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At some point in their first year, Class 1-A really should have figured out that truth or dare was always a terrible idea. Twenty hormonal teenagers living in the same space during the school year playing truth or dare? It was a recipe for disaster.
The first time they’d played they had implemented a rule that students were allowed to back out of a dare if it made them uncomfortable. The rule still technically existed, but backing out of dares would mean the entire class would make fun of you, and as a group of teenagers no-one wanted to face that reality.
The first game they ever played resulted in Yaoyorozu making a dead grenade to satisfy Midoriya’s curiosity, Bakugou smiling unnervingly and acting gentle for an uncomfortable ten minutes, and Kaminari sitting on Jirou’s lap for twenty minutes. Iida admitted to using his quirk illegally on the rare occasion that he was late for school, Aoyama revealed that he was actually half-french, and eventually the game ran down to the point where Iida and Yaoyorozu practically demanded each student head to bed.
The second time didn’t get much better, as the truths became more invasive and the dares more embarrassing as students slowly ran out of milder questions and requests. The second time was also the time that got the rule “nothing involving Aizawa” implemented, after he scheduled an extra training session as punishment for the students waking him up for a joke. They played three more games of truth or dare that year, each going just as terrible as the last one had. By the time their second year rolled around and the class began getting set up in the common room for another round of truth or dare, they really should have figured out that this was a terrible idea.
That being said, Class 2-A was playing truth or dare, barely into their first week of their second year, and Midoriya was already beginning to think this was going to be a bad idea. As per tradition, Hagakure goes first, excitedly bouncing from her perch on the couch. Music playing softly in the background, the class settles down as Hagakure begins the game.
“Bakugou! Truth or dare?” Her voice is unrepentant, confident, even as Ojiro scoots just a little bit away from her, ready to leap away if Bakugou doesn’t like what she picks. Bakugou stares her down, eyebrows furrowed, before scoffing and leaning back on the palms of his hands.
“Dare me, invisibitch,” he responds. Hagakure stands, pulling out a bag she’d brought down with her. Clearly, she’d been planning this. She marches over to Bakugou, sits down in front of him, and confidently says “do my makeup.”
Bakugou blinks.
“... I can’t see your face.” Hagakure agrees, still sitting in front of him, and Bakugou’s expression goes bewildered. “You want me to do makeup on you… blind?” Hagakure laughs at this, and shoves the makeup case in his hands.
“It wouldn’t be a challenge for you if you could just see my features, after all!!” Bakugou looks at her, looks down at the makeup, then looks around, his face the picture of confusion. Everyone else just shrugs back at him, as lost as he is. Finally, he unzips the makeup bag, pulling out the few things she’d gotten in preparation for this night.
“Alright, but if I accidentally stab you in the eye it’s your own fault. This is gonna be weird for both of us. Probably safer for you if you close your eyes or whatever.” The tension bleeds out of the air as Bakugou examines the makeup Hagakure had provided, thinking carefully. He sets down the makeup, looks around, then barks out, “Electric Meme, truth or dare.”
Kaminari snorts at the nickname, still unused to his newest moniker, before carefully declaring, “Dare.” Bakugou opens the eyeshadow Hagakure bought, and stares him down carefully.
“Go steal and wear an article of clothing from someone's room. It can’t be inappropriate, and if you even try my room I’ll hospitalize you. You have to wear it for at least fifteen minutes, down here, for proof. Go.” Bakugou doesn’t look up to see the confused expression that passes over Kaminari’s face, looking around to check if he’d heard that correctly.
“That’s kinda specific, dude,” he finally says, standing anyways. “I’m kinda afraid there’s an alternative motive here.” Bakugou snorts, his hands carefully mapping out Hagakure’s face. Kaminari stares at him for a moment longer, before murmuring something about weird boys and their weird dares, headed to the elevator.
It’s only once the elevator has closed does someone dare to break the absolutely bewildered silence that’s come over the group.
“That’s… kind of a weird dare for you, Suki,” Kirishima says, hesitant and confused. Midoriya nods along, staring at Bakugou’s face for any hint of what he’s thinking. Bakugou smirks, already pressing a light shade along where everyone assumes Hagakure’s eyelids must be, carefully applying the makeup. His eyes don’t move from his task, but he does answer.
“Not really,” he starts, right hand searching over Hagakure’s face for her other eyelid as he does. “I’ve kinda been planning this one since we decided on another game of truth or dare. After all, it’s meant to push him to someone’s room specifically. I can only think of one person in the room who keeps his door unlocked while he’s in the dorms.
Kirishima and Ashido turn as one towards Sero, eyes widening in understanding as they watch his face turn redder. His signature grin is less steady, and his eyes dart around the room. The rest of the class slowly follows the duo’s gazes to land on Sero, who is now resolutely staring at the lamp on the side table like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. There are a few laughs, a couple of confused murmurs, but most prominently a couple of childish ooo’s as people figure out what Bakugou intended to do.
“Bakugou,” Sero hisses, still determined to not look literally anywhere but the lamp. “You absolute bitch. ” Bakugou just cackles, adding darker colors to Hagakure’s eyes and letting the teasing drop as the elevator opens, revealing Kaminari in all his stolen-clothed glory. He’s wearing a hoodie that’s clearly at least a size too big, the only real indication that it isn’t his. The color scheme is a more subtle hint, but after a moment Midoriya realizes that the hoodie he’s wearing is the one Yaoyorozu commissioned for Sero during their secret santa last year, meant to emulate his hero costume. (Sero had said it was the coolest gift he’d ever gotten and was known for wearing it around the dorms on occasion.)
Kaminari seems to almost match the shade of red Sero’s turned, dropping down onto the couch next to him, reclaiming his spot nervously.
“Sorry bro, your door was the only one unlocked, and I wasn’t willing to look through someone's laundry.” Sero looks over at him, and that seems to be the last straw for his composure as he immediately covers his mouth and looks away, blushing down to his neck. Kaminari’s face seems to go a little redder, but he mostly looks confused.
“Denki, it’s your turn,” Jirou reminds him, skipping the song that came on. Kaminari jumps, blinking,
“Right, um… Hanta, truth or dare?” The class, as one, looks from Kaminari to Sero, watching their interactions like a particularly interesting soap opera. Sero rubs his face, trying to will away the blush as he does, before plastering on his signature smile, glancing at Kaminari as he does.
“Truth…?” Kaminari hums, leaning back and putting a finger to his lips.
“Why’s your face so red?”
Someone starts snickering, and soon there are a couple of students trying their best not to laugh at Sero’s expense as he freezes. Kaminari’s expression is hard to read, but his lips twitch as Sero clears his throat, visibly nervous.
“I, um. I got a bit flustered seeing you in my hoodie.” Kaminari opens his mouth to respond, but Sero is quickly moving on, his eyes jumping from person to person. “Tokoyami, truth or dare?” Kaminari huffs, mutters something that sounds like we’ll talk about this later, and lets the game move on.
“Truth, I suppose,” Tokoyami replies. He opens one eye to stare at Sero’s face, wrapped in a black blanket and sitting on the floor, trying to make sitting on the floor wrapped in a blanket as dramatic as possible. It’s not really working, but Midoriya can at least appreciate the effort. Sero immediately grins, and Tokoyami sighs.
“Why do you have teeth?”
“Pass.” The class is immediately in an uproar, and the earlier scene between Kaminari and Sero is pushed aside. Tokoyami sighs, and glances at Iida, who is clearly glad for the opportunity to express his authority as the class representative, and unofficial class dad.
“If Tokoyami does not wish to answer the question, he does not have to! We implemented that rule for a reason!” Iida’s statement is coupled by a couple of sharp downswings of his arm, and then interrupted by Asui.
“I thought we only said that people could back down from a dare, not a truth,” she croaks, looking to Uraraka for confirmation. Uraraka hums then nods. Iida’s expression goes from stern, to shock, to confusion, and finally settles on embarrassment.
“I see,” he starts, adjusting his glasses. “I’m sorry, Tokoyami, but it seems that you must answer the question!” Tokoyami huffs, shuffling lower into his blanket, staying quiet for a long moment.
“I don’t know,” he finally says, looking away. “I never really questioned them myself, but I guess it could be so I can still eat normal foods with relative ease. Chewing is very difficult without teeth after all.” The answer sets off Midoriya’s quirk analysis senses, and his hands twitch suddenly in the distinct urge to write about this new development because it makes sense. Birds have the peck at their food, but they also have comparatively smaller stomachs and more specialized diets. Tokoyami merely has a bird head, but he still has a human body and, therefore, a human diet. Without teeth, he’d have to peck his food, and would probably have to constantly be eating in order to get enough food to make it through the day.
Todoroki pokes him, sitting to his right, and Midoriya covers his mouth, realizing he’d started mumbling again.
“Sorry!” A ripple of laughter goes through the class, and Midoriya covers his face, appropriately red. Bakugou chooses that time to announce that he’s done with Hagakure’s makeup, and the class turns to look at his handiwork.
It’s… odd to be sure. But Bakugou clearly took the challenge seriously, using highlight to make the slope of her nose and cheekbones more obvious, painting her eyelids in a dramatic color designed to match her shirt. He’d gone a step above as well, finding her waterline and adding a bit of the darkest shadow there, effectively mapping out the shape of her eyes when she opens them. Her lips have the nice natural lipstick she’d brought down on them, making the curve of her lips more obvious when she grins, excited.
For the first time, Class 2-A can see her expressions, and she’s visibly overjoyed. It’s only Bakugou leaning back quickly that stops her from hugging him, and she just laughs at that, thanking him and launching herself back to the couch where Ojiro is sitting, relaxing as his tail casually wraps around her and settles in her lap.
Tokoyami clears his throat and brings them back to the game, asking Todoroki truth or dare.
“Truth.” Tokoyami relaxes just slightly, the posture of someone who didn’t have a dare prepared.
“Who’s your favorite hero?” The normalcy of the question is almost boring to the class, but everyone knows that Tokoyami is absolutely terrible at truth or dare, and so outside of Ashido sighing about how the question is boring, no one comments on it.
“That’s easy. All Might is my favorite hero.” That causes a stir among the students, as only a select few actually know the truth behind Todoroki’s relationship with Endeavor. Most of the class has enough social awareness to be aware of when a question shouldn’t be asked, and so for a few seconds, the group just shifts quietly.
“Huh. I kinda figured it would be Endeavor, cause he’s your dad and all.” Kaminari, unfortunately, is denser than a brick, and somehow manages to miss both the mood and Midoriya frantically trying to signal for him to stop the words coming out of his mouth, and only catches onto the mood when Sero groans, puts his head in his hands and refuses to look at Kaminari. The boys face pales, and he frantically tries to take it back before Todoroki can destroy him, when Todoroki just looks at him, silencing the half-formed sentences.
“He may have donated genetic material to help create me, but that means nothing for my opinion on him as a hero. All Might is my favorite. Eijirou, truth or dare.” Kirishima takes the baton pass in stride, grinning and pressing his fists together in his now signature pose.
“Dare me, Shouto!” Todoroki hums, looking Kirishima up and down. Kirishima’s expression falters, and he squirms a little bit under Todoroki’s gaze.
“Hold a handstand for as long as you can. You can use your quirk if you want, I just want to see how long you last in a handstand.” Kirishima laughs good-naturedly, and the rest of the class breaks out into excited chatter.
“Sure dude! Wasn’t really expecting that from you though,” he says, standing and popping his back. “Alright, someone help me get balanced!” Asui and Ashido are the two closest to him, so they help him get balanced, helping him set up so his face is still pointed towards the circle. As he starts to experimentally harden parts of his body to lock them in place, Midoriya turns to Todoroki, tilting his head and leaning closer so he can be heard over the new chatter that’s taken over the common room.
“Why’d you ask Eiji to do a handstand? That seems kinda out of character for you.” Todoroki nods towards Kirishima, a small smirk finding its way to his face. Midoriya turns just in time for Kirishima’s shirt to succumb to gravity, falling over his face and revealing all of his abs. His breath catches suddenly, eyes catching on Kirishima’s hips, hugged by sweatpants that reveal just a bit more than his hero costume, and holy fuck his mouth is dry. There’s a hand on his shoulder and Todoroki leans a bit closer.
“The view,” he mutters, just barely loud enough for Midoriya to hear. He’s gone before Midoriya can react, leaving Midoriya to desperately try to try to fight how red his face has gotten. He tears his eyes away from Kirishima, covering his cheeks and shaking his head to try and focus back on the game. He misses who Kirishima asks, but Ashido pumps a fist in the air and yells “dare,” so he’s got a pretty good guess. Kirishima takes a breath, blinking fast for a moment.
“Okay, Mina, I dare you to, um. Take a shot of pickle juice?” Ashido’s reaction is instantaneous, her face scrunching in disgust as she shudders.
“Ei, that’s just cruel !” Kirishima laughs as best he can while doing a handstand, and Yaoyorozu quietly makes a shot glass from the palm of her hand. Ashido sighs, grabs the shot glass, and walks to the kitchen. The group waits in anticipatory silence as the refrigerator door opens and jars are pushed out of the way as Ashido reaches into the fridge for the pickle jar. Soon enough, the fridge is closed once again and Ashido returns to the common room with a shot glass full of pickle juice as a closed bottle of her favorite soda.
“You didn’t say I couldn’t grab something to wash out the taste afterward,” she says, taking a seat back on the couch and frowning nervously at the shot glass. She takes a deep breath and quickly tosses back the shot of pickle juice, spurred on by the cheers of Kaminari and Sero. Ashido slams the shot glass back down onto the coffee table, shudders, and quickly opens her soda.
“So, Mina, how was it?” Sero leans forward, watching Ashido’s expression with a shit-eating grin on his face. Ashido sticks out her tongue with a disgusted noise, putting her soda back down on the table.
“I already don’t like pickles, but that was a hundred times worse than just pickles,” she informs, leaning back onto her couch. Kaminari nods sagely, still wearing Sero’s hoodie.
“Advanced pickles,” he says, serious as he can be. Jirou loses her composure in seconds, laughing at the stupid joke. This leads to a slippery slope of laughter until most of the class is laughing for no good reason. Finally, after a couple of minutes of genuine laughter, and Kirishima trying not to laugh so hard he falls, they mostly regain their composure, and Ashido’s eyes roam the circle as she decides on who to pick.
“Midori! Truth or dare?” Midoriya looks Ashido in the eyes, decides that he doesn’t trust her either way and weighs his options.
Truth is dangerous in that he literally can’t refuse to answer, as they’d established. Dare is, ironically, safer in this situation. If he refuses a dare there could be any number of reasons he’d refused, and the only real punishment is being called a coward by his class.
A terrifying prospect, really, but the choice is easy.
“Dare,” he says finally, watching with a muted horror as Ashido’s grin seems to widen even more. “Actually,” he starts, suddenly nervous. “Can I change my answer?” As one the entire group denies him this right, and he shrinks down as Ashido raises a hand, grinning, waiting for everyone to quiet down.
“I dare you… to kiss your crush.” Midoriya’s mouth goes dry as his face heats up. Iida launches into action, ranting about the inappropriate nature of the dare, while across the circle Hagakure squeals, causing Ojiro to wince and lean away. Midoriya’s mouth opens, closes, and then opens again as he finds his words.
“What if I have more than one…?”
The circle falls suddenly silent.
A couple of people down, Kirishima makes a strangled noise of surprise and tilts backwards, hitting the ground and groaning. The circle is still stunned at Midoriya’s question, though, and as such the only one to actually ask if he’s alright is Midoriya.
“I’m fine, Izuku, just… give me a second.” He sits up with a groan, scooting around to fit back into the circle. After pulling his shirt back down over his torso, he joins the rest of their class in staring at Midoriya. Midoriya’s ears feel warm, and he pulls up the collar of his shirt, trying to hide his face in the fabric.
“Uh, okay I’ll… adjust the dare, I guess? How many people do you like?” Midoriya peeks his head out of his shirt, just enough to see Ashido’s expression as he nervously holds up three fingers, and the circle breaks out of its nervous silence to immediately begin chattering as people begin to discuss who the three might be. Ashido taps her lip, thinking, before snapping as she comes up with an idea.
“Got it!” Ashido points at Midoriya with the hand she just snapped with, grin back on her face in full force as she does. “It’ll be a little bit more embarrassing for you, but you’ll also have a bit of a choice. You’ve gotta kiss one, hug another, and sit in the lap of the last one for at least five minutes.” The class is in an uproar again, Iida declaring how inappropriate this dare is even louder, aggressively chopping his arms through the air as he does. The noise is muffled to Midoriya, mostly because his own internal monologue has dissolved into nervous screaming and most of his automotive functions are currently facing the blue screen of death.
Uraraka punches him on the shoulder, and Midoriya makes a strangled noise and yells “okay!” His voice cracks as he does and Uraraka snorts, pushing her shoulder against his more gently this time.
“C’mon, Deku. This is a good chance for you to confess. You’ve been keeping this secret for, what, like six months now?” She grins at him, cheeks rosy, and Midoriya thinks it would be a lot easier if he liked Uraraka because she’d probably laugh it off and call him a goofball or something and they could keep going on with their lives. She isn’t one of the people he likes, though, and that just makes this whole thing all the more nerve-wracking. However, she has a point. This is a good opportunity for him. He takes a breath, repeats his “okay” in a much calmer voice, and makes his decision.
Midoriya taps Todoroki’s shoulder, barely noticing the room’s sudden hush as Todoroki turns to him. Carefully, and quickly, Midoriya pulls his face down to meet his own, pecking Todoroki on the lips before pulling away, their faces now matching shades of red.
Todoroki seems frozen, literal steam coming off of his face, and Midoriya nervously apologizes before standing, not willing to wait long enough for his nerves to catch up to him as he crosses the circle where Bakugou sits on the ground, trying to ignore the yells and excited laughter that follows his motion.
Bakugou gives him a long hard look before his eyes widen, and Midoriya drops to his knees, leaning forward to hug him. Bakugou stiffens before he lets out what might be a laugh, returning the hug with a gentle squeeze, muttering “dumbass” into Midoriya’s ear. Midoriya just laughs breathlessly, hands shaking with nerves as he pulls back and stands up again, turning around.
Ashido is trying to start a chant of “one more” as he freezes in the circle, suddenly even more nervous, pointedly not looking at Kirishima, trying to calm himself before he has a nervous breakdown in the middle of the common room. The chant is starting to catch on as Kaminari and Sero join in, followed by Hagakure and Sato as Midoriya takes a long breath, shaking. Finally, he realizes that he’s shaking too badly to make it across the rest of the circle, and he laughs a little hysterically, grabbing the hem of his shirt.
“I’m too nervous,” he says, voice wavering with uncertainty. “I can’t make my legs move another step forward.” Uraraka shouts something he thinks is meant to be encouraging, but Midoriya can’t hear it over the pounding of his own heart. Midoriya swallows, forcing himself to keep talking. “Eiji,” he says, “can you come to get me?” He finally looks at Kirishima, smiling even as he shakes with nerves. Kirishima’s face goes through a variety of emotions, before he settles on a wide smile, a little unsure but absolutely overjoyed, and he stands to meet Midoriya in the middle.
“I’ve got you, Izuku,” he murmurs, the words meant just for Midoriya’s ears, and Midoriya gives him a relieved smile. Midoriya allows himself to be pulled back to Kirishima’s spot, and slides easily into the redhead’s lap, hiding his face in the crook of Kirishima’s neck. Kirishima just laughs and loops his arms easily around Midoriya, leaning his cheek against the top of Midoriya’s head.
Midoriya doesn’t see it happen, but the circle shifts and Kirishima shifts a bit away from the couch to make room for Bakugou, who’s roughly dropped himself down next to the two. Todoroki comes up on their other side, a contented smile on his face. Midoriya barely remembers that it’s his turn to pick someone, shifting just enough to call out “Uraraka, truth or dare?” She laughs, bright and airy, and the attention begins to shift away from Midoriya, still trying to calm down, respectfully giving him some metaphorical breathing room.
She takes truth, Midoriya asks the first question that comes to mind, which happens to be what her favorite color is, and the game continues.
If the focus comes back to Midoriya, at any point, he doesn’t notice. At some point he dozes off in Kirishima’s lap, feeling comfortable and safe, the game continuing around him. He only wakes up after the game ends, to quiet voices echoed with the strange quality given by the elevator.
“We should talk about this, yeah?”
A hum, agreeing quietly.
“He basically said that he liked all three of us and, well, I dunno about you two but the feeling’s pretty mutual over here.”
“In which way?”
A laugh. Kirishima’s?
“Come on, Shouto. I mean that I’m totally gay for all three of you and I’d be down to date all of you.”
“Same goes for me, but we should wait till the nerd actually wakes up.” At that, Midoriya shifts, eyes opening as the elevator doors open on Shouto’s floor.
“‘M awake,” he murmurs, looking up at the three faces now watching him carefully. “You can let me down,” he continues, bracing one arm against Kirishima’s shoulder. Kirishima grins down at him, shifting Midoriya in his arms but continuing to carry him out of the elevator.
“I could ,” he agrees, watching as Midoriya’s face goes redder. “But I don’t want to.” Midoriya covers his face, hiding his blush from the three, causing Kirishima to laugh heartily, shaking Midoriya in his arms as they approach Todoroki’s room.
Kirishima finally sets Midoriya down once Todoroki opens the door to his room, letting him walk on his own into the room. Midoriya blinks, confused, before turning to Kirishima with a tilt of his head.
“Wait, why are we in Todoroki’s room? Aren’t you and Bakugou on the same floor?” Kirishima laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck as he does.
“Well, we figured we wanted this conversation to be private, and Shouji can hear us in either my room or Suki’s because of his quirk. He doesn’t intend to listen in but, well, it’s hard not to.” He points a thumb at the wall behind him, which leads to Sero’s room, and continues. “Hanta wanted to talk to Denki in private, so they went to Denki’s room, cause Iida is downstairs with Yaoyorozu helping clean up, and I think Koda volunteered to give them a little bit more time to talk in private? Sato saw us leave together and also volunteered to help clean, in order to give us more time to talk privately. So, Shouto’s room.” Midoriya nods, slowly, trying to keep the information straight in his head.
“Also, your room looks like a goddamned shrine to All Might, and I’d rather not have his eyes staring me down in every direction while we talk feelings,” Bakugou adds, lip curling at the thought. Midoriya’s face goes red, and both Kirishima and Todoroki nod in agreement.
“So my room was out from the start,” he finishes, watching as the three nod. Midoriya hums, shifts on his feet, and looks at each of them in turn.
“So,” he starts, grinning. “Let’s talk.”