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When Momo heads downstairs at 6:30 a.m., she finds she’s not the only one awake at that hour. Someone’s there already: Izuku. She knows her green-haired classmate consistently rises early for his morning run (and she admires that dedication, too), yet it’s slightly unexpected that he’s sitting at the coffee table in the middle of the common room, hunched over a piece of paper and furiously writing something.
But then again, it is national Tell Your Hero Thank-You day, and Izuku is a massive hero fanboy if she’s ever seen one, so Momo can’t say it truly surprises her.
Izuku briefly looks up from his letter to give her a small wave in greeting, which she returns before heading to the kitchen to prepare some tea. Once it’s ready, she pours two mugs—one for herself, and one for Izuku—and carries them carefully over to the common room.
“Morning, Yaomomo,” Izuku murmurs, and although he looks wide awake his voice is still slightly husky from not having spoken much.
“Good morning, Midoriya,” Momo says in reply. “Have you had anything to eat yet? Drink some tea.” She pushes the taller mug towards him.
“Thanks,” Izuku answers, but he doesn’t pick up the tea until he’s finished his sentence and dotted the period fervently.
“May I inquire as to who it’s for?” Momo asks curiously.
Izuku meets her gaze, excitement clearly visible in his own. “I couldn’t really pick a hero to thank first– I want to thank all of them, especially now that I’ve had a chance, as a hero-in-training, to see how everyone works behind the scenes too!” he scratches his head the way he always does when catching himself rambling, then laughs a little sheepishly. “I guess I really am a fanboy, huh?”
“That’s one of the things I- erm, we,” Momo corrects herself hastily, “like about you. Your enthusiasm, your knowledgeability, it’s quite admirable, really.” She reaches out to pat his shoulder, only hesitating slightly. He’d made it plenty clear that he’s fine with non-aggressive touches from classmates, and he no longer flinches away, but Momo can’t shake the habit and likes to make sure Izuku’s comfortable every time, anyway.
Izuku grins. “Of course, I’ll write one for every hero, even if I can’t get them all done today, but I ended up spinning a wheel and guess what it landed on?” His eyes gleam. “All Might!!”
It’s then that Momo notices the All Might-themed stationery upon which Izuku is writing his already very long letter.
“Nice paper,” she comments, smiling so that he knows she’s genuine. Izuku immediately flushes.
“Yeah… I was walking by a stationery section during our class trip to the store yesterday, and I realized that I had never seen this particular design before, but it looked so cool, and I couldn’t help but pick it up!”
It’s so typical of him, she thinks fondly.
“What about you, Yaomomo?” Izuku inquires softly, changing the subject. “You probably didn’t come downstairs to listen to me go on about my heroes…”
“No, no, it’s delightful to hear you talk,” Momo says, quickly moving to reassure him. “Honestly, I just got up early and didn’t feel like going back to bed, so I decided to make myself some tea. But now that you’ve mentioned it, I think I’ll write some letters as well, if you wouldn’t mind my company. I’ve got quite a few that I am profoundly grateful to.”
Izuku visibly brightens. “Sure- I’d love to have you join me!” He waves at a stack of pale pink paper and matching gold-and-blue-trimmed envelopes. “I’ve got some normal paper, if you want it.”
“Thank you,” Momo says graciously, accepting a piece and selecting a deep magenta pen from a pile to the side. She places the sheet in front of her, smoothing out invisible wrinkles just to have something to do while she ponders. Who should I write to first? There are so many heroes who have impacted my path since I came to Yuuei…
“Who’s it going to be for?” Izuku queries.
Momo shrugs, although she wishes she had an answer. “I’m not sure…”
“Why don’t you think about the first hero who impacted you in a significant way?” Izuku suggests gently. “I’m sure there are tons of them, but when in doubt sometimes it’s easiest to think about the first one. After that, the rest follow.”
The first…
“For me, it was All Might,” Izuku adds. “Before high school, nobody really believed in me, you know? Middle school kids can be mean.” He chuckles, yet is that something of a bitter edge that Momo detects? It makes her want to scoop the greenet up and hold him and absolutely destroy anyone who could bring that kind of sadness out of the sunshine boy she knows.
“He was the first to give me a chance, to see me as more than my Quirk, and to tell me that I could amount to something someday,” Izuku continues. “I sorta owe a lot of my success to him– there’s no way I’d be here if not for him.”
“No, Midoriya,” Momo cuts in. “I know you. I know you’re kind, protective of those you care about, and incredibly brilliant. I genuinely believe that you would have made it into Yuuei on your own terms had you not met All Might before coming here.”
Izuku looks up at her in disbelief.
“Either way, I’m glad you’re here, because that’s how I got to meet you,” she adds.
Izuku beams, his eyes welling up slightly. “That’s so… so…” he whispers.
Momo pulls a handkerchief from her arm and hands it to him. “It’s true.”
Izuku sniffles once, then regains his composure slightly. “Anyways. Did you…?”
Momo tries to think. Who was the first teacher who really made an impact on me?
Midnight-sensei. Of course.
“Midnight,” she announces, penning the name neatly on the top line of her paper just as Izuku folds his finished letter and slips it in an envelope. “She was the first to understand me, to look at me, to see me. The first to go out of her way to help me, when she saw me return from my internship with my self-confidence absolutely demolished.”
Should I share? But Izuku’s shared so much with me… and I don’t mind him knowing.
“She showed me how you could be feminine while being strong and respected, or at least having self-respect,” she goes on, Izuku watching her with rapt attention. “Without her help, I wouldn’t have been able to lead that squad during our last rescue mission. Without her insistent meddling, there’s no way I would have ever gone to Support to get my costume altered, and if we hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t have realized that there was a better way to cover me while I used my Quirk.”
Izuku smiles. “Yuuei teachers really are different, aren’t they? They find a way to care so much, and it feels just like what you’ve been missing all along.”
And Momo is fully aware of Izuku and All Might’s strange but sweet student-mentor relationship that goes beyond what he has with the rest of his teachers (possibly with the exception of Aizawa-sensei); she knows that All Might and Aizawa are something like parents to Izuku, the father figures he never truly had. She’s glad that Izuku has them.
~
Three days after the Tell Your Hero Thank-You Day has ended and the letters have been mailed, Momo’s in her room, sprawled across her quilted bedspread reading a novel, when she sees a pink envelope with gold and blue trim being slipped under the crack between her door and the floor. Curiously, she climbs off her bed, picking up the loosely sealed envelope and nudging the flap open to find a folded letter written on familiar-looking pale pink stationery.
Pale pink… isn’t this the very paper Izuku offered to me when we were writing our letters together?
Her eyes widen impossibly as she withdraws the paper and unfolds it to find a drawing of herself in the top right, followed by a letter written in tiny but neat penmanship.
‘Dear Yaomomo, I’ve admired you for so long…’
She reads the rest of the paragraph once, then twice, then a third time. The writer mentions her kindness, her grace, her poise, but also her skill and coolness in the heat of battle. They go on a short tangent waxing poetic about her largely-underlooked brilliance and her subtle care as one of the class representatives. They tell her things that she’s long doubted about herself, and they tell her what a great hero she will become. They speak of observations and admiration that can only come from a classmate, and when she reaches the end for the fourth time, Momo hopes she’s correct in who it is.
Then she notices a folded up section of the bottom, and her heart rate accelerates as she unfolds it.
Her eyes drop to the green heart and the cursive words beside it.
P.s.: I really really like you, Yaomomo.
Midoriya Izuku
She smiles, her heart soaring. “Thank you , Izuku,” she says out loud. I like you too.
Momo picks up her turquoise pen, the one that reminds her most of Izuku, and begins penning a letter in return. After all, even if she’s already written him one, she can always write another.