okay." Hadou offered him a sweet smile that made his gut do backflips. "Thanks for letting me help."

Izuku blinked. Why was she thanking him? "Uh, n-no problem?" His brow furrowed slightly after a moment. "B-but, um, w-why are you at m-my school– n-not that it's a p-problem, or anything!"

He waved his hands placatingly in front of him, but she just giggled as he became more and more flustered. "Thanks for reminding me," she replied, already turning back towards her bookbag to deposit the first-aid kit and retrieve… something, "I was gonna text you, but I wanted it to be a surprise! Remember how we were testing out Wave Motion the other day after we got ice cream?"

Izuku nodded. She had dragged him halfway across Musutafu in a single bound, with the two of them winding up at an old, trash-filled beach… or so he thought. Apparently Mirio, one of Hadou's friends, had cleaned the entire beach up over the course of most of last year, which was frankly incredible. Anyways, the two of them had spent the better part of the afternoon theorycrafting and doing tests with her Quirk, and Hadou claimed that she would need some time to herself afterwards to cope with the fact that Izuku had turned her understanding of Wave Motion on its head in the span of a few seconds. She had left that day exuberant, giggling something about 'showing the others next time they had training', but Izuku wasn't one to pry.

"Good! I knew you would," she praised, before pulling out a crisp, white, sealed envelope, "Well, not to brag or anything, but even though it's only been two days I'm pretty sure I'm going to win the Sports Festival now thanks to some of the stuff you showed me! From what I have shown Mirio and Tamaki, they've barely been able to handle it, so imagine what happens when I casually reveal neither of them can even break my forcefield!"

"C-congrats?" Izuku said slowly, slightly confused, "But I didn't s-show you anything? A-all the work was done by you, I j-just came up with some i-ideas…"

He looked away quickly, bashfully tapping his index fingers together beneath her astonished gaze. Izuku missed the way her mouth went from an 'o' to a wide smile, jumping slightly when she sat down right next to him and starting playing with his hair again.

"You're really sweet!" Hadou enjoyed the way that he sputtered in shock. "But no, that was all you! I've had my Quirk for thirteen years, and I've never even thought about those ideas for it! You can take credit for this one!"

Izuku's face continued to invent new shades of red with his blushing. "Uh… i-if you s-say so?"

"You still haven't told me how you get your hair so soft," she commented, "But anyways! So, I wanted it to be a surprise, so I had to remember what the name of your school was, which was hard because it was super generic and boring. I eventually did, and then I had to look it up - did you know it has an average rating of less than one star? That's really bad, I still don't get how someone as smart as you wound up in such a crappy school! You'd probably fit right in at U.A., but I guess that means we might not have met yet and that would suck a lot, so I guess it's fine. So I found your school, and I decided to surprise you and show up after your class let out and give you this!"

Hadou offered him the envelope she was holding with a bright smile, one which he hesitantly tried to return as he accepted the paper. He made sure not to brush against her hands, eyeing the paper in confusion.

"I-it's addressed to you?" Izuku said, reading off the address information. "From U.A.? W-why would they not just, um, g-give it to you?"

"Open it and you'll find out!~" Hadou replied in a sing-song voice, "Go on, open it!"

He nodded slowly, taking care not to damage the paper or whatever was inside as he sheared the top off. Digging around for a moment, he realized the only thing within was a long, thin piece of paper with special markings across it. Hadou continued to watch on eagerly, rocking back and forth on the step and hoping he liked it.

Izuku's eyes were as wide as saucers as he finally pulled out the paper, realizing exactly what it was immediately.

A ticket to U.A.'s Sports Festival.

"I could tell that you really liked Quirks based on the way we were talking about Wave Motion," Hadou rambled, "So I thought you might like to go and see the Festival in person! You can finally meet my other friends, and I really want to introduce you to them! I think you'd like them a lot, and I know they'd like you! Also, I want you to be there when I win! It'll be fun!"

He didn't say anything, instead continuing to stare at the small slip of paper in his hands.
Sports Festival tickets weren't exactly cheap - aside from the fact that they never really had time, money was the main reason his mother had never taken him to see one in person. The third year's Festival was especially exclusive, what with it being the last one most people saw before those students became full-fledged heroes.

And he now had a front row seat. The ticket even had his name on it.

He didn't realize he had started shaking until he nearly tore the ticket up with how tightly he was holding it.

"Izuku?" Hadou asked quickly, "Are you okay? Do you not like it? I-I can take it back if you don't want it! Are you upset–"

He laughed at her. A wet, shuddering laugh that made it really hard not to cry right now.

"N-no," he breathed out, choking up slightly, "I-it, um, it's a-amazing. I j-just–"

Izuku paused, unable to meet her eyes. Deep breaths, deep breaths. It would be really embarrassing if he burst into tears. "I d-d-don't g-get gifts a l-lot," he finally hiccuped, voice barely above a whisper, "B-but this must have c-cost you a lot. A-are you sure you want to give this to m-me?"

He barely felt the arm she reached around his shoulder, giving him a reassuring smile as she squeezed his arm. "Of course I do," she said softly, "I'm glad you like it."

A wobbly smile formed on his lips, and he was sure he was quite a sore sight with his bruises and busted lip, but it was the happiest he'd felt in a long time. He could already feel the mistiness in his eyes. God, he was pathetic. He knew he and his mom were criers, but this was ridiculous.

"I d-do." Izuku agreed, pawing at his eyes as he sniffled, "T-this means a lot t-to me. T-thank you, Hadou-s-san. I-if there's anything I c-can do to repay you– hrk!"

In the middle of his sentence, Hadou, seemingly decided she'd heard enough, wrapped her other arm around him and pulled him in for a hug - abruptly shutting him up in just about the most efficient way possible.

His blush turned nuclear - no, Chernobyl - as she practically placed him in her lap, wrapping her arms around Izuku's torso and pulling him close as she rested her head on his shoulder. He wasn't sure if he was as still as a statue or shaking like crazy, but Hadou didn't seem to care.

"You don't have to repay me," she whispered, her breath making him seize up as it tickled his ear, "It's a gift. I wanted to give it to you, no strings attached."

Hadou pulled back slightly, allowing herself to lock eyes with Izuku - and he was sure that he looked like a hot mess. "Buuut…" she said slowly, tilting her head to the side with a mischievous grin, "If you want, I wouldn't hate it if you started calling me Nejire."

She was going to kill him. She was going to kill him, and she wasn't even trying. He was going to have a heart attack at this rate, and he was going to die.

But… that probably wouldn't be the worst way for him to go.

Even before he opened his mouth he knew he was going to stutter like an idiot. "O-okay, N-N-Nejire."

Izuku turned his head to the side quickly, unable to take the way she was beaming at him, but that just meant he had even less time to react as Nejire yanked him back in for another hug.
"Now if you're gonna use my first name you better not go back to 'Hadou'," she warned, "You hear me?"

Izuku nodded, almost robotically. "Y-yes ma'am."

Nejire snorted. "Ma'am?" She gasped dramatically, "How old do you think I am?!"

"S-sorry."

She poked his forehead. "You don't have to apologize, silly."

"S-sorry."

Instead of poking him again, she playfully rolled her eyes and started playing with Izuku's hair again. "For real this time, tell me what the secret to hair this fluffy is!"

He blinked. "Um… conditioner?"

Nejire nodded slowly, taking in his sage advice. "Alright, more conditioner. I'll let you know how that works out."

She continued to play with his hair with one hand, keeping her other one wrapped around him - since it wasn't like he was hugging her back, she was the only one keeping them close together.

Izuku blushed as another thought entered his mind. Would Nejire get mad if–

Almost without thinking, he slowly reached his arms around her sides, his heart pounding in his chest before he realized what he was doing. He tensed, immediately ready to apologize and get up–

Nejire hummed, moving her arm around so he was a little closer to her - and now unable to pull back his own.

"Hugs are better with two people, don't you think?" She asked.

He nodded dumbly, with most of his motor function abandoning him as he realized how they must look to an outsider. A warm feeling blossomed in his chest as they sat there… one that he just knew would spell trouble for him in the future.

Because now, Izuku had a crush.

This wasn't going to end well.

—

A/N: I'm surprised with the rate I'm putting chapters out. Sorry about it being kind of short though, with my current plan this one and maybe the next one will be on the smaller end while the two after that should be a bit more beefy.

Izuku is starting to fall for his friend now, only a matter of time before (in his mind) he makes a fool of himself and ruins everything. Will that happen? Probably not. But it could!

Let me know what you think! Make sure to review, and I hope you enjoyed! See you next time!