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It was a good day. Or, rather, good evening.
The sun had nearly set, there was a good breeze, and Izuku Midoriya had just come back from training with All Might.
For the first time in a while, their training session didn’t include a certain explosive blond, and it was nice. Peaceful, even. It had been a while since it was just the two of them. All Might told him a bit more about how far he was regarding his research on the past users, they worked on increasing his One-For-All usage, All Might even ruffled his hair and said he was proud of him!
So, all in all, Izuku was feeling pretty good about life in general.
Then, he opened the door.
“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME, ROUND-FACE!”
“YOU HEARD ME THE FIRST TIME, JERKWAD!”
“Guys, stop it! It isn’t manly to fight each other!”
“YOU WANNA DIE?”
“I don’t think they’re listening, Kirishima. It’s hopeless.”
“IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE TO FIGHT IN THE DORMS!”
“SHUT UP, GLASSES!”
…Could he just, go back? Maybe All Might wouldn’t mind.
It would probably be better than dealing with, well, whatever this was.
Usually, he would deal with it (no one better than Kacchan’s decade old punching bag to take a hit, something in his mind whispered), but he was tired. All he wanted to do was eat, do some homework, and sleep.
He was too tired to deal with this, not naïve enough to think he wouldn’t have to.
Kacchan and Uraraka were barely being held back by the joint efforts of Kirishima and Iida and they both had equal amounts of murder on their faces and what on Earth did he miss?
Izuku sensed that the whole thing might be Todoroki’s fault, somehow. Just a gut feeling.
And the fact that there was a pile of soba packets on the floor. Like, way too many soba packets.
And that Todoroki had somehow sidled behind him without him noticing (he really needed to work on his situational awareness), looking at the scene before him and simultaneously both having a neutral expression and looking like he was thriving off the conflict.
“What’s happening?” he asked, keeping his voice as casual as possible.
“I bought too many soba packets,” Todoroki answered and that didn’t really explain anything.
At least now he knew it was definitely Todoroki’s fault. That was basically a confession coming from him.
“So it’s a deal, Round-Face. Prepare to- “
“If you’re gonna say ‘Prepare to lose’ then save it, ‘cause the only one who’s gonna lose is you!”
Huh? What was happening now?
“Wow, kero, you’re really fired up about this.”
“Bakugou would say it with more colourful language, though.”
As Kacchan proceeded to blow up, both literally and figuratively, and Iida proceeded to tell him not to and Kirishima tried to calm him down, Izuku decided it was the right amount of chaos to be able to slip away into his room unnoticed. He’d come down and find out what was happening after having a relaxing shower.
“Deku!”
Or maybe not.
“Hey Uraraka!”
Might as well get it over with.
“I didn’t even notice you come in,” she said, way too chipper for someone who was just taunting and yelling at a human bomb a few moments ago.
“Uh, yeah, I just got back from training.” Okay, just ask her what she was arguing with Kacchan about. But what if he asks her wrong? What if it was something she wanted to keep personal? But that didn’t make sense, the whole class was privy to that argument. Did he even need to know what it was about, though? But it sounded like she agreed to some kind of challenge against Kacchan, the least he could do as her friend was help her. But what if she didn’t want his help and got offended and stopped being his friend and-
“Uh, Deku? You were spacing out and muttering again.”
“Oh, sorry! Did you, uh, say something?”
Uraraka nervously averted his gaze pressed her finger pads together. “I dunno, you do seem pretty tired lately. I wouldn’t wanna tire you out even more…”
“No, it’s alright! What do you need help with?” After all, how could he be a hero if he couldn’t even help his friends?
“Well…” Uraraka looked up at him with fire in her eyes, and some distant part of Izuku felt as if, somehow, he’d made a mistake he’d come to regret.
---------------
Izuku was being asked to put up flyers.
At least his anxiety was taken heed of and he wasn’t being asked to hand out the flyers (that job went to Iida, who was doing his task with no small amount of enthusiasm) and, really, it wasn’t the worst thing he could be doing, but…
Of all the things Uraraka could have challenged Kacchan on, he did not expect this.
He did not expect them to be competing over who could sell the most soba.
But, then again, Uraraka was good at, well, money (as proven by her penchant for always finding the best deals and her brutal wins at Monopoly) and would never be opposed to earning some extra, whereas Kacchan could never say no to a challenge once his pride was involved. Also, there was a lot of soba. So maybe not that surprising.
Screw Todoroki and his ineptitude with online ordering. Because that was what started all this, what caused him to accidentally order more soba than he could actually keep in the first place.
Although, Izuku still hadn’t understood what, exactly, had gone wrong. He still hadn’t been able to ask Todoroki about it.
It was easier to just blame Endeavor’s parenting for Todoroki’s folly. The man may be changing, but man did he mess up his son beforehand.
And there was always the chance Todoroki did this all on purpose. It was just the type of wasteful expenditure he’d use his father’s credit card for to be petty.
Sins of the father, and all that. (Izuku was pretty sure that was not how the saying was used.)
Speaking of the ice-and-fire quirk wielder, he was roped into helping Uraraka too. Apparently his “pretty-boy looks” were good for attracting customers, even if he himself wasn’t the best at convincing them to buy.
Asui- sorry, Tsu, was pretty good at making sure people left with a purchase, though, and between her, Uraraka’s terrifyingly-efficient management, and the efforts of all the other classmates she’d enlisted to help her, they’d been doing pretty well so far.
Izuku might even go so far so as to say that they might be doing better than Kacchan. As good at Kacchan was at, well, nearly everything, he wasn’t good at public relations. (As seen whenever a reporter somehow managed to get to him. One would think they’d learn after nearly receiving an explosion in the face, but apparently not.)
Still, Kacchan had managed to make some progress. Izuku had passed by his booth at some point, and had found out that apparently intimidation was a valid marketing tactic. Then again, this was Kacchan. He had bullied and threatened and yelled to get his way in everything since preschool, and it nearly always worked. No reason to think it’d stop now, even if one would think shoving things at customers and yelling expletives while being held back by Kirishima wouldn’t be a good thing.
So, all in all, everything was going fine. Definitely less injuries than most other challenges his class got involved in. He eventually put up all the flyers and so he went around doing all the odd jobs Uraraka insisted were “necessary” (and for all Izuku knew, they might as well be).
Everything was fine.
---------------
Everything was fine.
But no one took the business course students into account when doing all this.
Or the fact that they might not like this.
And that they basically owned the turf when it came to, well, business.
The first year business course students were brutal in their takedown. They managed to demolish both booths in what seemed like a matter of minutes.
Probably helped that they’d actually studied how to do just that to take control of the market.
Hero course students learnt many things, from rescue training, to quirk usage laws, to how to handle the media. All basic things specifically related to the heroics course.
None of those things, Izuku had learnt, was of any help when being threatened, then guilt-tripped, then blackmailed, and finally black-listed out of business by a business course student. He may be over-simplifying their plan a bit, but Izuku wasn’t completely clear on what just happened either.
Whatever happened, it led to where they were now. A class of hero students with emotions ranging from guilty to disgruntled, gathered in the common room and listening to Sero’s half-baked revenge plot.
“Sero, no,” said Iida, pinching his eyebrows with a long-suffering sigh. He sounded tired, and Izuku couldn’t blame him.
“Aww, c’mon prez, why not?”
“I have explained multiple times why not.” It seemed even Iida had his limits. And he had long passed them.
Just as he was about to offer his utterly spent and extremely stressed friend some much needed comfort, Izuku’s phone rang.
Averting the questioning glances thrown his way, perhaps due to his All Might-themed ringtone (he knows, he knows they aren’t making fun of him, they’re too nice for that, but a part of him still flinches-), he answered the call.
And, upon hearing the caller’s voice, asking where he was, immediately swore and rushed towards the front door.
“SorryguysIforgotIhadtogoseeEritodayandI’malreadylatesoIreallyhavetogonowbye!” He dashed out the doorway, the confused noises of those who hadn’t understood what he said following him out.
He reached Eri and Togata in record time, and was greeted by the combined power of two smiles so bright they could rival the sun.
“Deku!”
“Midoriya!”
Izuku wondered if he could shield his eyes. It was too bright. He could feel the beam of their cheer.
It made him happy.
Eri babbled on about some drawing project she was working on, and Izuku was trying his best to listen. It wasn’t his fault Eri’s smile was so, well, there.
Just her smile being there was enough to have Izuku captivated, and judging from the look on Togata’s face, he felt the same.
Eventually, Eri went off to fetch some drawing she wanted to show him, that she had apparently misplaced. He tried to help, but she insisted that she would find it herself. She scampered off to another room, and Izuku was left alone with Togata.
“Hey Midoriya, what took you so long?” Togata asked. “You’re usually never late.”
“Oh, sorry. There was a class problem, and I lost track of time. You guys didn’t wait for me too long, did you?” he asked anxiously.
Togata waved off his concerns. “Nah, it was alright. Your class problem, did it have something to do with the soba stalls you had this morning?”
“You know about that?” Izuku asked, then immediately regretted it. Of course he knew, it was probably all over the school by now.
After Sero’s peanut incident, Izuku had learned to have a healthy appreciation for the school’s gossip mill. That incident spread way too fast for anyone’s comfort. Poor Sero had to be dragged out of his room by Kacchan after that, because no one else had the heart to do that to him.
Nobody from Class-1A really liked to think about the peanut incident, much less talk about it. So it was forever a mystery how word got out, with theories ranging from a simple slip of someone’s tongue to a spy quirk to a conspiracy theory involving secret love-children who were also somehow related to both Toga and Hagakure. And Aoyama somehow. (Izuku never claimed to understand Todoroki’s conspiracy theories)
Therefore, it was pretty obvious that Togata, who was pretty popular and sociable even after losing his quirk and taking a break from his UA studies, would have heard about the soba trade incident by now.
However, apparently his source of information wasn’t the rumour mill, or so he claimed.
“My friend from the business course, Okane, told me all about it. The first-years in the business course were ready to commit “ethical violations”” He made air-quotation marks around the words. “It was a pretty big deal to them, apparently. But, what I wanna know is, why did you do it? There’s gotta be some fun story behind it.”
“Well, uh, not really. It’s just that Todoroki ordered too much soba, so we were trying to get rid of it, and Kacchan and Uraraka made a bet, and, well…,” he trailed off, not knowing how to properly explain the chaos that was Class-1A. “But, anyway, now we’re stuck because nobody won the bet and we still have too much soba to know what to do with. So, um, yeah.” Izuku fidgeted, not knowing if he should say anything else.
Togata, meanwhile, seemed to be considering something. Then, seeming to come to a decision, he snapped his fingers. “Okay, so I have an idea. How about I ask Okane for a favour?”
“Your business course friend? He’d help us?”
“Yeah, sure he would! I can even get him to give you the proceeds from selling your soba. So, what d’you say?”
“Uh, yeah, that’d be great! Thank you so much!”
Togata just laughed and ruffled his hair. “Anything for my favourite kouhai!” he said. Izuku just stuttered and stammered in response, mollified at the thought of being called anyone’s favourite anything.
It was at that moment that Eri came back in the room, and the conversation was put to the side. Still, Izuku felt slightly lighter than before.
---------------
“WOOHOO!”
“Stop that! Such behaviour is unbecoming of a UA student!”
“BE CAREFUL, YOU’RE GONNA FALL ANY SECOND NOW!”
“HA! YOU UNDERESTIMATE ME AND MY POWER TO- Oh, I fell. Damn, that hurts.”
“Price of pride, man. Price of pride.”
There was a party in the 1A Dorms, and, as per the norm, it was utter chaos, but in the best way. Even Izuku couldn’t help being infected by the joy permeating the room.
Togata had asked his friend for a favour, and Okane had accepted, with a few of his own caveats. All the soba was gone, with 1A getting half of the proceeds. While there was some grumbling over only getting half the profit, Izuku thought that even the half that they got was more money than they could’ve earned on their own, a sentiment that was soon shared and realised by the rest of the class.
Since Izuku was the one on whose behalf Togata had intervened, Uraraka was declared the winner of the bet due to Izuku being on her team. Kacchan had, predictably, initially exploded upon hearing that, but soon begrudgingly (very begrudgingly) accepted defeat. Uraraka remained one of the few classmates he respected, even if just a bit, which Izuku still thought was a pretty amazing feat.
However, despite technically winning the money and being allowed to do whatever she wanted with it, she declared it a class effort and decided to let Ashido throw a party to celebrate it. She said she wanted her friends to be happy and, when questioned further (because the idea of Uraraka willingly giving up hard-earned money was absurd), said that she wanted to earn her own money herself, and that, besides, it’s not like there wouldn’t be any opportunities in the future, right?
That may not have been completely truthful, but if she didn’t want to talk about it and just wanted to focus on the high of getting the best of Katsuki Bakugou, who was Izuku to stop her?
“Hey, Deku!” she now exclaimed, walking over with a big grin and two glasses of punch, one of which she offered and gave to him. “Great party, huh?”
“Yeah, Ashido really knows her stuff. It’s, uh, a bit much actually.”
Uraraka laughed nervously. “Yeah, Mina does tend to go a bit overboard, doesn’t she? But you’re enjoying yourself, right?” She looked as if she was going to drag him out and do whatever she could to make him enjoy himself if he said no, so Izuku was quick to reassure her that, yes, he was enjoying himself, just the normal social anxiety kicking in, no big deal.
“That’s a relief,” she said. “I mean, it isn’t a relief that you’re anxious, obviously, but it’s a relief that you’re just anxious, if that makes sense? And I, um- “She slapped herself on both sides of her face, something Izuku had come to recognize was a grounding technique, although probably not a healthy one if the way his “must help” instinct went off on it was any indication. Though maybe Izuku wasn’t the best person to talk about good grounding techniques.
“And I wanted to thank you again,” she continued. “You know, for talking to senpai in the first place and stuff. I wouldn’t have won if it wasn’t for you.”
“It was no problem! Really!”
“Well, then would you like to come to the movies with me this Saturday?” she asked, before suddenly turning red. “AS A FRIEND! I’M INVITING TSU AND IIDA AND TODOROKI TOO! THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT A DATE!”
It kind of hurt how insistent she was, but Izuku knew she didn’t mean any harm by it. Uraraka was nothing if not nice. (And, besides, she’d never ask him on a date anyways.)
At that moment, Iida was seemingly having a mental breakdown, so he went to help, excusing himself from Uraraka just as Ashido was approaching her. Strangely, despite being completely normal when he left, when he turned to see her a moment after, she was floating on the ceiling, palms clasping her red cheeks as Ashido cackled from below.
Maybe there was something in the punch.
---------------
It was a good morning. Or, rather, good afternoon.
The sun was shining, there was a light breeze, and Izuku Midoriya was going to go meet All Might.
He was heading to All Might’s office, where his mentor would be waiting for him. Maybe he had more information about how One For All worked, but maybe they would just talk, All Might asking about his day and classes.
A year ago, he would have never expected his life to turn out like this. Him having casual conversation with All Might, his hero since childhood. The man who’d given him the opportunity to be where he is now, and one of the people he trusted most in the world.
Besides, Kacchan wasn’t accompanying them today, so that was always a plus. Not that he’d ever say that out loud.
So, Izuku was in a good mood as he entered All Might’s office. All Might greeted him with his customary booming “Good afternoon, Young Midoriya!” and Izuku responded in kind. All Might bustled about, arranging some things on his desk, and taking out the tea he sometimes made when his successor came to his office.
That’s when Izuku noticed the soba on his desk.
When asked about it, All Might just grinned and said that he got it from a student selling it, and Izuku grinned right back at him.
Maybe there would be more hijinks in the future. Actually, there definitely would be.
But, as heroes-in-training, sometimes these things were necessary.
After all that this class had gone through, all the villain attacks and fear, didn’t they deserve to let loose once in a while?
And, maybe one day, they would look back on The Soba Bet and it would be something to make them laugh amongst the stress and horrors of being pro heroes.
There would be more hijinks to come, indeed.
And Class 1A would deal with it with as much chaos as they did everything else.