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Sometimes Iida doesn’t get the opportunity to sleep.
That’s fine, it’s not something that he really needs all that often, no matter what he preaches to the rest of the class. That’s the thing about being the class representative and the student who everyone looks up to, there isn’t a lot of time to do anything else. Sometimes that includes his own math work, homework from his worst class.
Being the best is something that he’s always excelled at, before UA. Back at Somei, he was used to being the one on top of his classes, the one that was always a role model. Now, he’s falling behind in math and he’s lucky that he doesn’t have conspiracy to murder on his record.
That’s fine, though. That’s why he’s sitting up so late at night, with a coffee and a few mechanical pencils in the lamp light of his room. As long as he doesn’t check the time, it’s almost like no time is passing at all (he sneaks another look at the clock on his wall. It’s only been seven minutes since the last time he checked and almost nothing new has been finished).
He’s just staring at his work right now. He doesn’t know if he’s doing any of this right, but he hadn’t wanted to ask Ectoplasm after class because Tsuyu had needed to talk to him and then it was time for the next class. Google hasn’t been much of a help. There was something about watching a twenty minute long video in the middle of the night that was simply too unappealing, so he had jumped around, and didn’t learn anything in the end.
Not following his own lessons isn’t something that he thought that he would ever do, but sometimes he’s just too tired.
What a poor example of a UA student I make…
Sometimes in the middle of the night Iida thinks about hanging up the hat of being the class representative. He never would, because at this point he doesn’t know what he would do without the job. What other excuse is there for looking after his fellow classmates? Uraraka would never eat, and Midoriya would never sleep. Chaos would rip them all apart.
Finally, now, at nearly one in the morning, Iida realizes that he never went and made sure Midoriya went to bed. It might be too late, but knowing him… probably not.
Maybe getting out of the silence of his room and into the hallway will do him some good. Finding his slippers and slipping them on, putting down his pencil in the little row of them, he walks into the hallway.
He hasn’t even gotten out of his school uniform yet, but here he goes, quietly up the elevator. He doesn’t do anything other than focus on the walls in front of him. Today hasn’t been his best day, one of those days he truly has to just sit and accept the fact that maybe he isn’t great at everything.
He doesn’t like days like this.
The elevator quietly opens on the fifth floor, and Iida marches out of it. It’s so quiet, on the fifth floor. From all the way up here, he can see most of the campus. It’s a nice view, the kind of view that if he were a more selfish person he might demand for himself.
There are no girls up here , he could see this Other Iida pointing out to their annoyed teacher, why not let the class representative have the space ?
Sometimes he wonders if he’s all that different from that Other Iida. It’s hard to tell, his sense of self vanishing after Tensei. He had… conspired to murder someone. Surely someone who would do that doesn’t have much regard for anyone else or the rules set up (which is why he tries to have rules, why isn’t he following them again?).
There’s light coming from underneath Midoriya’s door, but no noises inside. Maybe he fell asleep at his desk again.
When a light and quiet knock on the door doesn’t do anything, he slowly tries the door handle. Usually when his friend goes to sleep he locks the handle, something Iida learned the hard way when he tried to wake him up before class when his alarm didn’t work and walked into the door too hard, ending up with a headache.
The door opens without resistance, and all of a sudden he’s standing in a room packed of All Might memorabilia. It took time, but eventually it’s something that Iida got used to seeing. He doesn’t see much wrong with it, after all, he has all of Tensei’s merchandise.
“Midoriya?”
He isn’t in his room, but before Iida begins panicking he sees his friend through the glass between the room and the balcony. He’s turned away from the door, leaning on the railing.
“Midoriya?” Iida asks again after he crosses the room and opens up the sliding door.
Midoriya jumps, turning on his heel.
“Wha- oh, hey Iida.”
“I’m sorry if I scared you… What are you still doing up?”
“Uh, I just… couldn’t sleep. Why are you still in your uniform?”
“I haven’t had the opportunity to change yet.”
“Iida, school ended seven hours ago. You didn’t even come to dinner.”
Iida doesn’t bother to correct him. Technically school was over six and a half hours ago - and he had a protein bar in his room, it wasn’t as though he had gone and had nothing (he’s just justifying it to himself, he knows it).
“Right… Well, I just came here to say that you should go to sleep.”
“I will, just…”
The silence in the air lingers for a moment while Midoriya tries to find the words that he wants to say.
“Take care of yourself, okay? We worry about you too.”
“We?”
“Yeah,” Midoriya says, leaning his back against the rail to face him properly. “Uraraka, Todoroki, Tsu-Chan…”
“Right. Well, thank you Midoriya. I think I’m going to go to bed. You should too.”
“I will.”
There’s a moment of silence. This wasn’t the way that he thought this was going to go at all.
“Goodnight, Midoriya.”
“Goodnight Iida.”