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“Hey! You pink-haired idiot, you’re supposed to be carrying my shopping bags. What the hell are you doing over here looking at women’s jeans!”
Mina Ashido is very confused by the random yelling coming from behind her. She knows she isn’t the most perceptive person in general, and especially not when she eyes some super cute jeans in her size, but she’s fairly confident that no one else is around at the moment for the voice behind her to be yelling at. The only thing that would really make sense is if the lady behind her is talking to her, but she highly doubts that. Sure, Mina knows she has pink hair and sure she isn’t the smartest person ever, her recent test scores are proof of that, but she knows that she didn’t agree to carry anyone’s shopping bags. Normally her hands are way too full of her own shopping bags to even think about carrying anyone else’s bags. Now that she’s thinking of it, tricking one of the guys in her class to come along to be her personal shopping bag mule is a pretty good idea, she’ll have to thank the chick yelling at her for it after she figures out whatever is going on. But back to the point, the lady behind her has to be talking to her, but clearly, she has mistaken Mina for someone else. However, that only makes Mina even more confused than she was to begin with. Mina knows she has a unique appearance. While pink hair isn’t the least common thing ever anymore, the light pink skin, black sclerae, yellow eyes, and horns sticking out of her head make her stand out compared to most other people she’s seen. Thinking back she can’t recall a single time she’s been mistaken for someone else, so the fact she suddenly is has taken her completely off guard. Mina turns around and finds herself faced with a girl that is just barely taller than her and seems to be about the same age. She’s got a bob of chestnut hair and pretty orange eyes. She’s rocking a pretty casual outfit that looks good but isn’t anything spectacular. Her yellow handbag looks like it's got something, maybe wood, that has nails sticking out of it that seems out of place but otherwise she’s a fan of the other girl’s look. Looking at her, Mina understands why the girl mistook her for someone else, she’s distracted, looking down at her phone with a somewhat irritated look on her face.
“Hey girl, I know I’ve got awesome pink hair, but I’m pretty sure you’re mistaking me for someone else.” Mina decides to speak up to clear the air with the girl, she clearly isn’t happy that her bag mule has run off and Mina has no intention of getting on her bad side.
“What,” the girl questions while finally looking up from her phone. “Oh, yea you definitely aren’t my pink-haired idiot. He wouldn’t know a good pair of jeans from a denim covered pile of trash,” she quips with a smirk on her face. “I’m Nobara Kugisaki, the most badass and fashionable woman you’ll ever meet,” she introduces.
“Heyo! I’m Mina Ashido and I bet I’m the most interesting and fashionable woman you’ll ever meet too,” Mina replies enthusiastically. Nobara definitely seems like the kind of girl she’d befriend. They talk a little more about the store’s stuff, what they’ve recently bought, and stuff they're on the lookout for. Mina learns that Nobara goes to a private high school and is also a first year. She’s a little confused when she hears Nobara has never heard of U.A. after telling her she’s enrolled there since it feels like everyone she’s ever spoken to has heard of that place, but otherwise they have a nice lighthearted conversation and trade numbers with plans to go shopping together sometime before separating.
Mina leaves the store very happy with the events of the day. She’s always down to make new friends and she did just that! On top of that Nobara seems just as well versed in fashion as she is and appears to enjoy shopping just as much too! Mina loves the friends she’s made at U.A. but other than Hagakure none of them know their way around a mall at all. Having another friend that can handle it and even keep up with her when she gets serious when out shopping is going to be amazing!
Mina is seriously thanking her past self for befriending Nobara. The two just spent the whole day together and it was some of the most fun she’s ever had! She probably should have spent the day studying for her upcoming exams, but it's Saturday, the weekend, and her notes will be there later to go over. Most of her other friends didn’t seem to have the same mindset since they all turned down her offer to hang out in favor of studying, luckily Nobara is a bird of a feather and shares the much cooler mindset of going out and having fun while they’re still young! So, she got to spend her Saturday hanging out with her newest friend only a week after they met.
The very first thing they did after meeting up was going to get something to eat. Neither of them had eaten lunch yet and they both knew the risks of doing serious shopping on an empty stomach. She got to learn a little more about Nobara as they were eating and is glad to know that her initial hunch was right on the money. Her and her ginger haired friend get along like a house on fire! They both love to have fun and joke around while out and Mina can’t recall the last time she laughed so much when hanging out with someone.
She also learned a little more about her friend, like how she’s from the countryside and hasn’t really explored much of any of the bigger cities since she only moved out at the start of the latest school year. It made the shopping trip all the more fun since she got to introduce her new friend to all her favorite stores. Unfortunately, the famous “pink-haired idiot” was busy so they had to carry all their own bags and they both had tons of bags after the few hours they spent going store to store. Luckily, they’re both pretty strong so it was nothing more than an annoyance to carry them around the whole time. She also learned that Nobara was very competitive when they stopped by her favorite arcade to visit the dance game that she was the absolute queen of. Her friend had some good moves and she was right when she assumed her friend’s athletic build meant she was well conditioned and agile, but none of that mattered since Mina wasn’t the Alien Queen of dance games for no reason. Nobara repeatedly challenging her to another round after every time she lost was also fun, the girl is as stubborn as an ox and she bets if they didn’t eventually get kicked off the machine because of the long line of kids that wanted to play that gathered around them they would have been there until their bodies gave out on them. The early dinner they treated themselves to after the long hours of shopping and dancing was just the cherry on top of the day.
Despite how amazing things were all day Mina couldn’t help but notice two odd things about her new friend. First, whenever she tried to pay for anything Nobara would stop her and pull out a debit card that she claimed belonged to “the white haired, blind idiot” that was very insistent on funding any and all of Nobara and her friend’s day out. While not the weirdest thing ever, she couldn’t help but be slightly surprised at how easily her friend swiped the card of her maybe grandpa regardless of how much the total was. Not the weirdest or worst quirk for her new friend to have, it actually somewhat reminded her of Yaomomo, but Nobara didn’t really give off the same vibe the obviously rich girl did.
Secondly, Nobara seemed weirdly aware of the space around her all the time. Her head was constantly on a swivel like she was expecting a villain to pop out around every corner. Crime had gone down so much thanks to All Might and all the other hero agencies in every big city that nearly no one was that vigilant unless they were heroes or villains themselves. Maybe things were different out in the country, Mina could acknowledge she wasn’t the most knowledgeable of stuff like that, but it still came off as somewhat odd. Regardless of her friend’s odd quirks, which funnily enough never came up another which was another slightly weird thing, Mina had so much fun that she immediately agreed to meet up with Nobara again when she suggested it!
Mina knows she hasn’t known Nobara for long, but it still sometimes surprises her just how little the other girl knows of certain things. She certainly wasn’t expecting her friend to have zero knowledge of anything hero related, from what she knew even people in the deepest parts of the countryside had heard of All Might, but Nobara seemed like she was struggling to believe that the guy even existed the more she talked about him. Her friend was quick to believe that he wasn’t the best teacher though oddly enough, she even seemed pretty sympathetic for her and her classmates that were being taught by him.
Mina would love to get to the bottom of her friend's lack of knowledge about everything heroes one day, but she couldn’t deny how nice it was at the current moment. The stress of having her class attacked by the League of Villains again, one of her classmates being kidnapped, and the official rescue operation by the pros and unofficial rescue operation by her classmates was getting to her. Nearly every conversation she had with her classmates since the training camp attack was exhausting because of the tense atmosphere caused by the class’s argument surrounding their unofficial rescue operation and the general weariness or fear of being attacked again. It was all only made even worse after seeing what was likely All Might’s final fight against that masked villain.
Nobara was completely in the dark about all of that, and it was so refreshing being able to talk to someone without either walking on eggshells or trying to ignore the giant elephant in the room after the past few days. She got to feel like a normal teenage girl that was attending a normal high school for the first time in a while as she and her completely clueless friend talked on the phone about all the juicy romantic gossip, they bore witness to at their respective schools.
Mina knows now is not the time to mention it to anyone in her class considering everything that had just happened, but she couldn't wait another day to talk about the very obvious crush that her friend Ochako had on one of the villains that had attacked their class. She got to talk about the way she noticed Ochako’s blush whenever she talked about the similar aged girl that had tried to stab her and drink her blood, how Ochako stuttered whenever she specifically mentioned the possibility of the villain girl drinking her blood, and the way she caught Ochako staring at a picture of the blond girl on the news channels while they were all visiting the hospital with Nobara over the phone, and her friend listened to everything without once judging her for being insensitive or outright dismissing her thoughts either. Her friend also didn’t disappoint in bringing up her own gossip and Mina was treated to hearing all about how her aloof and stoic classmate Megumi was totally crushing on the famous “pink haired idiot” Yuji, constantly pretending to be annoyed by the other boy’s playful and outgoing personality despite consistently indulging in whatever the pink haired boy asked of him. She was also very interested in the story Nobara told her about her homeroom teacher Gojo who was definitely still in love with his old high school classmate turned terrorist. Before long, it was deep into the night and Nobara was letting her know she had to go to sleep since she had an early morning. Mina went to bed with a smile on her face that night for the first time in a while, getting to be normal silly teenage girls with her friend was exactly what she needed.
The dorms that U.A. had setup for them was a net positive. Getting to live with her classmates turned friends was fun! The dorm room competition on the first day had proved very quickly that they would be able to get up all kinds of fun shenanigans throughout the rest of the semester! She learned plenty of interesting things about her classmates as well and got a front row seat to so much juicy gossip.
The way Yaomomo always got a little too close to Jiro when she helped the girl with homework, Todoroki’s incredibly blunt and straightforward attempts to flirt with Sero that never seemed to work, Aoyama’s weird but successful ploys to handfeed Midoriya cheese, and most importantly Ochako’s lingering gaze on the TV whenever a picture of one Himiko Toga was displayed.
Despite all the good things the new living arrangements brought Mina knew it was only a matter of time before a certain grape haired pervert did something. It took longer than she was expecting but the little degenerate eventually decided living in the small building with six girls simply wasn’t enough for him and tried to enter the girl’s bathroom one night while Tsu was trying to bathe. Things weren’t too bad since he was caught before he could actually get a peak at anyone, but it also had the negative consequence of meaning a harsher punishment couldn’t be dealt to him. Mina was pretty pissed that the boy was constantly getting away with harassing her and her female classmates and made sure to throw every fitting insult she could think of at him while on the phone with Nobara one night.
She was a little more upset than normal, so she might have been harsher in her rant to her friend than she intended because by the end of it Nobara had simply offered to “handle it” in regard to Mineta facing an appropriate punishment for his actions. Mina doesn’t know what she was expecting her friend to actually do to the boy, but she figured it couldn’t be that bad, so she didn’t see any harm in agreeing and when Nobara claimed she’d return him “tortured but alive” Mina just laughed and thanked her.
Honestly, she had no idea her friend was doing anything more than just indulging her while she was ranting, so when Mineta didn’t show up to class the next day she ignored it. When a week had passed and he hadn’t been seen she agreed when her teachers and peers suspected the league of villains to be behind the stunt. When a month had come and gone and Mineta was suddenly found back on campus looking no worse for wear physically despite his absence Mina was willing to count it as a small miracle. When the boy started muttering about how he had seen monsters beyond human comprehension, “everything the universe has to offer” and how horrifyingly beautiful it was Mina still didn’t think much of it. However, when asked what had happened to him Mineta simply said he had walked into a field of wild roses that had a hammer and nails scattered around it.
Despite what her test scores might say Mina knows she isn’t dumb. She certainly isn’t the best student academically and she can acknowledge she’s not the most strategic fighter either, but she can put two and two together to get four. She is very aware of what “Nobara Kugisaki” means and knows first-hand how her friend never goes anywhere without her trusty hammer. Mina still has no idea what Nobara’s quirk is since it never comes up in conversation so she can’t be certain as to what actually happened. However, she does know that her friend promised to return Mineta tortured and alive and he came back after a month tortured and alive. Mina knows she should probably tell her teachers about what she knows since she’s training to be a hero and her friend definitely isn’t on the right side of the law, provided she really is behind her classmate’s disappearance. On top of that it may be slightly kinda her fault too. However, Mina also knows that Mineta hasn’t leered at or made any sexual comments to her or any of her female classmates since he’s gotten back, so maybe she can keep her friend’s secret this time.
Mina was a love guru and she knew it. There wasn’t a single person that she knew that was better at spotting developing crushes and budding romances than her. Because of her wealth of knowledge in regard to love and all the experience she has in recognizing it Mina is very aware of the crush she has developed on Nobara Kugisaki.
Mina always thought the other girl was pretty, but lately she can’t stop thinking about how the other girl is pretty, and she knows that being disappointed every time she checks a text notification and sees it isn’t Nobara isn’t something that happens platonically. Mina has also come to terms with the fact that she thinks Nobara torturing one of her classmates for her was romantic regardless of how ridiculous it sounds. Mina knows she could keep going on and on about all the things she likes about Nobara, so she’s not afraid to admit that she’s got it bad for the other girl.
However, despite being able to identify the crush she has on her friend, she isn’t sure how to go about pursuing someone that is obviously some kind of villain. While Mina would love to ignore the very real possibility that the girl she’s crushing on breaks the law somewhat frequently and call the Mineta thing a one-off that won’t happen again she knows she can’t. They’ve hung out too many times for her to not notice the other odd quirks about the girl that are easily explained by her being a villain.
In hindsight she probably should've pried a little more when Nobara showed up to one of their hangouts with a very realistic looking amputated arm filled with nails that one time.
Anyways, courting a probable villain as a hero in training is going to be difficult. Thankfully she’s not alone, Mina knows another hero in training that’s planning to court a villain, and they can help each other out! It's a weekend where most of their classmates are gone from the dorms when she finally approaches Ochako for a private conversation. She suggests her own room for the meeting since Ochako’s room isn’t much in the way of decorations. Getting the girl to her room is easy, actually getting the girl to admit her crush on Toga is like pulling teeth. She isn’t sure if Ochako is just in the most denial she’s ever seen someone be in regarding a crush or if Ochako is denying it because she thinks Mina is going to turn on her or something but even mentioning her own villainous crush hardly got the gravity girl to open up. It was definitely worth it though, after Ochako had finally outright confirmed her feelings for the blond Mina could finally ask her all the pressing questions she’s been saving. Ochako opened up little by little as they continued to talk, and before long they were just two teenage girls gushing over how cute they thought their respective crushes are for hours. They didn’t really talk much about the whole issue of how either of them is going to actually go about asking out or dating their crushes, but her and Ochako had fun anyways and grew closer as friends by the end of the day.
Mina wasn’t really cherry and jolly despite it being Christmas. It was the first Christmas in the dorms and her whole class was throwing a party, but she couldn’t help that her mind wasn’t really into it. She tried her best to be as upbeat and happy as she normally is just like she’s been doing for the past two months, but Mina knows she hasn’t been doing a great job of it. She just hasn’t been the same since Nobara disappeared after Halloween.
Things had been going so great between the two of them for the couple of months since Mina had fully realized and accepted her crush on the other girl and the end of October. They had been hanging out in person more and during their time together Mina made sure to turn up the charm and be extra flirty with the other girl. Obviously, she can’t be totally sure, but Nobara seemed to respond well to it and even flirted back as far as she could tell.
There was more casual touches of their hands when they were walking side by side, more casual instances of them feeding each other whatever dessert they ordered when they went out together, more blushing when they modeled outfits for each other, and Mina might've even seen Nobara looking up the most romantic places to visit in Musutafu the last time they were out together. Things just seemed to be going perfect until she got that dreaded text message on Halloween.
Mina knows that Nobara isn’t exactly a law-abiding citizen and knows that Nobara caught on at some point that she knew and stopped being as secretive about things. Nobara was by no means forthcoming about whatever the exact details of the crimes she was committing were, but notices that she’d likely be too out of it from a late night fight to hang out or text much the next day had been becoming more frequent as they started spending more time together both in person and on the phone. October 31st, she got another one of those text messages from Nobara about how she’d be out late that night and might be too tired or injured to talk the next day but assured her that she’d text as soon as she could.
Mina always hated those texts and for more than one reason. The teenage girl with a crush part of her hated that she knew the girl she liked had a chance of being hurt, arrested, both hurt and arrested, or even killed. Every time she saw one of those texts Mina had to restrain herself from just telling the other girl how she felt on the off chance it’d be the last chance she got. She never did, not only because confessing over text was not how she wanted her first relationship to start but also because she knew it would likely only distract her crush during whatever she was doing.
The hero in training part of her hated those texts because she knew that someone was breaking the law and that technically she should let someone know even if she had next to no real information on what was happening because that was her job and likely the right thing to do.
The teenage girl hero in training that had a crush part of her hated those texts because from what little she knew Nobara was likely groomed into the life of crime she was leading and Mina wanted nothing more than to save her if she could. Nobara didn’t reveal many details about it, but from what she could piece together Mina knew that Nobara was from the countryside and wanted nothing more than to be able to move to the big city despite not being able to afford it when a powerful and rich man named Gojo stopped by her town. He saw her quirk and offered to give her a place as a student at his “private high school” in Tokyo along with an obscene amount of money if she was willing to do the occasional job while learning there.
Mina hated how there was nothing more she could really do without knowing more, and how even if she knew more that she likely would only make things worse if she tried too hard to help her friend at the current moment. Nobara’s teacher Gojo seemed to be fine with their relationship as it is now, but Mina knew that if she stuck her nose too far into her crush’s business, she might not ever get to see her again, and she couldn’t let that happen. All she could do at the moment was be there for Nobara as best she could.
As much as she would like one, Mina wasn’t holding her breath for a Christmas miracle in regard to the Nobara situation. She refuses to think that Nobara died, it just isn’t possible in her mind. One of the very first things Nobara had said when they met was that she was the most badass woman she’d ever meet, so Mina knows it's only a matter of time before Nobara pops back up with maybe a badass scar or two and one amazing story about what happened that she’ll probably have to omit most of the details from to make sure it isn’t incriminating.
Despite the absolute faith she has in Nobara texting her again at some point, she really wasn’t expecting a Christmas miracle so she’s very surprised when she gets a text from Nobara telling her she left her present on the balcony of her room. Mina’s not really sure what she was expecting to feel when she did finally get another text from Nobara, but she imagines it's not what she’s feeling now. It almost feels too good to be true, a part of her doesn’t really believe what she’s seeing, so she feels oddly calm. She responds to the text casually as if nothing is out of the ordinary, as if this isn’t the first time she’s heard from the girl she might be a little in love with for the first time in two months.
Leaving the party doesn’t take long, most of her classmates know she’s been down for a while, so they let her leave without much of a fuss. Ochako gives her a meaningful look, since she’s the only person that knows the full truth of the situation, but doesn’t say anything when she gets a small smile back.
When Mina makes it to her balcony after the short walk she sees her. Nobara is standing there with a small, wrapped box in her hands. Her hair looks longer than it was the last time she saw her, she looks like she lost some weight too, and the most obvious change is the black eyepatch covering her right eye. She looks a little awkward, like she’s not exactly sure what she should be doing and like she’s used to only having one functional eye yet.
The first thought Mina has upon seeing her crush again after two months is hot.
The second thought is that she’s standing on her balcony despite clearly not being let in by anyone officially, which means there’s some major oversight in U.A.’s security system that she probably needs to tell Mr. Aizawa about to make sure the league of villains can’t also get in the dorms whenever they want.
Mina’s third thought is about how best to ask Nobara where the hell she’s been, why she was gone for two months, what happened to her eye, and plenty of other questions that are very relevant right now, that she knows she won’t get a straight answer to.
Instead of acting or voicing any of her thoughts Mina decides to speak up with a simple, “Hey.” She says it quietly, like she’s afraid of speaking too loudly and scaring the girl off, which is silly since Nobara would never be scared off by something so trivial.
“Hey,” Nobara responds just as quietly. It's weird, hearing her very loud and outspoken crush speak that softly. “I brought you this super amazing gift, and you can have whatever's in this box too I guess.” She goes to hand the gift over with a small smirk on her face, and while Mina doesn’t really care about the box all that much right now it is the perfect excuse to step a little closer to the other girl.
So, she steps into Nobara’s personal space before responding, “Thanks! I got you something too, but then you went and had to be naughty for two months, so I’m not so sure if you deserve it anymore.” It’s easier than she expected to act like nothing has happened. Maybe it's because neither of them wants anything to have happened and ignoring it is easier than the alternative. Mina knows she won’t be getting answers to any of her questions, at least not answers that will feel satisfactory, and trying to pry about the villain that has groomed Nobara into this life of crime that’s dangerous enough for her to have lost an eye to it at sixteen would ruin the festive mood. So playful flirting while ignoring everything else it is.
“But maybe if you ask really nicely, I’ll still let you have it.” She says it with as much confidence as she can muster, but she’s pretty nervous about what she’s about to do. Mina knows she's a lot closer to Nobara than she needs to be right now and if she actually had a traditional gift to give it would be pretty awkward to do with how close they are.
“I promise to be the nicest girl for the rest of the year, so can I have my gift pretty please my dear Alien Queen?”
Mina blushes a bit at being called her rejected hero name in this context and she can’t keep the smile off her face as she responds with, “Well since you asked so nicely, I guess I have to. One kiss from your new super awesome girlfriend coming up!”
She barely has to lean in to be close enough to kiss Nobara, she hesitates slightly, giving the other girl enough time to pull away if she wants, but she doesn’t, so Mina presses their lips together for the first time.
It’s immediately apparent that Mina has no idea what she’s doing in the kissing department. She’s not really sure what to do with her hands or what to do past the initial pressing of their lips together, so she kind of just stands there awkwardly. Luckily or unluckily it’s also immediately apparent that Nobara is just as inexperienced with the whole kissing thing. Her hands are also resting in an awkward place and her attempt to kiss back only results in the two girls clinking teeth. After what feels like an embarrassingly long amount of time that’s only actually a few seconds, they finally manage to somewhat properly kiss each other. Both girls pull back, blushing more than either of them ever has before, smiles plastered on both of their faces.
“So? How was it?” Mina asks giggling slightly.
“Best gift ever,” is Nobara’s immediate response with a goofy grin on her face.
“I don’t know, I think we could do slightly better don’t you think?” Mina opens the door back into her room while gesturing inside. She knows it's a bad idea, that she’s risking getting caught and getting into who knows how much trouble all because she wants to keep kissing her girlfriend. But if she could get in without getting caught, she can probably get out without getting caught after a few more kisses, and well it’s Christmas. Surely nothing too bad will happen.
Probably.