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It’s several weeks into his first semester of college before Todoroki Shouto realizes that he stares at the boy with green hair every time he sees him. The sad thing is, he’s not even the one who realizes it.
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you don’t know him,” Momo speaks up from beside him where they’re sitting on the grass studying.
Well- they’re supposed to be studying.
Shouto blinks and pulls his gaze away from the theatre club- from a specific member of the theatre club- and looks at her. “Who?”
Momo nods in a self-satisfied manner and turns back to her notes. “You should go talk to him.”
He furrows his brow at her and blinks, thoroughly confused. “Who?” He asks again.
“You can’t be serious.” She looks up at him with an incredulous expression and when he doesn’t say anything her jaw drops. “Oh my gosh you are. You don’t know you do it.”
“Do what?”
“Stare.”
“What? I don’t stare.”
“Yes you do.”
“At what?”
“Who,” she corrects. “You stare at a person, Todoroki, a specific person.”
“Who!?” he cries again.
“That guy with the green hair!” She says frustratedly. Shouto can tell she’s trying very hard not to rudely point at the person across the lawn from them. “You stare at him every time you see him! He’s in the drama club and we eat lunch in the same area- I’m pretty sure his dorm is in the same building as yours! I thought you knew and that’s why we started studying here when you heard the drama club practiced outside on nice days!”
“When did I hear that?” Shouto asks, unwilling, for the moment, to touch on anything else she said.
“At lunch three weeks ago when he was in line ahead of us talking about it with his friends! And don’t try to deny it because right after he said it you started talking about how it was a nice day.”
“I-” Shouto wants to defend himself, but Momo is an observant person and she tends not to bring stuff like this up unless she knows she’s right. “Okay. Maybe I stare at him,” he concedes.
Momo nods, visibly satisfied. “Good. Now are you going to talk to him?”
Shouto looks back down at his notebook with a shrug and pretends to be going over equations. “I really don’t have a reason to-”
“Todoroki Shouto, you go talk to that boy right now,” she snaps.
She’s not loud but she’s firm in a way that has Shouto shooting to his feet instantly. Once standing, however, he feels nerves settle in his stomach and he hesitantly looks back over to where the drama club appears to be practicing stage combat.
The green-haired boy is in the middle of going over the steps needed to mime a slap with his partner and obviously Shouto can’t just go over and interrupt so he watches and tries not to feel self conscious now that he knows he’s apparently been doing that a lot.
The boy says something to his partner and then turns to leave, and Shouto feels something in his chest tighten at the idea of not getting to talk to him-
And then the boy’s partner says something back and the boy turns back around to laugh but his eye’s catch on Shouto’s and he feels something else in his chest -or maybe it’s the same thing- tighten in a completely different way because getting caught staring is a very jarring and terrifying experience so just how exactly is he supposed to actually talk to him?
They stare at each other for a moment and then the boy smiles and gives a slight wave.
Shouto, dazed and out of his element, returns the gesture.
The boy leaves after that and Shouto looks down at Momo with a helplessly hopeful expression on his face but she presses her lips into a thin line and sighs as she gathers up her books.
“That,” she says decisively, “Does not count.”
-----
The next time he notices the boy, or rather, the next time he notices himself noticing the boy, he’s sitting in the library going over a paper he’d been assigned to peer edit. He sees something move in his peripheral vision and he swears that’s the only reason he looks up- not because the movement looks distinctly green or anything- and there he is, browsing a shelf not too far from the table where Shouto’s set up camp.
It’s then that Shouto has to stop and come to terms with his options. Here he is, working on something that’s not due for another three days, and there the boy is, not pretending to slap anyone- it seems to be a good opportunity to introduce himself. However, he hadn’t planned on confronting a cute boy with green hair and freckled cheeks today so he’s wearing an old t-shirt and probably smells like coffee from when he’d spilled his mug earlier- not prime introductory material.
He makes a quick mental list of pros and cons.
Pros: He could get to talk to the cute boy and learn his name.
Cons: Momo isn’t here to motivate him and/or provide moral support should he need it.
Pros: Momo isn’t here to see him make a fool of himself if he fails.
Cons: He could make a fool of himself and fail.
Well. Cons it is, then.
He sighs and circles a misspelled word.
And then he hears a noise. Slowly, he looks up, back at the boy who has gone very stiff for some reason.
The boy turns around slowly and their eyes meet again, but Shouto is a bit too caught up in wondering why his face is so red to really look for any sign of recognition. The boy shakes his head in quick but small motions and Shouto furrows his brows.
What is he shaking his head for?
Then he hears the noise again- not a noise- a moan, and the boy’s face goes even more red, and Shouto’s eyes widen in realization. The bookshelf behind the boy shakes a bit and he and Shouto both look at it in horror.
They’re in the back of the library. There’s no way to leave without walking past that shelf.
The shelf shakes again, this time accompanied by a hushing sound and muffled giggles, and the boy dashes for a chair at one of the empty tables and promptly throws himself into looking at his phone. They both spend the next ten minutes awkwardly avoiding looking at each other and trying to ignore the couple on the other side of the shelf. The few times they do make eye contact they both turn bright red and immediately look away and Shouto honestly thinks he might rather be at home with his father than in his current situation.
The couple finishes and as soon as their footsteps recede Shouto shoots out of his chair and grabs his papers. This, of course, has the unfortunate side effect of drawing the boy’s attention and he and Shouto stare at each other for a moment while Shouto thinks of something to say.
He opens his mouth, closes it, decides that there is literally nothing on earth that he could say right now that would not result in spontaneous combustion and/or a strong desire to lie in a ditch and let the elements take him, nods, and leaves.
-----
The third time Shouto notices the boy, he’s more surprised than he should be.
He’s pulling his clothes out of the dryer when the boy walks into the laundry room, backpack overfull and sagging from his shoulders, and Shouto almost drops the shirt he’s folding.
Thankfully his near blunder goes unnoticed as the boy starts unloading his clothes into one of the washers and Shouto takes a moment to wonder what on earth he’s doing here.
Momo had said she thought they were in the same building, hadn’t she? Of course she was right. Why have they never run into each other until now? What is he supposed to do with this information? Should he say something? Should he start going to the movie and game nights every week to increase chances of interaction? What if-
The boy groans and Shouto feels the blood in his veins simultaneously freeze and start pumping faster.
“Um, excuse me?” The boy says.
Shouto would have looked up no matter what, but he’s proud to say that he doesn’t stop to wonder if he’s the one being addressed- he’s the only other person in the room.
“Do you have any extra laundry soap?” he holds up a container of laundry pods. “My roommate did the shopping this week and I’m allergic to this kind. You could have some of these in return.”
Shouto shakes his head and grabs his own container of pods. “That’s okay. How many do you need?”
“Just one. Are you sure?”
“Yeah don’t sweat it.” He hands the boy a laundry pod and tries not to have any particular emotions of any variety when their hands don’t touch.
“Thanks!” The boy practically beams and Shouto has to force himself to finish folding his laundry and stop staring.
Shouto eventually starts folding his last shirt and he can’t decide if that’s a good thing because now he’ll have no reason to stay in the room and he still can’t think of anything to say to the boy. He takes a deep breath, and decides to just go for it and start with a clean, clear introduction.
He opens his mouth-
And the boy’s phone rings.
“Hello?”
Todoroki bites his lip and tries to remember what he’s done to piss off the universe lately.
“What do you mean you’re locked out? You never forget your keys! Yeah I’ll be there in a second.” He starts his washing machine and leaves the room, voice fading as he goes. “Well how did you manage…”
Shouto sighs and picks up his laundry basket.
Oh well. At least they’ve actually spoken to each other now. Progress is progress, right?
Right?
-----
The next time Shouto sees him he sees a lot of him- more than he ever thought he would.
A lot more.
It’s six-thirty on a Saturday morning and Shouto intends to get a shower befor he meets Momo for breakfast. Of course, given the fact that it is six-thirty on a Saturday morning, he doesn’t expect anyone else to be in the communal bathroom so when he walks in he’s surprised to hear a shower running in one of the stalls.
He doesn’t think anything of it though- it’s not completely out of the question for at least one person on the floor to be an early riser- and continues about his business. He brushes his teeth in silence and while he’s checking to make sure he’s not out of shampoo he vaguely registers that the shower turns off. He nods to himself, satisfied with the amount of soap that he has, and turns to the stalls.
The curtain directly in front of him opens.
Now, a lot of things happen very quickly, and Shouto isn’t quite sure of the exact order, but every individual event is burned into his mind forever.
The boy stares at him, wide-eyed, and slack-jawed, wild green hair plastered to his head and dripping water down his face and over his neck, creating little rivulets that run over his surprisingly chiseled torso down to-
The boy screams and yanks the curtain back closed.
Shouto thinks he might have screamed too but he’s not entirely sure as his mind is a bit busy collapsing in on itself.
“Oh my gosh! I am so sorry!”
Shouto continues helplessly gaping at the curtain.
“I didn’t hear you come in! I forgot my towel on the bench out there and I thought I was the only one in here still so I was just gonna make a mad dash for it but I’m not the only one in here because you’re in here oh my gosh I am so sorry!”
Shouto finally blinks and is relieved to find that the image of the green haired boy without any clothes is not branded onto the underside of his eyelids.
“Um… Could you… hand me my towel? Or close your eyes?”
Shouto can admit to himself that he has thought up many possible ways that his next encounter with the boy could go- has even planned out a few generic opening statements. None of those scenarios and plans involved the boy being naked. He feels vastly unprepared.
The idea of the boy being naked without a barrier between them though, even if the barrier is just a curtain, has him mentally fumbling to blurt out something- anything- to keep the boy from leaving the safety of said barrier while Shouto fumbles to grab his towel, lack of preparations be damned.
“Yeah just- just hang on,” he approaches the curtain and stares for a moment, awkwardly debating the ridiculousness of knocking. “Um.”
The boy sticks one arm out and gropes blindly for a moment before Shouto puts the towel in his hand. “Here.”
“Thank you!” The boy’s arm quickly retreats back into the stall and Shouto wonders at the number of scars and freckles on the appendage before deciding that this encounter has been awkward and embarrassing enough without the possibility of the boy opening the curtain without warning again to find Shouto standing right outside, so he hurries into the stall three spaces over and tries not to think about anything as he undresses for his shower.
“Um… I’ve never seen you up this early,” the boy says after a moment.
Shouto blinks and tries to pull together a sentence in his head but his mind went from not completely awake to ‘error system overload’ way too fast and all he can manage is a flat sounding “What?”
Shouto doesn’t deserve this. He really doesn’t.
The boy laughs awkwardly. “It’s just that I’m in here every morning around this time for a shower after I go running and I’ve never run into you this early before.”
He runs. Of course he runs. He runs every morning before sunrise and is already finished and in the shower before most people in the building even open their eyes because he’s apparently athletic and impressive like that.
“I’m meeting a friend for breakfast,” Shouto explains.
“That sounds fun,” the boy says and there’s the sound of a curtain opening. “I hope you have a good time!”
After a moment Shouto manages a delayed “Thanks,” and then he hears footsteps heading to the door before it opens and closes.
Breakfast is an eventful affair during which Momo extracts every detail of the interaction from him and then laughs for a solid five minutes.
“Only you could not notice you were pining after someone for months and then manage to see that person naked before even finding out their name.”
Shouto flushes but can’t argue with the statement. It really is the result of a certain brand of luck that only he has.
“It sounds like maybe he notices you at least half as much as you notice him though.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He said he’s never seen you in the bathroom that early before so he has to have some idea of who you are.”
“I would also notice if I was usually the only one in the bathroom though. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yeah but would you say something to someone you’ve never noticed before? The fact that he said ‘I’ve never seen you’ instead of ‘usually I’m the only one in here’ implies that you hold some sort of weight with him.”
“He borrowed laundry soap from me last week. He was probably just trying to be polite in the middle of what was a very awkward situation.”
Momo takes a sip of her tea and doesn’t argue with him, but she also doesn’t say he’s right. “Operation Green Bean has certainly taken a turn for the entertaining. Not that it wasn’t entertaining to watch you before but now it’s hilarious.”
Shouto squints at her. “Operation what?”
Momo shrugs. “Operation Green Bean. He’s small and green. I never claimed to be good at naming things.”
“Yaoyorozu no that’s-” he stops and realizes he really isn’t sure he can handle finishing his thought out loud, but now that he’s started he really can’t get out of it. “He’s not- He’s not small. He’s-” he puts his head down on the table, hiding from Momo or the inescapable truth he’s about to spit out, he’s not sure, but it helps him feel marginally better about it in any case. “He’s frickin’ ripped,” he whispers.
Momo reaches across the table and pats his head. “You poor gay soul.”
-----
Shouto doesn’t see the boy for a while after that. Part of him is relieved and the other part of him is… well a little sad honestly but he’s not going to admit that to anyone.
He spends his time between classes and homework by studying and ignoring the increasing number of calls and texts from his father telling him he’s wasting his life and should switch majors. It’s not something he can sit down and talk out with him, he’s tried before, but he still wishes that his old man would just let it go.
He must be between cases at the moment because it’s nearing three a.m. and Shouto stares at his phone’s incoming call screen for what feels like the hundredth time that day, waiting for it to go to voicemail. He hadn’t gone one hour all day without a call or text which is uncommon, but not unbelievable.
His phone screen goes dark for a moment and then lights up again with a notification for a missed call.
Shouto sighs and gets up, making a point to leave his phone on the charger. Maybe a trip to the kitchen for tea will help him sleep.
The hallway is dim and empty but as he approaches the shared kitchen the light gets brighter and he can hear the sounds of someone moving around- not inconsiderately loud but noticeable all the same. He walks into the room and sees the boy- because of course he’s there- stirring something in a large bowl.
Shouto stops in the entryway and debates just going back to his room but before he can make a decision the boy looks up and jumps. “Oh!” he says, somehow managing to stay quiet yet still convey his alarm. “You scared me.” Then he looks alarmed for a completely different reason. “I didn’t wake you up did I? I was trying to be quiet.”
“No,” Shouto shakes his head and shifts his weight. “You’re fine. I was… going to make tea. Sorry for scaring you.”
The boy beams at him and shakes his head. “It’s okay. A little adrenaline is good sometimes.”
Shouto looks at the clock and decides that, while the boy may be right, a little adrenaline at three a.m. doesn’t exactly sound good. “Do you sleep?” he blurts without thinking.
The boy stares at him for a moment, clearly perplexed, and Shouto tries to fight down the embarrassment trying to make a home on his face. “It’s just… You get up really early every morning to run right? And here you are making…” Shouto trails off and looks at the bowl, realizing that he actually has no idea what the boy is really doing.
The boy tips the bowl towards him and helpfully explains. “Cookies. I’m making cookies. Would you like to help?”
“It’s three a.m.”
“So you don’t want to help?”
Shouto bites his lip and stands still only long enough to register that he should be surprised at how little thought he puts into his answer. “What do you need me to do?” he walks over to the counter and looks into the bowl.
“Finish stirring while I get a pan.”
Shouto nods and takes the spoon from the boy’s hand while he turns to crouch in front of a cabinet in search of a cookie sheet.
“So all of those times when there’s just randomly been a container of cookies sitting on the counter in here… were they yours?”
The boy makes a small sound of affirmation behind him, concentrating on carefully pulling a pan out from under a pile of other dishes without making too much noise. He gives a small triumphant laugh at his success and stands back up to put the pan on the counter next to Shouto. “Well I mean, they’re mine technically, but I make them for everyone.”
“Oh.”
“Have you had one before?”
“No, because I didn’t know whose they were or what was in them.”
The boy’s eyes go wide. “Do you have food allergies?”
“No, I have trust issues.”
The boy’s mouth twitches and Shouto wants to knock his head against a wall, join a monastery very far away, and go back to his dorm, not necessarily in that order.
The boy snorts, then covers his mouth with a hand, and then starts laughing. He puts his other hand on the counter, leaning his weight on it while trying to get his giggling under control. “That’s- that’s fair,” he grins. “I guess it’s not too outrageous to think someone would make weed cookies and sit back to watch the show.”
Shouto stares at him, trying to figure out how his life has come to making cookies after midnight with the human embodiment of literal sunshine.
The boy must misinterpret the look because he instantly straightens up and rushes to speak. “Not- not that I’ve ever done that! Because I haven’t! And I wouldn’t!”
Shouto nods after a moment. “I know.” And he does know. He doesn’t know how he knows. Given their limited encounters and their even more limited conversations, he really has no reason or right to assume he truly knows anything about the boy but he’s a nice person and Shouto feels confident enough to say he knows that much.
The boy blinks at him for a second then blushes and looks away to dig around in a drawer for a cookie scoop. “Do you want to scoop or…?”
Shouto shakes his head. “I’ll make tea. Do you want a cup?”
The boy starts scooping cookies onto the tray but throws a smile over his shoulder. “Yes please.”
By the time Shouto finishes with the tea, the boy has put the cookies in the oven and is patiently waiting, swinging his legs back and forth while sitting on the counter. He accepts the mug with a smile and a sincere ‘thank you’ and then stares down into the liquid while Shouto situates himself on the counter across from him. They’re both quiet for a while after that until the boy finally speaks.
“I do sleep.”
Shouto had been zoning out and blinks at suddenly being pulled back into the moment. “What?”
“Earlier you asked if I sleep. I do.” He turns his mug around in his hands a few times, fidgeting and clearly stalling. “But sometimes it’s hard… sleeping.”
Shouto nods. He gets that.
“Growing up was… not the best for me. Everything’s okay now, of course, but sometimes it all comes back and it feels like too much- like I need things to slow down for a minute but instead it just gets faster and the idea of going to sleep and falling even more behind is so appalling that it’s almost scary and… and well I thought that maybe that happens to you too and that’s why you’re out here right now instead of asleep and if that’s the case and you want to talk about it then I can listen if you… want…” The boy trails off and hesitantly looks up at Shouto and he must be making a really weird face because the boy jumps and almost drops his mug in his haste to put it down and wave his hands frantically.
“Of course sometimes there are nights when you just can’t sleep for no good reason! That happens to me too sometimes and it could also be why you’re out here- y’know- just a simple case of insomnia! I’m not saying that you look like anything’s wrong just that if something were wrong you could talk to me about it even if you were maybe nervous about saying anything because you didn’t think anyone could relate! Oh! But even if I couldn’t relate I would still listen if you had a problem because I’m sure our experiences aren’t exactly the same but sometimes it’s nice to just talk about things even if the other person doesn’t get it-”
“I get it,” Shouto interjects.
The boy in front of him visibly deflates and heaves a relieved sigh at the end of his babbling before cautiously looking at him.
“The not sleeping thing. Because of the slowing down feeling and the regular insomnia. I get it.”
The boy nods and then takes a sip of his tea. Shouto can see him trying to think of something to say and hesitating every time an idea comes to mind. He’s still fidgeting and nervously glancing at him and Shouto thinks that if he now knows something vaguely personal and slightly vulnerable about the boy then he should feel comfortable enough to return the openness.
He heaves a deep, quiet breath and speaks. “My old man wants me to be a lawyer.”
“Oh.”
Shouto nods. “Oh.”
“And you don’t?” It’s phrased as a question but there’s something wholly supportive and accepting about it that has a small smile pulling at Shouto’s lips.
“And I don’t.”
“Then don’t.”
Shouto looks up at him and the boy laughs but there’s something determined in his eyes. “I know it’s probably not that simple, but you shouldn’t do anything with your life that you don’t want to. It’s your life.”
“Try telling him that,” Shouto mutters, unable to sound entirely bitter in the face of this boy and his laughter.
“Okay.”
The timer beeps and the boy hops down from the counter to take the cookies out of the oven and move them onto a cooling rack and Shouto just stares at him in awe.
“What? Don’t think I will?”
“I know you would and that’s what’s scary to me.”
The boy laughs again and opens a drawer to grab two spoons. He grabs the bowl of remaining cookie dough and hops up on the counter next to Shouto, offering him one of the spoons.
“You’re not going to make the rest?” he asks.
“Nah,” the boy says casually. He scoops a spoonful of cookie dough out of the bowl and grins. “It’s a raw cookie dough kind of night.”
“I get the feeling there will be fights over the twelve cookies you did make,” even as he says it he gets his own scoop of cookie dough.
The boy laughs. “Now there’s a show I would sit back and watch.”
Shouto loses track of how long they sit on the counter eating cookie dough and talking about whatever mundane topic strikes their tired brains as entertaining but eventually he goes back to his room feeling tired and much more at peace than he had when he left.
Right before he falls asleep he realizes that he somehow still doesn't know the boy’s name.
-----
The sixth time he sees the boy Shouto is sitting at lunch with Momo.
“So you’re telling me,” she says seriously. “That you have shared laundry soap with this boy, have stayed up late making cookies and having emotional conversations with him, have seen him naked-” She exclaims- “And you still don’t know his name?!”
Shouto takes a drink of his soda. “Well when you put it like that it does sound pretty ridiculous, huh?”
Momo throws her hands up in the air. “Unbelievable! I cannot understand you- how does this happen?! How do you manage to befriend someone without knowing their name?!”
“We’re not friends,” Shouto says instinctively but then he stops to wonder about that. “Are we?”
“You’re as close to being friends as two people who don’t know each other’s names can be! At the very least you’re friend-ly!”
“Oh my gosh,” he whispers. “We’re sort of friends. We’re friendly. We’re friendly acquaintances. Yaoyorozu how did this happen?”
Momo puts her head in her hands and sighs. “Don’t ask me. Honestly I’m beginning to wonder how we’re even friends.”
“Because I’m a good study buddy and I listen to you talk about the girl who works at the music shop.”
“You make a good point.” She finally looks up and her eye catches on something behind Shouto. “Hey isn’t that Green Bean?”
“You have got to stop calling him that,” Shouto says as he turns around.
“And you have got to find out his name. Hey… Doesn’t he look… uncomfortable?”
She’s right. The person he’s talking to appears to be standing way too close to him, proved evident by the strained smile on his face and the way he keeps subtly trying to put space between them. The person is either not picking up on the hints or is blatantly ignoring them and Shouto feels something protective twist in his chest.
“You should go help him,” Momo says.
“His friends haven’t stepped in so it would be weird if I did.” The argument sounds hollow even to him.
“I haven’t seen his friends around. I think he’s alone and I don’t think that other guy really cares that he’s emitting ‘leave me alone’ vibes strong enough to be felt all the way over here. Besides didn’t you just have a revelation about being sort of friends?”
Shouto opens his mouth but then the stranger hooks his fingers under the boy’s chin to make him look up and Shouto is out of his seat and halfway across the cafeteria before he really registers moving.
“I’m just saying I think you and I could really-”
There are times where Shouto opens his mouth and words come out without thinking and the result is horrible but he’s very grateful that this is not one of those times.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.” He speaks firmly and clearly, like he expects to be paid attention to and it works because the stranger removes his hand from the boy’s face and the boy looks at him with wide confused eyes. “I had a question about Saturday.”
The boy blinks at him. “Saturday…?”
Shouto looks at him and urges him to understand with every fibre of his being. “The movies. I forgot to ask which one you wanted to go see.”
“Hey, we were talking,” The stranger says angrily.
Shouto turns to face him and channels every bit of anger he has into steeling his face. “And now you’re not,” he says cooly. “Amazing how that happens.”
The stranger visibly blanches and looks at the boy one last time before scoffing and walking away.
Beside him, the boy sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. “Thanks for that. I was really tempted to haul off and punch him but I didn’t want to make a scene.”
Shouto turns and looks at him, one goal in mind. “What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Your name. We’ve never introduced ourselves to each other.”
The boy turns red. “Oh my gosh you’re right. I forget to ask every time we talk! I feel so rude!” he buries his face in his hands and Shouto is past the point of trying to pretend he doesn’t find it endearing.
“I also haven’t asked so you’re not the only one at fault here.”
The boy shoots up straight and then bows stiffly. “Midoriya Izuku!” he says and Shouto honestly doesn’t think there could be a more well suited name out there for the boy with green hair.
“Todoroki Shouto,” he bows back. “Nice to finally know your name.”
“You too!” The boy- Midoriya exclaims.
They both stand still for a moment, smiling pleasantly at each other before a light flush rises up Midoriya’s face and he scratches the back of his neck.
“So uh… The movies?”
Shouto tries not to blush as well. “We don’t- I was- It was just to get him to leave you alone. We don’t have to actually-”
“I’d like to go,” Midoriya says. “It sounds nice.”
Shouto stares for a moment and then lets out an intelligent sounding “Oh.”
Midoriya laughs. “Oh. I’ll look up show times and we can talk about it at the dorms, yeah?”
Shouto nods dumbly. “Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll be in the common room around eight. See you later?”
“See you later.”
Shouto stands there for almost a full minute after Midoriya leaves and when he does turn around and head back to his table he looks at Momo with a helplessly hopeful expression on his face.
“Midoriya Izuku,” he says, a stunned smile pulling at his lips.
“That,” she says with finality and a huge grin, “Counts.”