Chapter Text
Part I
Hagakure is the first to notice.
She is also the first to class every day. Or maybe it’s because she’s first to class every day that she’s the first to notice.
Sometimes Toru likes being invisible. There are small moments that almost make it worth all the trouble it has caused her. She was great fun at a Halloween party and she could sneak down for snacks past curfew whenever she wanted. She knows someday her quirk will make her a great stealth hero. But her favorite are the surprises honestly.
Her first surprise was an accident. On the first White Day in middle school, Toru had made homemade chocolates for her first real crush. But despite all the time she’d spent rehearsing the “casual” way she would say “these are for you~”, Toru chickened out at the last second and left the chocolates on her crush’s desk instead of handing them to him in person. No note, no nothing. She was so glad no one could see her invisible blush of embarrassment. The look of surprise on her crush’s face when he finds the gift only made her sink further in her chair.
But then she saw it. After looking from left to right and finding no one, his confusion turned into pure happiness that seemed to radiate around him. Toru’s quirk allowed her to reflect light, but his good mood lit up the room in a way she has never been able to replicate. This experience planted a little seed of a thought in her head. When a person doesn’t have someone to direct their gratitude and happiness toward, those positive feelings are spread to everyone.
So, Toru begins to leave presents. Sometimes on holidays, sometimes not. Usually it’s something small like a flower she picked on the way to school or an origami animal, but the reactions are usually the same. Confusion, followed by incandescent happiness. She makes sure she is always there to feel the after effects.
One thing she does hates about being invisible is that no one says good morning to her. She’s the first one to class every day; she even wakes up extra early to do so! But despite her uniform being quite visible, in case anyone needs reminding, no one seems to spot her sitting in her desk. Doesn’t matter that she’s front row, directly in line with the door. Really?
Toru adapts, as usual. She waits until most of her friends have trickled in, then she walks over to them like she’s just walked in herself. Then she gives everyone a cheery “morning!” and joins in on their conversation despite her wanting to scream “why doesn’t anyone notice me!” instead. In all honestly, her classmates at UA have really been great to her and they go out of their way to make her feel included. For some reason, mornings just were the exception.
The day she notices Midoriya’s change is just like any other Monday. Only it isn’t. She’s barely settled in her front row seat, 20 minutes to go before class starts, when he walks in. Toru just barely holds in her squeak of surprise. Despite living in the dorms now, Midoriya is still usually one of the last students to arrive to class. Normally he’s flanked by either Uraraka or Iida, occasionally Todoroki as well, but this day he’s alone.
He does not look good.
As he comes through the doorway, Toru can see the slump of his shoulders as if his bright yellow backpack carries something far heavier than a couple of textbooks. Midoriya has never had a hair style, but it didn’t even look like he ran a hand through his head of bed hair. She knows he’s one of those people who do a full work out before classes, but his legs look like lead at this point.
He’s gotta walk by her to get to his desk. She can’t stop herself from hoping that he’ll notice her, even though she knows he won’t. Midoriya eyes are glassy and she knows he’s far, far away from here. As he nears, she can see dark circles under his deep-set gaze. Her brain kindly supplies her the thought that he probably didn’t sleep well last night and that’s why he’s here early.
Her heart says differently.
Toru hears Midoriya’s chair scratch against the floor as it’s pulled out. For some reason, she knows she can’t turn around and look at him. He wouldn’t notice if she did, but she can’t fight the inexplicable need to keep her eyes on the doorway instead.
Nothing else is different that morning. Her eyes follow each classmate as he or she enters the room. She doesn’t consciously think about how she’s looking in their eyes for some kind of reaction to Midoriya’s obviously despondent state, but she does notice that no one seems to notice. It’s enough to make her start questioning whether or not Midoriya is actually sitting behind her. Did she imagine him? That would be weird.
She really starts to think she did in fact imagined the whole thing until she sees Uraraka and Iida come in.
“There you are Deku!” Uraraka bounces over as usual toward Midoriya’s desk with Iida marching straight-backed behind her. “We were waiting for you!”
Toru can’t quite hear what Midoriya says, but the tone of his voice isn’t any different and neither Uraraka nor Iida seemed put off by his appearance based on their own light-hearted responses. It allows her to relax. She didn’t even realize she was so tense! Having waited so long for this confirmation, she barely has time to walk over to Ojiro to say “morning!” before Aizawa lazily scoots his way into class.
She would forget that this ever happened, except it happens again.
Before she knows it, Thursday rolls around. Her thigh muscles feel tight even though she’s sitting in her chair. Toru now has to get to class 30 minutes early to make sure she beats Midoriya. Sure enough, he comes in even earlier than he did yesterday. He doesn’t look any worse. That’s good right? But it still rubs her the wrong way. No one should look so worn out and downright tired.
Once he’s in his chair, Toru slyly opens up the compact mirror she’s held deftly in her glove while she waited. She doesn’t have to angle it much to get a good view of Midoriya. She watches him take out a composition book and a mechanical pencil. He opens it like he’s going to read it but then he sets it back down. She watches his head slump along with it. His arms come up to the desk too, and they wrap around his head like a shield.
Neither of them moves for a long time. Then she hears the door open. It’s only a glance to see who it is—it’s Momo—but she misses Midoriya sitting up. In her mirror, he looks like he’s reading something, maybe yesterday’s notes. He looks normal.
Her compact closes without a sound but it seals the deal. The rest of the morning is like clockwork, but Toru spends the whole day thinking about her plan.
Toru is now 35 minutes early on Friday and she’s buzzing with excitement. Today’s she’s a little more slumped in her chair than usual, hoping for the first time this year that she’s not noticed. A little over 5 minutes later, Midoriya makes his entrance.
He makes it all the way to his desk before he sees it. The compact now under her desk doesn’t have as good as an angle as the day prior, but she still seems him startle. She tilts the mirror so that she can see his face and she’s surprised he doesn’t start looking around like they normally do. But lucky for her, Midoriya’s emotions have always been transparent. She sees that familiar jump of surprise and his eyes seem to gain a glint of vibrancy. Then Midoriya picks up the piece of lavender tenderly with his scarred fingers.
She expects him to put it in his pocket or maybe behind his ear, but when he sits, he sets it back down on his desk. Toru watches with a puzzled look as he starts the same morning routine as yesterday. She almost gets mad about it. But then she watches him pull out a textbook in addition to his composition book. He tears out a blank page from the latter, folds it in half, then picks up and places the flower in the center before folding the paper closed.
When he places the flower in the text book for pressing, it’s Toru whose happiness is like a halo around her. For a second, she wonders if Midoriya feels it too as he looks up, but the door opens and he’s back to reading notes.
Toru doesn’t mind sitting alone for nearly 10 minutes on Monday morning. She’s happy Midoriya’s running late as usual.
Part II
Uraraka is worried about Deku.
Normally, Ochaco can’t pigeonhole her feelings into just one adjective; when it comes to her emotions it’s like there’s so much going on all at once that she can’t settle on anything. Her mom always laughed and lovingly called her an airhead back home, to which Ochaco would always puff up her cheeks in a huff, but her mom was kinda right. When she wasn’t in battle or purposely focused on something, it was really easy for her to float away mentally.
But right now, Ochaco is definitely worried and that’s the right word to describe how she feels. She didn’t notice at first—she thinks it might actually have been two weeks by now—but she definitely notices before anyone else has. Deku hasn’t been cooking dinner anymore and that probably means he hasn’t been eating any either.
Since everyone had moved into the dorms, dinner times were a hectic adventure; at least, they were for a while. After a lot of yelling, a lot of burnt meals, and the literal destruction of a microwave oven, a system was put into place more out of necessity than anything else. They didn’t really write the schedule out or anything, but people somehow naturally fell into 30-minute time slots of cooking time and now they stick to it.
Bakugo and Kirishima were first at 5:00pm, mainly because Bakugo went to bed super early for some reason and Kirishima was the only one who wouldn’t be murdered if he accidentally got in Bakugo’s way while he was cooking. Then at 6:00pm, and not 5:30 in case Bakugo was cooking something really extravagant, was Yaoyorozu, Iida, Todoroki, Aoyama, and Asui who all seemed to know how to cook somehow? Ochaco loved getting their leftovers whenever they had any. At 6:30 was Hagakure, Shouji, Ojiro, Sato, and Koda joined briefly by the aptly nicknamed microwave club since literally no one has seen Mineta, Kaminari or Sero cook something for themselves. Then the last of the bunch, Jirou, Ashido, Tokoyami, Deku and herself usually popped in anytime between 7 to 8 because they were notoriously forgetful to the concept of having to cook dinner before they were starving.
But anyway, the point is that Ochaco almost always overlapped at least at some point with Deku’s cooking time and she hadn’t seen him in a really really long time. First thought was that Deku had started cooking dinner earlier, but the kitchen could barely hold five chefs at a time and she would’ve heard the whispered complaints of the others if he really did encroach on a new time spot. Next horrifying thought was that he joined the microwave squad, but when she ran over to the freezer, all the freezer meals were clearly marked with their owner’s name and none said “Midoriya”.
Her next thought was that he must be cooking at a later time and so she sat her butt down at the bar and waited. And waited. And waited. Curfew time came, and he still hadn’t come to cook. Boy was she worried.
Ochaco was no stranger to skipping meals—trust her—she unfortunately had to skip quite a few of them whenever money was tight back at home. She knew how to live on ramen or white rice and she knew that the hunger pangs went away eventually. But boy did those days suck and she could only imagine how much more difficult it would be to maintain the energy to keep up with not only the crazy hard physical exercises at UA but the mind-boggling regular classwork too. Ochaco was so thankful that she didn’t have to worry about her next meal while she was here, but now she was worrying about Deku’s next meal.
The next day she was ready to confront her friend, but Iida was always, and she means always, around. Not that she didn’t love the guy, but he was such a stickler for the rules and she can just imagine the number of chops—she’s thinking 22—that would come with his lecture to Deku about the “importance of a balanced daily diet!”. Ochaco was having none of that today, plus she secretly hoped yesterday had just been a fluke and that Deku would appear in the kitchen like he used to. Just in case, she made sure to make a larger than normal amount of her simple meal of rice and stir-fry.
It’s a good thing that she did because he still didn’t come make anything! With two bowls of food each carefully held with four fingers, she hesitantly knocked on Midoriya’s door with her foot. She waited a second, but there was no response, so she knocked again harder, nearly stubbing her toes in the process. Still nothing. She manages to glance down at her watch and sees its nearly curfew at this point. Where is he?
Ochaco is just about to give up when she hears her name from behind her. She swivels, and the food almost flies out of her bowls.
“Deku!” Her relief is palatable because Deku looks fine! His hair is matted and that plus the towel around his neck tells her he was probably outside training again. She feels kinda dumb for not having checked there first after the few times she’s watched him train from the common room window. He looks tired but more than anything he looks very surprised to see her.
“What are you doing here Uraraka? Ah! Were you looking for me? I’m sorry! I was out training and it got late before I realized it.” The words fall out of Deku’s mouth quickly but it’s like Ochaco’s second dinner with how much it fills a hole of worry that had been dug inside of her.
“I made you some dinner! I’ve missed you down in the kitchen lately. You have been eating right?” The sheepish smile on his face is enough of an answer. “Deku! Don’t make me get Iida to scold you!”
“I’m sorry! I just forgot!”
“Well next time you forget I’m coming to get you, got it?” Deku nods furiously and Ochaco can’t help but feel bubbly inside. “Good! Then here, enjoy the food even though it might be a little cold by now. It’s too close to curfew to go heat it up again.”
“That’s fine, thanks for making it for me!” Deku’s smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes but Ochaco can also see how tired her friend is so they say their goodnights.
She’s happy when she already sees Deku finishing a bowl of something or other in the kitchen when she comes down to cook the next evening. Now things will go back to normal for sure.
Part III
Iida is class president.
As such, there are certain professional responsibilities that come with the prized and honorable position. Tenya will admit that maintaining a level of professionalism with his class had become more difficult once he and his classmates began living with one another in the dorms, as he felt himself becoming closer and closer to his peers on a personal level. Nevertheless, inside the classroom especially, he made sure to never neglect his presidential duties no matter how difficult or awkward the situation.
He now feels that he had let his personal feelings get in the way of his presidential duties after all.
As class president, it was up to Tenya to make sure his classmates maintained the high academic marks expected of them here at UA. While he understood that everyone had a different aptitude for academics, it was up to him to ensure that no one fell too far behind their potential. To best carry out this duty, he made sure to keep up with the status of his fellow peers in terms of individual grades and class rank.
Therefore, Tenya knew that Midoriya had failed the most recent quiz. Tenya had been walking with him when Professor Aizawa asked him to stay behind a moment, and while Tenya had not meant to intrude on the private conversation, he heard the result nonetheless.
This is now why he questioned how well he was upholding his position as president. Midoriya had placed 4th during the exams prior to summer training camp. His rank then fell to 10th after the hero provisional exam, but Tenya had attributed this to the amount of time he spent at his new internship. At the time, he was not too concerned as 10th place was still respectable, especially with his friend’s work load. He assumed that this was a plateau and that Midoriya would improve once he was no longer juggling academia and field work. Unfortunately, then all the students had to prepare for the Culture Festival and he knew Midoriya was spending a lot of his time preparing for their show. After this then; that is when Midoriya’s grades would recuperate. Or so Tenya had thought. Apparently, this appears to have not been the case.
Tenya was foolish in this thinking. Had anyone else experienced such a vast change in grades, he would have reached out to them and asked if he could assist via tutoring sessions or other resources. He wonders if he has cheated Midoriya out of the benefits of these potential resources by not offering them earlier as a class president should have.
During this time of reflection, however, something peculiar comes up. Tenya knows for a fact that Midoriya had spent the entirety of the weekend studying for this quiz. In fact, Midoriya spent every weekend this month studying in the library. Tenya knew this because he had seen him in passing when he went to study. His friend was there before Tenya arrived and would remain upon his departure. He wondered how this could not be enough to pass what was, in his opinion, a fair if not simple quiz? Perhaps he was having a difficult time with gaining the fund of knowledge or perhaps he was miscuing on the questions themselves?
It was Tenya’s hope that Midoriya would reach out to him after this setback, either due to Tenya’s official capacity or due to their personal friendship. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Rather, Midoriya made himself scarce the rest of that Friday evening, even missing the weekly movie night.
Rightly concerned, Tenya went to the library in search of his friend the following morning. As anticipated, Midoriya was in his usual spot in the library, several books already open in front of him as he frantically scribbled down some sort of notes. Tenya himself notes that Midoriya looks more frazzled than usual. His unkempt hair seemed to have taken on a life of its own, jutting out in all directions more so than the mop of curls tends to do. As he stares, Midoriya’s free hand comes up to tug on some of the green locks and it becomes clear why it looks more crazed than normal. Upon closer inspection, Tenya also observes the dark circles under his friend’s eyes and he can only imagine the sleep he lost last night over the anxiety of failing something as important as a quiz.
Straightening his back, Tenya marches himself over to Midoriya’s table.
“Midoriya! Good morning to you!” Tenya whisper yells as they are in the library, but Midoriya still nearly falls out of his chair as he gives a surprised yelp.
“Iida! Ah, sorry, you caught me a little by surprise.”
“My apologies then, I just realized that although I see you studying here in the library quite often, I haven’t formally said hello. Would you mind if I joined you this fine day?”
“Ah—I—I guess not?”
“Wonderful! But please keep your voice down Midoriya we are after all in a library.”
“Sorry!”
As Tenya begins to settle himself into his seat across from Midoriya and starts to retrieve his own books from his bag, he sneaks a glance at the other male. The other table occupant hasn’t continued his writing and for a minute Tenya wonders if he will mention the quiz now. When he does not, Tenya decides a prompt may be required.
“How did our last quiz fare for you?” He sees the flinch in his peripherals despite keeping his gaze on the books in his bag. “I found it to be quite difficult.”
“Yeah,” Midoriya laughs meekly. “It was a little tougher than expected.”
Tenya allows time for elaboration but receives none. Perhaps he should offer his aid directly.
“Midoriya, perhaps we should study together. We are both here every weekend in any case, as friends we should be pooling our knowledge and teaching one another.”
Tenya now looks up with expectant eyes and he is surprised by what he sees. In the absence of what should have surely been relief is a strained smile and closed eyes.
“Sure Iida, sounds good! But I was actually just about to leave for the day right about now. Can we start studying together tomorrow?” Tenya doesn’t hide his surprise.
“Well, of course.” No sooner do the words leave his mouth than Midoriya is collecting his belongings. “Do you need help with that?”
“Nope! Thanks though. Bye!”
With praise-worthy efficiency, Midoriya is gone and Iida is left with a frown. Luckily this endeavor was still successful in that there was a concrete plan to study tomorrow.
Part IV
Todoroki doesn’t say much.
It’s a trait that man instilled in him at a very young age. There’s no need to give others more words than necessary; you never know when they might be used against you. Normally Shoto actively does the opposite of everything that person wants of him, but this is one habit that is hard to break. The few words he does contribute to the conversations sprinkled throughout his day are polite yet efficient. There is little need for extra words or sentiments. Yet sometimes he can’t help but to reevaluate certain conversations later. Were his intentions clear? Did he come off too curt?
These are thoughts that come up more often now. Upon entering UA, he had few interactions with classmates. There was no need to converse beyond classwork or direct questions. He was content with that. It was uncharacteristic of him to share so much personal information with Midoriya prior to their match at last year’s Sports Festival. He couldn’t have known that their fight would be a turning point of sorts for Shoto. Especially when it came to relationships with others.
The shift is subtle, but he notices Midoriya in his periphery more. He accounts this to his natural tendency to keep his eye on those he considers strong. He has kept tabs Bakugo and Yaoyorozu since the beginning of the school year after all. Now that Midoriya has proved himself to Shoto, it is clear that he deserves the same treatment.
This doesn’t explain why he’s around Shoto more. Or perhaps Shoto is around him more? It is hard to tell which who is revolving around who.
Midoriya must feel it too. At some point they exchange numbers and begin texting. It comes in handy during the Hosu incident. Shoto also prefers this method of communication because he can read what he writes prior to sending the message. He never has to question himself later because he can craft his ideas properly the first time around. His messages and conversations are still brief but the lulls between their exchanges feel natural.
Sometime after moving into the dorms, Midoriya adds him to a group message between him, Uraraka, Iida, and Asui. This is not the class-wide message thread of which Shoto is already a member. It occurs to him that this intimate group comprises solely of Midoriya’s friends.
Is this how people became friends? For some reason he had always assumed that one of the parties had to ask permission of the other. It occurs to him that asking, “Will you be my friend?” is childish and unrealistic at their age. Unfortunately, this gradual friendship means that Shoto himself doesn’t change much in his interactions with his “new friends”. Midoriya nor the others seem to mind.
Always perceptive, Shoto notices right away when Midoriya begins to disappear.
First, he stops replying in the class-wide group message. While Shoto reads all the messages in this chat, he rarely makes a comment himself. It tends to be a busy message thread and its easy for a response or a new topic to quickly become buried. Thus, it isn’t worth his time. Midoriya seems to take the opposite approach. Unless they are in class, his responses are instantaneous. He may not stay in the conversation the entire time, but he’s the first to answer someone’s question or to add a reaction gif to a new topic. He’s the same in the smaller chat and in his texts with Shoto, but on this scale its nothing short of impressive.
Shoto notices when he’s not the first to reply anymore. His messages come three or four conversations in between. It’s surprising but understandable. Things have gotten busier and most of his peers are more unavailable than usual. When he stops completely, Shoto assumes his phone is dead for the day. By day 3 of his absence, he begins to wonder what changed. No one on the message board seems to notice Midoriya’s disappearance. It becomes especially strange when people begin to set group plans for the weekend and Midoriya doesn’t say he’s attending. Midoriya has never missed group outings in the past. Except he has missed the last two movie nights.
Midoriya disappears from the smaller group message next and that is more noticeable. With so few members, there’s less conversation and those that exist begin to suffer from his absence. Luckily, he doesn’t have to be the person to comment on his friend’s disappearance. Asui mentions Midoriya’s lack of response the very next day. Uraraka and Iida respond nearly simultaneously that he’s been “busy” lately. Midoriya himself doesn’t respond.
It is that lack of response that makes Shoto test his friend. As per customary, he receives a quick reply from Midoriya. Shoto can’t help but to frown at this and waits for him to then respond on the small group message. There is no such response. He then sends a text asking if they can meet up. This is out of character for Shoto, and Midoriya’s message of “Of course! Is everything alright?” complete with a bunch of symbols that create a worried face is instant.
Everything is fine of course, and they schedule to meet at 4:30pm the next day in front of the dorms.
When they meet they leisurely begin a stroll down one of the school’s walking paths in silence. Shoto doesn’t mind. Midoriya, however, seems to buzz with anxiety. The longer they walk without speaking, the more glances Midoriya sends his way. Eventually the other male clears his throat.
“Are you sure everything’s alright? Did—uh—did you want to talk about something?”
“You’ve stopped responding to the group messages.” Midoriya visibly flinches and Shoto didn’t think he could become more anxious but he does.
“Ah! Sorry! That’s—I didn’t mean to. Things have just been so hectic, I didn’t think anyone would notice.” Shoto’s head stays directed straight ahead, but his eyes are trained on Midoriya.
“Most people haven’t but it is obvious.” This time Midoriya seems to cringe.
“Sorry,” he replies feebly. “I’ll be sure to catch up when we get back.”
“You don’t have to.”
“No, no you’re right, I really should. If you noticed, then I’m sure someone else must have and I’m surprised Uraraka or Iida didn’t mention anything when I was studying with them this weekend, but I guess we were studying so they might not have gotten a chance to bring it up. Or maybe no one actually does notice. I’m not surprised they don’t care, it’s not like I really have much to contribute. But no, I should go back to the chats. At the very least for appearances sake. I don’t want anyone worried about me that’s for su—”
Shoto hadn’t meant to stop walking, but it seemed to jog Midoriya out of his mutterings. A red blush of embarrassment made its way over Midoriya’s face, likely only just realizing that he had said those things aloud.
“What’s wrong Midoriya?”
“Nothing.” The answer is too sharp.
“I see. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable speaking with Iida or Urara—”
“No. I would not like to speak to anyone. Nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry I wasn’t messaging on the group chats. I’ll fix it.” Midoriya’s fists are clenched tightly and Shoto can’t help but to tense at the sudden hostility. His reaction isn’t lost on his friend.
“I’ve got to go, I’ll text you later or something.” The last part is mumbled, only audible because Midoriya pushes his way past him on his way back to the dorms.
Shoto doesn’t follow but he can’t help but wonder he said something wrong.
Part V
Bakugo is done with this shit.
He hates the dorms. If his stupid parents had dared have another kid, he probably would have killed his younger sibling right away because Katsuki does not do people. Yeah, he was loud and crass, but he did that more to push people away than to get their attention. He’s one of those people who needs to get a certain amount of alone time in order to be at the top of his game. Saying he needs that time to recharge insinuates he can’t deal with these extras like he’s weak in some way, but he will admit that some alone time makes them easier to be around later. That’s why the dorms suck so bad. Classes were one thing but having to put up with these extras back in the dorms too makes him want to kill someone.
First, there’s the whole kitchen fiasco. It’s bullshit that he has to share his air with Spikey Hair. Guy can prep veggies just fine, but the idiot has the worst time management. The pan’s supposed to be hot before you add the meat dumbass.
Then there’s Katsuki’s sleep schedule. It doesn’t matter if it’s a weekend, he’s still going to wake up at 5 am tomorrow and his training regimen requires a solid 8 hours to keep his body in top form. Movie nights are supposed to be over by curfew but even Four Eyes doesn’t make a big deal out of it if they’re an hour or so late. It is a big deal assholes! He could hear them all the way up on the 4th floor screaming at some B-list horror movie.
At least lately shitty Deku had stopped running at the same time as him in the morning. He didn’t need to see Deku’s dumb face first thing in the morning, even if his stupid expressions pissed Katsuki off enough so that he crushed those particular mornings’ exercises. Now he only occasionally saw the idiot on one of the training grounds or outside the dorms, but it didn’t rub him the wrong way in evening as it did at the crack of dawn.
Today is one of those days where he’s particularly pissed at everyone. Shitty Hair has the audacity to be waiting outside his room to walk to class together. He does this nearly every day, so it doesn’t surprise Katsuki that he’s there, but today the asshole is casually chatting to that Dunce-faced Pikachu. Katsuki has perfected the art of physically channeling the message of “get lost” but his classmates seem to accept the animosity as easily as a hello. In fact, the bastards try to say good morning to him. The only response he gives back is annoyed “tch” sound as he hostilely elbows his way past and walks to the elevator.
The rest of the morning goes just as “great”; it’s filled with too much “friendly” chatter and classes that are too easy even if his so-called teachers dish out a shitload of homework. At the lunch bell, Katsuki is out of there. Hedgehog hair doesn’t even get a word out by the time he’s halfway down the hall.
Katsuki does have one place where he goes to get away, though he heads there sparingly so no one else knows his secret. A student as popular as himself couldn’t get away with being missing for a lunch period more than once or twice a month, but today he needs the solitude. He stops by one of the student fridges to pick up one of his pre-prepared bento boxes that he keeps just in case he doesn’t feel like waiting in the cafeteria line. He waits a beat to make sure no one is coming this way before he makes his way to the roof with stealth that comes effortlessly.
Students aren’t allowed on the roof, but the lock was easy enough to jimmy open when you had superb lock picking skills like Katsuki. He honestly wished it was more of a challenge. He was feeling pretty smug about that until he was nearly to the top of the stairs and found that the door was already unlocked.
“What the hell?” He whispered menacingly and tossed the door open with a smash.
It must be anger that clenches his heart when he sees none other than Deku on his roof. His heart definitely doesn’t stop at the sight of that idiot sitting on the top of the safety fence. Katsuki could easily keep his balance on the chain-link fence even if he was standing on one foot, so even someone as useless as Deku couldn’t be in any danger of falling sitting the way he was. What kind of hero would he be if he accidentally fell of the roof anyhow. Still Katsuki had to clenched and unclenched his fist a couple of times before his heart stopped acting so irrationally.
“OI! Deku,” Katsuki yells as he angrily stomps his way to where the boy was sitting. “What the hell do you think you’re doing up here on my roof!”
Dumb Deku didn’t act like such a weakling around him anymore (ever since they became real rivals), but Katsuki was downright unnerved to hear him chuckle.
“Kacchan, you come up here too?” Katsuki hated that stupid nickname and growled in response.
“Yeah,” he snarled. “So get lost damn it!”
When he reaches his classmate, Katsuki has an overwhelming urge to grab the other male by the back of his uniform and pull him down to safety. No, not safety. Deku is fine remember? Stupid brain.
Deku doesn’t seem hear his demand but he certainly did. Instead of repeating it, Katsuki turns his back to Deku and leans against the fence directly beside the other boy. He unconsciously switches the bento box to the hand that is further from Deku. Katsuki still waits for Deku to respond, half expecting him to jump down and leave him be.
“Do you think All Might made a mistake?” Katsuki’s head snaps to look at the guy above him, but Deku keeps his eyes fixated at something in the distance below.
“HEEHH? What are you talking about now you damn nerd?”
“Do you think All Might should have given One for All to someone else?” Katsuki’s eyes narrow before averting his gaze. He can’t stop himself from making a “tch” sound.
“The hell? If it wasn’t you, then it’d just be some other nobody. I’d still kick their ass on my way to number 1.” Deku’s “hmm” of approval sounds too deprecating for Katsuki’s liking and he feels like he should something more.
“What are you asking me for? Go talk to All Might, isn’t he your shitty mentor?”
Deku doesn’t respond this time so they remain in silence. Katsuki didn’t realize how hot today must be. It has to be hot because he feels the familiar itch of nitroglycerin in his free palm. He is about to yell at Deku again for bringing up such a stupid question when the other teen casually kicks himself off the fence and onto the roof.
“Sorry for bothering you Kacchan,” Deku says, still without eye contact. “Enjoy your lunch.”
Katsuki doesn’t say anything in return but watches as Deku leaves. He waits a solid five minutes before he lowers himself into a sitting position still staring at the door.
“Damn it.” He says aloud as he fishes out his phone from his pocket. His fingers deftly form a text message that is direct but purposely vague. As Katsuki eats his lunch, he briefly considers ditching his afternoon coursework. Instead he sucks it up and simply waits to the very last minute before heading back.
The rest of the day he has to avoid answering any whispered questions directed his way. That damn Broom-head is especially persistent and Katsuki only gets away from other’s pestering when he slams his dorm room door in guy’s face. There’s still some time, but Katsuki doesn’t feel like doing much. Instead he finds himself pacing, doing push-ups, and eventually standing out on his veranda. It’s like clockwork when he seems Deku jog toward one of the training fields at 4:45. Katsuki averts his gaze but stays outside until it’s just a couple minutes before 5.
Taking the stairs downstairs, he makes it to the common room at exactly 5:00 pm. It seems that most people got his text okay as the common room is filled with his classmates who whisper to each other in confusion. The important people are here at any rate. The elevator tings as some as the stragglers also walk in, but Katsuki doesn’t wait for their late asses or for the people who now notice him to ask why he demanded they all be here at this time.
“What are we going to fucking do about Deku?”