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“C’mon, Midoriya, don’t be such a stick in the mud!” chastised the redhead, giving Deku a hearty slap on the back. Midoriya barely suppresses a cough as the group of boys runs ahead of him, Kirishima leading the way. Iida turns, jogging in place as he points an arm to Midoriya, his glasses hanging off of his neck by a string, bouncing on his chest; Midoriya does his best not to laugh at the almost endearing display.
“That’s right, Midoriya-kun, don’t dawdle! Everyone agreed to have this trip as a class, after all!!” Iida calls, the engines in his legs puttering loudly, “I understand your apprehension being seen in such a juvenile place after becoming an official hero, but this is perfect practice for working towards quelling such fears!” Midoriya shakes his head, a smile on his face. Iida, in all his wisdom, still as clueless as ever.
“Yeah, I...I suppose so!” Midoriya picks up his feet, adjusting his hoodie. It’s hot. It’s muggy. It feels like death is tugging at his soul to join the afterlife with this long sleeve on; lugging around a rucksack doesn’t help either. But he won’t be caught dead shirtless.
The class all agreed to go to the water park the week after summer break, their very last summer break before they graduated. It was surreal how fast time flew; he was already involved in multiple high-stakes public operations as a hero, and his name was quickly spreading around. Sure, the notoriety was a bit of an issue, but it was weird more than anything; it was weird when he went grocery shopping his mom and, every so often, a kid would walk up to him and ask for his autograph. Or more often not that, he’d overhear the surprised murmurs from around him as people did double takes, whispering amongst themselves, asking ‘Is that Deku?’ He smiled, looking at the backs of all his friends as they debated on what to do first.
It was weird being on the other side.
For the longest time, he dreamed of being a hero. And he finally got his wish! People recognized him. People acknowledged him, looked up to him, even. And it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. It made him feel like he was on top of the world, like there was nowhere else to go but up. But, watching from the corners of his eyes, he knew. With notoriety, came this. In the plants, behind bathroom stalls, on balconies, around every corner lying in wait for him to slip up, laid a sinister predator. Something that even he, with all his strength, that even All-Might himself, could never hope to conquer.
In the corner of his eye, he caught the lens of a high-resolution camera poking out of the bushes briefly, glinting in the early afternoon sun, watching his every move, before it receded back into the foliage from whence it came.
Paparazzi.
He shuddered, clutching his shoulders tight. This was staying on. No matter what, it was staying on. Even if it got wet and he ended up walking around with a soaked top, he’d rather the week of sickness over whatever those people would do with indecent photos of him. The rest of the boys didn’t seem to mind, and it boggled his mind. Didn’t they know what people did with photoshop nowadays? It was a PR disaster waiting to happen. Like the All Midnight scandal all those years ago in middle school, the one where he gambled away his own naivete to prove All Might’s hair color was off by THAT much of a shade of yellow, and that the scarring was all wrong. Nope. Not him. He’d never put himself in that situation.
“Honestly, people are too quick to believe what they see, anyone with a sufficiently powerful magnifying glass could tell that the yellow was off, and not to mention there’s no way he lost that much muscle mass in a 2 week period, even if that fight would’ve incapicitated him after the cruise ship rescue a couple days prior-” Deku begins to mutter incoherently, entirely unaware of the floating brunette anchored by a devilish girl with pink hair, right by his ear.
“LOOKOUTITSAIZAWA!!!” Deku’s body goes alight with Full Cowling, the poor boy rocketing into the air with the yelp of a pained dog, Ochako, Mina, and the rest of the girls craning their heads up to watch him soar.
Darn it, Uraraka, he blustered, trying to regain his bearings midair, floundering about as he did his best to shut down Full Cowling before anyone noticed. Not that him jumping a good 37 meters into the air did him any favors. But getting down? He wasn’t sure what his plan was just yet, but maybe he could find something to jump off of? Something to break his fall, something to make sure he didn’t damage the floor when he landed.
Nothing fit the bill, and things were either too far away or any object or fixture he COULD use was much too light to support his weight. Damn. And as the ground came ever closer, he reactivated Full Cowling, bracing for impact, only to feel a hand pat his shoulder.
“Huh-” his fall slowed as he felt weight shift back upwards.
“Release!” Just inches from the ground, the earth’s gravity took back over, and he plopped back onto the floor, his arms flailing about as he tried to catch his balance. He found himself flanked on both sides, with all the boys and girls of his class; immediately, his face turned to the floor, as he felt his cheeks generate enough heat to power the entirety of Tokyo 10 times over. Oh no. That was awful, he couldn’t face them again, that was a lot clapping-
...Clapping?
“Graceful, in a Totally-Not-Gonna-Fall-Flat-On-My-Face sorta way.” chirps Mina, fiddling on her phone and holding it up into the sky, a bright pink 8.5 flashing on the screen, “Good shit, Midoriya!”
"Yeah, seriously, that was amazing!" Ochako laughs, holding up her phone revealing a 10, "Any higher and you'd have to register as a flight-quirk user, pfffft."
“Hmm...the height was impressive, truly. And the landing, very you.” Tokoyami holds up his phone, displaying a bold faced 9, Tokoyami nodding in silent approval, with murmurs of agreement echoing throughout the crowd.
“Almost like you were trying to escape to orbit, kero. 9 from me!”
“Manly, as always, Midoriya-kun; I don’t know how you do it.”
“You could say his performance was...electri-”
“That’s enough, Triple-A-For-Brains. Rad air, Midoriya.”
One by one, his class holds up their phones, all except Iida, going on a breathless diatribe about saving their reputation; Deku, too, begins to laugh, dramatically flexing for the crowd around him as the whole of their class has their phones up, cheering him on.
All but one.
The rest of the class turns to Bakugou, his arms squarely folded across his chest, phone in hand, with the rest of the class dead silent. Bakugou stares at the class, at his phone, then back at the class, before tossing it to Deku, who barely nabs it, fumbling around with it with each hand before he catches it. The screen clicks on, and Deku holds it up high, revealing a 6.
The class goes wild, Bakugou slithering away from the group, as Iida vainly tries to take back control of the situation, bouncing around from person to person in the crowd trying to lecture them all at once.
“Alright!! Enough joking around, y’all.” hollers the fiery redhead, “We’re gonna meet back up here at 6, other than that, all bets are off, how bout’ it 3-A?!” the resulting URAAAAAA drowns out even their wily class president, and the students begin to split up, darting off to conquer their own sections of the park.
“Hey, Deku-kun!” chimes Uraraka, who stands by with Tsuyu, Mina, and a stone-faced Iida; Deku almost could’ve been fooled, had it not been for the swathes of steam being vented from his legs. “We’re gonna hit the twisty slides first, you wanna come with us?” Deku smiles, nodding and adjusting his backpack.
“Of course! Lead the way, Uraraka-san.” Mina can’t help but snicker at this.
“Huh, can’t take the lead yourself, eh~?” Mina chimes, only for Uraraka to elbow her in the stomach, still smiling at Deku. He made a mental note not to piss her off, that looked like quite the hit. The group walked on, Mina recovering from her torso hit and talking Ochako and Tsuyu’s ears off while Iida and Deku walked behind them, the pair taking in the sights and sounds.
“So, are you ready for the last chapter, Midoriya-kun?” Izuku readjusts his pack, staring up at the cloudless sky, mulling it over. “The written exams alone will be an endeavor all their own.”
“...3 years went by so quickly, I can’t even imagine what the rest of senior year’s gonna bring, but…” he holds his fists to his chest, a bounce in his step and a determined grin on his face as he stares dead ahead, “But bring it on!!” Iida laughs, patting his friend on the shoulder.
“Your optimism is infectious, as always.”
“I mean, I made it this far, right? All of us did. So what’s one more year?” A small smile curls to Iida’s lips, and he, too, stares ahead.
“Perhaps All Might’s true strength was his wisdom; it seems that may have rubbed off on you, too.” Deku sputters.
“Pfffft, I mean...well...maybe.” Deku wasn’t anywhere near his level yet. But maybe. Just maybe. Someday, maybe in the next 20 years or so, he could be a worthy enough successor to him. And he wasn’t going to stop until he was.
“What’re you guys prattling on about, ‘wisdom’ and ‘school’ and BLAH!!” Mina’s turned to face them now, walking backwards, “It’s vacationnnnn, lighten up, you two!”
“It is Deku, after all.” Tsuyu pipes up, “He brought a backpack and everything.” Mina nods, huffing out loudly through her nose.
“I mean really! What’s with that?”
“I mean...I’ve got first aid kits and maps and a field survival kit for incase a villain shows up, chargers, snacks-” Mina’s face is immobile save for her incredulous blinks at him, before Ochako clears her throat.
“Well I think it’s really thoughtful of him!! He’s right, you never really know when an attack could strike, and not having Recovery Girl here would mean his backpack would be really helpful and-” Tsuyu and Mina stare at the brunette with knowing leers, and she flushes. Deku can’t help but smile, too.
She really was too nice, and he appreciated her sticking up for him, but he couldn’t help but notice how red she’d gotten; a bigger threat than any villain?
Dehydration.
Thinking quickly, he reaches back to his bag and grabs his water bottle, offering it to her.
“I got water too! Here, you look kinda overheated-” Ochako peeps, grabbing it and taking a massive swig. Before long, the rest of his water is gone. So he was right, he muses. Good thing he brought extra.
“Ha, um, thank you, Deku-kun.” She hands his bottle back before she turns to the slides towering overhead, “But enough of that! Target sighted-” Mina’s eyes quite literally go alight and she grabs Iida and Tsuyu by the arms.
“DIBS ON IIDA AND TSU-CHAN~!!” Mina squeals, yanking the both of them away.
“Ashido-san, what is the meaning of this?! We should stMMPHF-” He can’t finish on account of Tsuyu wrapping her tongue around his head and stifling him, as trio make their way up the steps to a slide. Deku laughs, scratching the back of his head.
“Well, I guess it’s just us then, huh?” Ochako doesn’t speak, staring at the trio escaping in the distance. “Uraraka-san?” She takes a deep breath, and turns to face him, beaming at him.
“Guess it is! C’mon, nerd.” Deku smiles back, nodding.
“Lead the way.” They make their way towards a particularly menacing looking water slide, its length twisting and tangling looping up into itself, the hair on the back of Deku’s neck standing on end as he follows behind her, walking along the pool at the bottom of the slide.
Man, the amount of engineering that goes into this...and to take into account for all types of quirks and different sizes of people and masses, it was astounding. Just the forces pressing down on those struts if someone had a mass-manipulation quirk and they involuntarily activated it? It could spell disaster if unaccounted for, surely, and with how tan-
He pauses, his train of thought derailing and plunging into the deepest abscesses of his mind.
...Tan?
His eyes focus onto Ochako towards his front, and he realizes she’s taken her button up off, revealing the pink, white and black two-piece bikini that was hiding underneath, her sun-kissed skin glistening in the afternoon sunlight, adorned with the shimmering flecks of light reflecting off of the nearby pool, flickering, dancing across her body, and his jaw slacks; the poor boy’s joints lock up entirely.
Oh. Oh okay.
Ochako notices his footsteps cease, turning around and cocking her head at him.
“Is something wrong?” Deku peeps, his face flushed red. Ochako grins, giggling.
Stupid.
He was stupid. He’s been through this. They were friends.
Friends, and nothing more.
She was too busy with judo club, and her own hero assignments, for him to want to pursue anything further. He couldn’t put her in that position, and he refused to. No way. It was just him being selfish-
“Deku-kun, hey!” She jolts him out his mental breakdown, a small, reassuring smile on her lips, and he chastises himself for even checking there, for however briefly, you stupid boy- “It’s okay.” she says softly, her voice like warm honey. He gulps. Her eyes are sincere, genuine, they speak a language all of their own, as if it were for his interpretation and his alone. And in this light, they’re like golden-brown galaxies and nebulae, endless and eternal, and he-
He feels her reach an arm over his shoulder, right past his ear, and he stops breathing. He’d been avoiding this. There was only so much he could take, with how nice she was, how friendly, how pretty- no, that’s not right, no, with her kindness, her strength, her compassion, how she’d root for him and be in his corner even if no one else-
“Deku-kun, here.” He snaps back to reality, finding her sticking a bottle of water right in his face. She laughs, and Deku can’t help but laugh along. That, too, was infectious about her. “You looked red, so drink up.”
“Y-yeah, that’s right, I-” he grabs the bottle, barely able to keep it from shaking clear out of his hand, and takes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 massive gulps of water before the bottle collapses, his palm crushing it right down the middle. Breathless, he turns to her again, a small, shaky smile on his face. “Um, thank you, Uraraka-san.” She rolls her eyes, putting her hands on her hips as she eyes him up and down.
“You were way, way dehydrated. It’s probably because you have that dumb long-sleeve on.” Deku tenses up.
“I- well, it’s just...I...hm.” Ochako shakes her head, continuing on without him.
“C’mon, Deku-kun. Don’t make me float you.” The boy takes it to heart, chasing after Ochako and doing his best to catch up.
“Can I at least, um-” He fumbles his words, his hands trying to pick up the slack and gesturing to Ochako’s button-up as he tries and fails to articulate further. Ochako happily nods and hands it to him.
“They speak some sorta secret language on Planet Deku?” she teases, Deku carefully folding and placing her button-up into his pack, scoffing at the notion.
“I mean...no, but they do all have faces like this.” He takes a deep breath, and scrunches up his face like he always practiced, putting on a big ol’ smile spanning from ear to ear as he holds up two tufts of his hair, “And talk like this.” he says in as bassy a voice he can make. Ochako loses it, nearly doubling over as their walk slows to a crawl. He leans over, staring her down, maintaining his facade, “Is something the matter, citizen?” He’s absolutely destroying her, her laughs turning into delirious pleas for him to cut it out already between breaths and giggles, her breathless wheezes and guffaws and cackles like music to his ears as he went on with his All Might improv.
This would never get old, ever.
Seeing her like this, hearing her like this. He adored her laugh, and it warmed his heart that he could even coax it out of her like he did. He adored seeing her like this, spending time with her like this. He loved it. He loved every second of it. But that was precisely the word, wasn’t it?
Love.
As he went on, it echoed in his mind. Loved her as a friend. As a companion. As a fellow hero. Loved her company. Loved her smile. Loved her boundless, peerless energy.
He began to list off everything in his mind, his smile fading as the list grew longer, and longer, and longer.
And longer.
And longer.
And ever longer, impossibly, countlessly, immeasurably, inconsolably longer.
He stands upright, clearing his throat loud enough to startle other guests passing them up, Ochako finally catching her breath, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Wahaha...I...whew, holy crap, Deku-kun..ha...man.” He can’t face her. Not after his revelation. “You okay-”
“YUP!” he chokes out as if on autopilot, quickly jogging up the stairs without her, “W-w-we’re almost there, come...come on!” It was unacceptable. He refused to compromise their relationship like that. There was no way. None. She deserved better than that. A better friend than that. A friend that wouldn’t try and tarnish what they had. He’d be throwing away a person she could rely on. No way. He wasn’t going to-
“Well-!” she storms up behind him in a huff, full-on sprinting up past him and flicking his nose as she passes, snapping him from his funk. He blinks a couple times, and he sees her smile again, a different one, this time, catching it for just fractions of a second before she turns away, darting up the steps. A cocky, self-assured smile, one he wouldn’t find out of place on Kacchan, one that screamed ‘Come get some’. He loved this side of her, too.
He loved her drive, her fiery, competitive spirit.
“Since it’s a race all of a sudden and you wanna cheat!” she calls, ascending ever higher, “Then bring it on!!” An inferno rises in his heart, and with clenched fists and a grin to match her own, he chases after her.
Definitely not now. Maybe not when school starts. Maybe not even before they graduate. But somehow. Some way. He’s going to tell her how he feels. Even if takes someone beating it out of him, leaving him battered and bruised, one day, he would.
“You’re getting slow, Uraraka-san!!” She bobs and weaves past the people that passed them earlier, before she turns to glare at him, fire lit in her eyes.
“Yeah? And who’s...got...super-strength-speed? Can’t even...keep on guard!!” she jeers, picking up her pace. Deku scoffs, practically jumping up steps now as he closes in on her.
“That was...a surprise...attack!” he pants, the pair quickly closing in on the top of the slide. They’re almost neck and neck now, Deku only a few steps below her, and Deku thinks about Full Cowling. Using it for this? Really? He couldn’t be that petty, could he? Wouldn’t that constitute as abuse of power? After all, it’s the power that’s gonna make him the next Symbol of Peace...but the top of the stairs loom ever nearer, and she’s still leading.
Fine.
He’d use it frivolously, just this once.
Powering up, the energy of Full Cowling begins to manifest, trailing down his eyes and neck, and further still to his knees...before he feels a tap on his shoulder, and then feels himself go weightless. Oh, great.
“Since you...wanna use quirks!!!” she leaps forward, pressing her fingers together and makes herself soar to the top of the stairs as he flails around on the roof of the awning overhead. “RELEASE!” she roars, making the two of them submit once more to the whim of gravity, Deku barely managing to right himself before he lands on his knees. Ochako walks up to him, sporting a smug grin. “I win~!”
Deku hangs his head in defeat, but Ochako just offers him a hand.
“C’mon, nerd. We got a slide to catch.” Deku grins, grabbing her hand and pulling himself upwards.
“Not with that stuff on, you’re not.” says one of the workers from behind them, eyeing Deku up and down. Deku takes her hand and helps himself up, shedding his backpack and pointing over to the lockers.
“Of course, do I-”
“Hoodie too, nothing that’s gonna catch.” Deku freezes like someone’s poured liquid nitrogen over him. His voice catches in his throat as the park worker stares at him impatiently.
“I-um. You see, it’s, uh-” the park worker is visibly irritated. Oh no.
“Look, sir, you can either take it off or walk back down, there’s others behind you-”
“We’ll go!” Ochako pipes up, grasping Deku’s arm. Deku gasps, staring at Ochako in disbelief. “Sorry for the fuss. C’mon, Deku, it’s okay. We’ll go to the pool!” He’s speechless. All this effort. All that work. And she was willing to just go right back down, for him. With this hoodie, he wasn’t going to he going down any sort of slides. She was going to be bored, and they’d just have to settle for lazing around in the pools in the area all day, and yet, she was still going to jump to suggest it anyway.
No.
No, she’d done enough for him already. It’s his turn, now. He’d return the favor. And, hopefully, manage to catch any online rumblings of any sort of unsavory images of him floating around before the class caught wind.
“Actually, it’s...um, it’s okay. I’ll take it off.” Ochako’s head whips back towards him like she didn’t quite catch what he said. “Sorry about that, Uraraka-san. Just a sec!” She lets go of his arm and he begins to wiggle out of the hoodie, dragging it up and over his head. He folds up his hoodie and takes a look at himself.
He’d gotten lazy, and it showed.
Not doing those extra 500 crunches a day last month and extra 5 minutes of weighted planks was really messing with how his core felt but, he’d cross that road later.
He walks over to the lockers, stuffing his backpack and hoodie inside before he walks back to Uraraka, who, strangely, didn’t seem to have moved from where she stood, staring dead ahead.
“Uraraka-san…?” he waves his hand in front of her face, and she snaps out of it, nodding furiously.
“Yep.Yep, sorry, spacing out. Uh, shall we?” she brushes past him and sits in the two-person floatie, tapping her hands against it furiously. Oh boy. Better not to keep her waiting.
“Sorry! I’m coming.” he gingerly wades into the water, seating himself right behind her. The park worker scoffs, manning the controls.
“Keep your hands and feet in the floatation device at all times, do not try and leave the floatation device or make any violent movements, have a nice time.” they say in one breath, entirely deadpan. With a beep, a jet of water shoots out from behind them, soaking Deku’s head as they’re jettisoned down the tube, twisting and curving and spiraling downwards as the two of them squeal at the top of their lungs. It’s bliss. Paparazzi be damned. He wasn’t going to let them stop him anymore.
He wouldn’t mind a million photoshopped lewd photos if it meant he got to do this. This was fun. This was mind-bogglingly fun. And as his focus shifted to the girl in front of him, everything else faded away. It was that laugh again. That giddy, ecstatic, care-free laugh. His heart skipped a beat, and as they reached the end, the light at the end of the tunnel fast approaching, he knew. As they tumbled out of the slide and through the air, he knew.
“URARAKA-SAN I L-” he didn’t get to finish as the duo smacked into the water with a huge splash, Deku tumbling about in the pool before he gets his bearings, swimming back up to the surface and breaching it with a gasp.
Nope. Not again. He was not about to say that. What was he thinking ?
“Holy crap, that’s…” Uraraka gasps, swimming up next to him, “We gotta do that again .” Deku shakes his head to clear his thoughts, swimming towards the shallow end of the pool with Uraraka following suit.
“No, I mean- yes, for sure, that sounds really, really fun, yes.” Uraraka claps, jumping up and down, before he sees her smile quickly fade and her face contort in pain.
“I...ow?” Her hands travel to her leg, revealing a large gash on her knee; Deku springs into action, running her arm over his shoulder to prop her up.
“Oh jeez...you must’ve scraped the wall, or perhaps you went straight to the floor...my backpack, once we get to the lockers I’ll patch you up.” she nods and they begin to hobble over towards the lockers on the ground level, and he begins to panic, his eyes pinballing around his sockets. Look at her now, this is what happens when you don’t just stick to your guns, you just had to go and be brave and-
“Deku-kun, it’s a scrape, c’mon. Calm down.” She knows him too well. And it terrifies him. But he heeds her words, taking a deep breath as they reach the lockers, Deku walking her over to some benches and sitting her down gently.
“Just a sec.” he walks over, scanning the lockers for his number before he finds it, pressing a button on the panel and entering his code. There’s a beep, and within moments, tubes leading up to the top of the slide whoosh on, and his backpack is sent shooting downwards, landing with a dull thump inside the locker. He quickly swung it open, bringing his bag over onto the bench and producing a first aid kit from the pack and placing it down next to her. “This might sting, I’m sorry.”
“Oh nooooooo, spare me.” she laments, Deku chuckling as he kneels down before her.
“Pool certainly didn’t.” Deku quips back, opening an alcohol wipe pack.
“Ha, touchéOW-!” she winches as he cleans her wound, gently dabbing the wipe against it and cleaning away any excess blood, Uraraka whimpering softly every time he presses it back down.
“I’m sorry, Uraraka-san, just a little more, okay?” She nods, looking away from her leg as he reaches up into the first aid box to grab gauze, still fixated on making sure the gash was properly sterilized; he whiffs the box, accidentally grabbing her thigh instead. Deku seizes up. Uraraka is wordless.
Soft. So very soft.
“Um...Deku-ku-”
“SORRY, SORRY-” he yelps, quickly snapping his hand back. He goes for the box again, refusing to look up.
Nope.
Can’t ever look at her face again.
And then he feels his hand grab hers, and he comes as close to cursing aloud as he’s ever gotten.
He’s furious, darting his hand as far outwards as it’ll go this time, running it along the bench until he definitively feels the first aid box and begins fumbling around it for the gauze and some scissors, frantically unrolling the band of gauze.
“I-i-i-it was, it was by accident, I’m so sorry, I, um-” he cuts the gauze strip down the middle, doing his best to wrap her leg as quickly and as gently as possible.
What an idiot .
He just needed to look up for two seconds.
Not even two.
Half a second would’ve done.
How could he just grab her like that, TWICE, without her consent, it was tantamount to sexual harassment, he was a scumbag, oh god .
He wraps the gauze up, giving it a once over before he shakily rises up on his feet, staring at the floor.
He’s a mess. He couldn’t even provide medical treatment for her without messing it up, how could he possibly even hope to confess to her? The feelings would pass, he was sure, so, maybe, maybe he was better off just shoving them back down again. That’s it. He’d just ignore them. He’d-
“Deku-kun…” she calls, making his gaze snap to her. She looks up at him, her face flushed again. Of course. Water.
“Oh my goodness, y-yeah, of course, let me get another water bottle!!” He leans over the bench into his backpack rummaging inside until he feels her hand touch his arm. It petrifies him. Here it comes. She’s going to scold him. It’s over. He might as well pack himself into that backpack while he’s bent over it, he’s never going to be able to show his face again.
“Pffft...Um...no. Not that. Sit down with me?” He can’t look over.
He knows.
He’s sorry.
He didn’t mean to.
But he listens, slowly pushing his backpack aside and sitting down next to her; the gap between their legs might as well be the Grand Canyon, Deku’s leg bouncing up and down as she takes a deep, shaky breath and exhales deeply.
Here it comes.
Brace for it.
“Deku-kun, do you...like anyone?” she starts. Deku’s mind gums up. Every single gear within his mind has a monkey wrench thrown into it, nothing is working. No. That wasn’t fair. She couldn’t just ask that now, he’d finally, finally resolved himself to stick to this. He couldn’t. “I mean...well. Regardless of whether or not you do, I…um. Dang it, sorry.” Oh god. Does she think he’s a player? Someone that would go girl to girl, someone that unscrupulous, it’s- No, no it’s nothing like that, but...he can’t speak.
He’s stuck.
“Deku-kun, I’m...I’m sorry. I-I think I...like...you.” It takes a moment to sink in, her words echoing in his head, bouncing about like ping pong balls in his brain, slamming into every single information processing receptor it’s got and smashing them to bits. The gears that were once gummed up forcibly break free of their chains and begin to race about without resistance, faster than they were designed to.
‘I like you’
No. No way. HER? Liking HIM?
His head slowly rotates to her, and it hits him. Those damned eyes, peering right into his soul, watching his every move and staring 5 moves ahead. They say all he needs to know. No. She’s...she’s serious. She’s actually really serious.
“I get it if you don’t it’s just, I...I literally couldn’t take it anymore. I-”
“I like you too!!” he blurts out, taking her aback. Crap. Crap. Crap, no, that’s not what he wanted to say. It was more than that-
“You...I, well, okay, that was...since when?!” He doesn’t have time to second guess. He needs to answer.
“...Since freshman year, pretty much.” She ponders this, taking her gaze off of him and onto the bench as her own mind begins to piece together their situation. He wishes he knew what she was thinking. He wishes that he could ascertain, to something beyond the 99th percentile, what he should do further. But this is all untreaded ground.
“I...yeah. About the same for me.” He’s blown away. That long?!
“I...I had no ide-”
“Oh, I know, Deku-kun. I am well aware.” The look she throws at him is one of utter exasperation, making him jump.
“I’m so sorry, ohmygosh, I’ve always been really scatterbrained and I can’t believe-” She sputters, unable to help giggling at him.
“It’s okay! Just, hang on. It’s okay.” Her eyes are softer now, a small, absolutely serene smile on her face. Her hand travels across the gap, slowly, but surely, to his. His heart is beating so quickly that he’s surprised it doesn’t just vibrate itself clean out of his chest. It starts with one finger, then two, then three, and then all four, the girl beside him engulfing his hand in her own. “So...what now?” She’s staring at him, her cheeks even redder than normal, and it’s only now that he understands that it’s not the weather.
He wishes he knew the answer to that question.
He had absolutely zero idea.
He wasn’t sure anything he could conjure forth from his fried brain would even BEGIN to suffice.
“Err, I-” he grips her hand back, locking his fingers with hers, “I um-” his mind is in a freefall, Deku diving into the blissful abyss that is her eyes, the lump in his throat having a field day. It’s only then that he realizes they’re closing the gap, their upper bodies leaning in as if they were magnetized. The world is in slow motion, their distance closing at a glacial pace, mind-numbingly, terrifyingly slow, but like a force of nature that will not be impeded.
Oh god.
He’s never-
What if he’s awful.
No, he knows he’s going to be awful.
There’s no helping it, he’s never bothered with this sort of thing before, this was always Mineta’s shtick, oh GOD what if he screws it up.
But there’s no stopping now; he can feel her breath against his lips, the scent of the cherry blossoms on her lip gloss sending his mind tumbling further.
This was it. He knows they always close their eyes in the movies, but he can’t look away, even as Uraraka’s eyes hood over, then slowly shut. He feels his eyelids grow heavier, too, but he has to know if this is real. If he closes his eyes, he just knows he’s going to wake up in his dorm in a cold sweat.
It’s only then does he catch a familiar glint in the corner of his eye, just out of sight.
And then, a flash sears his eyes for all the trouble he went through to keep them open.
“What-HEY!!!” Deku screeches, hopping up out of his seat, the camera lens disappearing back into the bushes, followed by the sound of footsteps rapidly retreating into the underbelly of the park. Deku tries to give chase, but Uraraka grabs his arm. “I’m so sorry, Uraraka-san it’s-”
“It’s fine! Oh my gosh, it’s fine.” She uses his arm to pull herself up, clutching it tight as she stands by his side, their shoulders flush to one another’s, making Deku gulp. “I guess there’s a time and place for everything. And we’ll...we’ll find ours. Don’t worry.” She gets on her tiptoes, quickly stealing a kiss on his cheek, making Deku’s heart stop. Right as Iida turns a corner and spots them.
“YOU TWO!!” he screams, running up to the pair of them, absolutely livid, “I’ve been looking all OVER for you, I finally just managed to escape Tsuyu-san and Ashido-san’s clutches and not one of you answer your phones!!” Not far behind him come Tsuyu and Mina, gasping for breath.
“Sorry, Ochako-chan, we really tried to-” Mina looks up, looking at the duo getting an absolute earful from the class president, and beams.
“Hmm. Shoulder to shoulder, Ochako’s smile, Deku looks like he’s going to faint…” Tsuyu holds her hand up, and Mina smiles deviously, high fiving her.
“Damn straight! Mission accomplished.”
“But...we should probably get Iida-kun off of them, kero.”