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“C’mon, Ochaco, gimme all you got!” I called to my friend, racing around the perimeter of the arena, the out-of-bounds marked by our water bottles, training equipment, rocks, and whatever else we could find.
“You sure you want that, bestie?” Ochaco yelled back, grinning. She sent another batch of pebbles flying toward me, and I dropped and rolled out of the way of the hailstorm. One still clipped my shoulder, and it stung, but not too much. Whenever I trained with Ochaco, we never did too much damage, since it would be annoying to be seriously injured during something that was half play anyway, and the field we were using to throw each other around in was a bit of a walk from Recovery Girl’s.
“Yeah, absolutely!” I swiped down my menu and selected two boomerangs, then sent them flying in opposite directions. “Dodge that!”
Ochaco did indeed dodge them, and even grabbed one out of the air. She chucked it at me with such accuracy that I had to duck, causing me to miss the second one as it went soaring back to me.
Great, I gave her a weapon.
Maybe close range-fighting would be better, I thought, finally snatching both boomerangs and dumping them back into my inventory, and choosing a bat instead.
I dashed in unequal zigzags and dodged a stream of water headed for my face from Ochaco’s water bottle- freakin’ little water bender- and aimed the bat at her feet. She hopped and somehow jumped over me, but I recovered quickly enough to spin and knock her to the ground with my free hand.
Ochaco’s hand reached out to grab at my ankles, and I danced away, trying to keep her down without being grabbed so I could put her in my inventory and we could take a water break. But it was proving difficult, and she scrambled to her knees while I almost tripped over my own bat. Great job, me.
While I slipped the bat away and hurriedly scrolled for another advantage, Ochaco regained her footing and rubbed her hands together, but as I got out one of my trusty silver balls, I realized she wasn’t attacking. Why-
“Y/n, look.” Ochaco nodded to the right, apparently ‘distracted’ by something in the distance.
“No way I’m falling for that, girl. Oldest trick in the book.” I charged her, and she dived and rolled out of the way.
“No, seriously! It’s-“ her words cut off with a grunt as my silver ball caught her in the stomach. She fumbled with it and sent it zooming back towards my middle to return the favor, but I caught it. This wasn’t working. Let’s just fight without props, it’s good practice in case I ever had to fight someone with a quirk like Mr. Aizawa’s.
Ochaco got back to her feet, and we moved to close-quarter blows. Her sweat made it hard to get a good grip on her skin, and-
What was that? I caught a glimpse of something in my peripheral. Something red? I risked another glance as Ochaco blocked my punch, but with her free hand she grabbed my elbow and floated me skywards.
I thrashed midair, six feet off the ground. How to get out of this? I opened my menu and searched for something- a ladder, perhaps?- but came up with nothing.
I groaned and swiped my menu away, empty-handed. At least now I could look at whatever had distracted me. I craned my neck, but now that my angle had changed, whatever it was seemed to be in my blind spot.
“Alright, Ochaco. I surrender,” I said to the panting brunette on the ground beneath me.
“Do you, now?” She chuckled. “Alright, I win. And tonight I get to choose what show we watch after dinner!”
“Hmph. Fine!” I groaned, eager to get out of this “sunbathing cat lying in a wall” position. At least I wasn’t upside down again.
“Okay!” Ochaco grinned as she glanced behind me, maybe at whatever had distracted me during the match. “Hey, Todoroki-kun!”
“Wait, what!” I nearly broke my neck trying to see behind me. “That’s Shoto?! Ochaco, put me down!” My face flamed with embarrassment. The red…his hair! The white must’ve blended into the sky. And now he was here and seeing me in this ridiculous position.
“Hey, Y/n, Uraraka,” Shoto greeted, still sounding pretty far away. I stared down at Ochaco, trying to communicate that I would prefer to talk to Shoto on solid ground instead of having a bird’s eye-view of him.
“Okay, fine, I’ll let you down,” Ochaco said quietly, giggling a little. I huffed teasingly, relieved- until I started getting higher instead of lower.
“Ochaco? Ochaco!” I flailed as her smirk grew increasingly mischievous. “Ochaco, what are you-“
My words cut off with a combination of scream and yelp as my body moved very suddenly to the side, flying backward instead of up now. I rotated just enough to see Shoto, his eyes wide, dropping his bag to the grass and opening his arms wide. The ground grew closer, as did he.
He met my eyes somehow, the gray and blue depths reassuring despite the fact that they were wide and nervous. I could barely process what was going on, and I didn’t realize what was going to happen until it already had.
I crashed into Shoto’s arms, knocking him off his feet with a grunt from both of us, even as I felt his strong arms wrap around my waist. Shoto brought his hand up to my head and held it as we tumbled over one another, rolling on the grass.
We eventually came to a stop and lay there together on the field, and it took a moment before I trusted myself to open my eyes.
Shoto peeked one eye open. He had grass in his hair, and dirt all over his fall jacket- yeah, that was completely ruined. “Y/n. Are you alright?”
I nodded, and realized with the motion that Shoto’s hand was still on the back of my head, tangled among the strands of hair- and grass. So I also had grass in my hair, and I was sweaty, and my face was probably red as a tomato. What a fantastic image I probably presented. “Y-yeah. I’m alright. You?”
“Just a few bumps, I suppose.” Shoto pulled his arms back and sat up, rubbing at a spot on his shoulder. “Does…Ochaco regularly throw you at other classmates when you train together?”
“Uh, no,” I fumbled, sitting up and trying to brush grass and dirt off of my head and torso. “This is a first.”
“Hm.” Shoto’s lip quirked with a suppressed smile. Are you done, then? I can get you some water, if you want.” He got to his feet and offered a hand, which I took. “And, uh- nice tank top.”
I grinned at him as we started walking back to where Ochaco stood, chugging her own water. “Thanks! Found it at a thrift store.” I tugged at my top, black with green trim on the sleeves that surprisingly matched the new decorative grass.
He nodded and turned to Ochaco as we reached the bench with our bags. “Uraraka, why did you do that? She could have gotten hurt.” Shoto glanced my way again, as if checking to make sure that I really was fine.
Ochaco put her water bottle down. “Oh, we both know she’s durable. And besides, I knew you’d get her. Why are you out here?”
Shoto shoved his hands in his pockets. “Uh, I volunteered to go find the two of you. No one knew where you guys had gone to train, and Mr. Aizawa wanted to remind you guys that it’s your turn to make dinner and that you were back in an hour.”
Ochaco sighed. “Yeah, I forgot about that.”
“Getting thrown across a field, then I have to make dinner?” I sighed dramatically, finally quenching my thirst. “Can’t catch a break today.”
“I can take your turn cooking while you relax,” Shoto offered.
“Awe. Nah, I’ve got it. Thanks, though.”
Shoto shrugged. “So, are you guys gonna keep training? I can stay, if you need someone to keep track of the time, so you’re not late.”
Ochaco’s eyes went to me immediately, and I knew she was letting me make the decision. She was following the girl code of letting me make the decision to let the boy I liked watch us train; whether or not she violated a different rule by throwing me into him, I didn’t know. Maybe I’d confer with Mina about that later, even though Mina would probably say she deserved an award for that.
“Yeah, we should probably head back in half an hour. Can you let us know?” I took one final sip of water as Shoto nodded and pulled out his phone.
“Ready to get your butt kicked again, Y/n?” Ochaco teased, waving to Shoto as he sat down on the bench and we walked away to where we’d been earlier.
“Yeah, you wish!”
Ochaco didn’t hold back much during training, but with Shoto watching, I gave everything I had. And every time I let myself glance to where he sat on the bench, he was smiling.
“She THREW YOU INTO HIM?!” Mina squealed, jumping up and down as I told her about what happened during training.
“Yeah, and he caught her. Like some heroic prince!” Ochaco giggled.
Mina fairly screamed with excitement. “I can’t believe this! Girls, get over here, you need to hear this!”
I buried my face in my hands.