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Maina sighed as she watched the two figures walk away, before turning back to the workshop.
Typical of Hatsume-san to make such a mess of things… She sighed, beginning to sweep away the bits and pieces of what remained of her classmate's... baby.
“Sorry, Furasu-san, I gotta get this roustabout back to the dorms to make sure she doesn’t do any more damage! You think you can lock the workshop up for me?”
Power Loader-sensei was a good teacher in all parts that mattered, Maina often concluded. He was well studied, pretty lax, and generally attentive… Well, mostly.
It was no secret to Maina (or anyone else in the Support Course, let alone 1-H…) that Hatsume was the favorite student among the senior support tech. No matter how many times he shouted at her, no matter how many other classes she blatantly tried to skip and would flunk, he still held her in high regard.
He'd never say she was his favorite, but the support classes had overheard enough of Power Loader-sensei and Ectoplasm-sensei's conversations to know who the favorite was, whether implied or directly stated.
Of course he picks a slob as his favorite… Maina grumbled, sweeping away some loose bolts with her arms into a box. Of all the things she's such a ‘prodigal talent’ in, she can't even clean up after herself when she's done making a mess of our support studio…
“Yo-!”
“WAAH-!”
Maina felt her balance offset, losing grip on the box held under her right arm. In her desperate attempt to catch herself on the table, the box fell to the floor, hundreds of little pieces and parts flying across the workshop's floor.
“Shit, you good!?” The new, unfamiliar voice shouted harshly, but not in an attempt to scorn. He hastily rushed to Maina's side, as the girl finally got a good look at who rushed in. “Sorry about that, didn't mean to scare ya!"
There was no doubt in Maina's mind he was a hero student (Why would anyone wear such a… bulky suit otherwise?), and he vaguely reminded her of one of the kids in the other support classes. His hair was spiked up, and he wore a blue and white striped bandana around his forehead.
Wow, he's… whoa, Furasu thought, her face slightly heating up from the boy's closeness. He is really cute, damn…
“Are… Are you good?” The boy asked again, his face now taking on less of a concerned look into more of a perplexed one. “You're like… All red an’ shit, you hot or somethin’?”
Instantly, Maina flew back ten feet, trying her best to babble out any attempt of an apology, bowing vigorously.
“IAMSOSORRYIDIDN'TMEANTOSTAREIAMNOTGOODWITHBEINGCLOSE-”
“Whoa, whoa, you're good-!”
“-IAMUSUALLYSOWRAPPEDUPINMYDESIGNWORKTHATIDIDN'TEVENNOTICEYOUWERETHERE-!”
“Whoa, design work!? That's so sick!”
Maina stopped in her tracks, seeing this very cute boy's face light up like a Christmas tree, his smile almost blinding her. Through it all, she managed to find her voice.
“Y-Yeah…” She admitted, rather sheepishly. “I'm one of the people majoring in design technology for hero costumes and stuff… I know it's not exactly the most interesting part of support development, but… It's… super vital that you all have the best costumes to suit your needs…!?”
WHY DID I SOUND CONFUSED ABOUT IT!? She internally wailed, the visual of an imaginary anvil crashing down onto her head, spraying her brain out of her ears into a comically pink goop, as this guy stood over her lifeless corpse, cackling like a maniac. WHY ARE YOU SUCH A LOSER? AOI-CHAN TOLD YOU HOW TO CHILL AND YOU CAN'T EVEN FOLLOW HER ADVICE!
“Man, it's a good thing I caught'cha then!” The boy continued, seemingly oblivious to Maina's embarrassment. “Sorry I didn't introduce myself, the name's Awase Yousetsu! I didn't wanna swing by fuckin’ late, but my boys and I had to deal with all the crazy hero license training before Kan-sensei let us come here…”
“Us?” Maina asked, her embarrassment being replaced with a new sense of confusion. “But you're the only one here?”
Yousetsu turned his head to look behind himself, and found himself staring at the courtyard through the halls large windows.
“Huh, that's weird, they were just behind me, wonder where they ended up.”
“Aaand that's just one of my many talents! What do you think, you like?”
Kousei had to stop himself from laughing at Rin's exasperated sigh, instead focusing his attention on the girl who Kaibara had been flirting with, watching her facial expression not change, her head cooking ever so slightly to the right.
“I'm suuuuper sorry man, but like… do I know you?” She asked non-chalantly, the same warm and unbothered smile on her face as of previous. Kousei had to stifle back another laugh as Kaibara spluttered, and Rin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Midori, Iida, you don't know this guy, right?”
“I don't think so?” The crazy finger breaking guy from the Sports Festival, Midoriya, responded, tilting his head in unison with the admittedly really cute girl. “I know we haven't had many opportunities to interact with Class B before, but I've tried to make a mental note of most of them I've met, at least in passing…”
“I cannot recall anyone fitting his description, Harimura-kun!” The president of 1-A, who Kendou and Shouda had mentioned was named Iida replied swiftly, his arm robotically swinging forward. “Kendou-kun and Shouda-kun hadn't informed me of someone so abrasive!”
“ABRASIVE-!?”
“And plain,” Harimura added coolly.
“WHA-!? ABRASIVE!? PLAIN!? I'LL SHOW YOU ABRASIVE AND PLAIN, YOU FOUR-EYED FUCKHEAD-!”
“Kaibara, stop it!” Rin pleaded, holding his irate friend back, his arms whirring in fury. “I'm so sorry for him, he doesn't know when is and isn't the right time to flirt with someone!”
“Wait, you were fliiiirting? Duuuude, you gotta work on your game, that was totally lame…” Harimura said, looking Kaibara up and down, before rolling her eyes. “I don't really go for super plain guys anyways, kinda cramps my style…”
As Kaibara continued to shout, Rin, Iida, and Midoriya tried to diffuse the situation. Kousei watched on, amused, and looked to Awase.
“Figures that Kaibara would find any reason to flirt with a girl he's only know for…”
Kousei trailed off, realizing Awase wasn't at his side, or anywhere nearby.
“Uh, hey guys-?”
“OH, JUST CUZ YOU'RE ALL PART OF THE AMAAAAZING CLASS A, YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!?”
“I-I NEVER SAID I WAS-!?”
“I never said that, but go off-”
“WE HAVE MADE NO SUCH CLAIMS, KAIBARA-KUN! I ASK THAT YOU REFRAIN FROM MAKING SUCH ACCUSATIONS!”
Huh. Wonder where Awase is, he's missing all the action… Kousei thought, bemused, before sighing. I wish it was me that disappeared into thin air instead of him, though…
“Ah, well, they're knuckleheads, they'll catch up later!” Yousetsu shrugged. “Anyways, what's your name? I know I should'a asked earlier, I'm not good with the whole ‘being polite’ thing, Kendou's telling me that all the time…”
“O-Oh, it's no trouble!” Maina replied quickly, sweeping up some of the loose parts on the floor with her quirk. “My name is Furasu Maina, it's s-super nice to meet you, Awase-san!”
“Likewise! But drop the honorifics with me, ‘kay?” Yousetsu said, a confident smile on his face that Maina swore would kill her in one blow. “They never sat right with me, I'm not anything special or nothin’ like that.”
“O-Oh, sure, Awase-sa-!”
Maina quickly covered her mouth, before dropping more of the bolts on the floor.
“Shit…!”
“Hold up, let me help you,” Yousetsu said, getting down on his knees, wincing slightly as his chestplate dug into his chest ever so slightly. “It's my fault you got all this stuff on the floor anyway, so I should help you out!”
“I-It's fine, you don't have to!” Maina exclaimed, noting Yousetsu's wince as he got on his knees, letting her eyes linger on the boy's… rather defined frame, averting her eyes away as she spoke. “T-That chestplate looks… super uncomfortable, Awase-san.”
“Yeah, kinda…” Yousetsu admitted, as he scooped up some of the bits of metal into the box Maina had dropped between them. “That's actually sorta why I wanted to come here tonight, I was hoping I could talk to Power Loader about a potential redesign, but seeing as you're majoring in costume design, you could probably be more helpful!”
On one hand, Maina would've wanted nothing more than to deny someone's request, close up the shop, set up the ‘Anti-Hatsume’ measures, and go scream into her pillow about her long list of personal self-grievances, but…
His smile… It's so genuine! He's so cute! I can't say no!
“O-Of course!” Maina exclaimed, doing her best to sound bright and cheerful, while also desperately trying not to show how flustered she was. “I can help you go over some new schematics right away!”
Without much hesitation, the previously reserved girl flung everything on the workshop table off of it in an instant. She pulled out a blueprint sheet, and instantly began to scribble on it. Yousetsu felt his eyes bulge in surprise.
Whoa, she's a bit… Intense! He thought, though he didn't dare vocalize it.
“W-What exactly are you looking to upgrade? You were… talking about that whole chestplate d-discomfort, yeah?”
“Well, yeah, pretty much,” Yousetsu explained, looking down at the chest-piece in question, giving it a light rapping with his fist. “I mean, it's pretty cool lookin’, don't get me wrong, but man, I wish I could've known how much it would hurt. There was one time that Shishida knocked me on my ass, and this thing nearly crushed my ribs!”
“R-Really!?” Maina fretted, turning away from her schematic in horror.
“Well, that's what Recovery Girl said could've happened! And Kendou… And Shouda… And Monoma… But hey, what do they know?” Yousetsu snorted.
“Well, I'm sure Recovery Girl knows a bit… more than us on most what would and wouldn't… Uh… Crush our ribcages…?” Maina finished weakly, turning back to her work once more.
“I guess you've got a point there,” he conceded, “but I don't agree with her points on dieting! Seriously, if Tokage can eat whatever she wants, why can't we?”
“Tokage… that's the one with the regeneration quirk, right?” Maina asked. “She and the mushroom girl, Komo… Something, they came through here yesterday, asking about some… sleeves, I think?”
“Oh, Komori's finally gettin’ some fuckin’ sleeves!” Yousetsu sighed, almost in relief. “Thank All Might, I don't know if I'd be able to hear her whine about being cold all winter, or hearing Kuroiro's heart beating in his throat.”
“Her costume design isn't super sensible,” Maina commented absentmindedly, getting more enthralled with her sketches. “At least your's has effective padding and protection.”
“Well, I do like the bulky feel! Makes me feel more buff than I actually am, I'm… super gangly under here,” Yousetsu admitted, chuckling sadly as he thought about the rest of his classmates. “Honestly, I sometimes feel like I kinda need my costume to… stand beside them, yanno? They're all so strong and flashy, and I'm just here with my quirk that… probably works better as a party trick than one for a hero, heh.”
Maina faltered slightly as she heard that. This seemingly confident boy (with a severe case of cutie-patootie “I wanna squeeze your cheeks” syndrome…) had such… honest faults.
Just like you.
She looked back at him, her gaze empathetic, her frown filled with mournful understanding.
“I… Totally get that feeling,” she responded, finding her gaze shift to look at the floor. “Majima-sensei always says that I'm really gifted, and everyone tells me that I'm… one of the best in class, but I'll… I always feel like I'll never measure up to Hatsume-san.”
“Hatsume? The freaky gadget girl from the Sports Festival?” Yousetsu asked. “She seemed… kind of nuts, I thought I saw her on my way down here, but couldn't tell from all the soot.”
“Yeah, that's her,” Maina chuckled dryly. “Our number one student, according to Majima-sensei.”
“Wait, he says that!?” Yousetsu asked incredulously. “Kan-sensei never said who our best is… He always says we're equal, but I'm pretty sure Kendou and Honenuki are his favorites.”
“Well, he never outright says it, but… you can tell…” Maina sighed, the hurt in her voice not well-hidden. “What's worse is that Hatsume-san is too wrapped up in creating some new explosive monstrosity to really care. She's an absolute nightmare who ends up taking all of the spotlight from us!”
Maina, suddenly realizing what she said, quickly covered her mouth in embarrassment.
“O-Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-!”
“Nah, nah, you're good!” Yousetsu laughed. “Trust me, justifiable jealousy is better than whatever garbage Monoma's spitting out about 1-A on any given day.”
Maina said nothing in response, quickly turning back around to continue working on her update to Yousetsu's hero costume. Yousetsu, for his part, awkwardly stood there for a moment, before eyeing a broom in the corner of the room.
“So… Uh, maybe I should sweep up these parts I made you drop, huh?” He asked sheepishly. The lack of response from Maina other than a subdued ‘hm…’ told the boy all he needed to do.
The two teens were left in an awkward silence, the only sounds being the light clatter of nuts and bolts hitting the box's edge, and Maina's pencil strokes hitting the paper. That was how it remained for quite some time.
That was, until Yousetsu started whistling.
It wasn't a particularly recognizable tune, and it wasn't something that Maina had even properly registered until that moment, but the boy just continued to whistle to a random tune.
Maina found it hard not to hum along.
It wasn't perfect, of course, not at first. Her notes were all over the place, and didn't quite match Yousetsu's at all.
At least, not until he started to whistle to the tune of her humming.
It was a light-hearted tune, one that neither could really further elaborate on. By design, it was simply something that could be easily repeated. Lighthearted, fun, something just for the two of them to know and share.
Maina felt her creative juices flow evermore, the scribbles on the page becoming quicker, but somehow less frantic. They were almost rhythmic, to the tone of their own beat.
Yousetsu, meanwhile, began sweeping to the beat of whistling, even incorporating breaks in the whistling and humming to give a few strokes of the broom a try.
“I'm finished!”
The exclamation was simultaneous between both pencil holder and broom wielder, both catching the other a bit off-guard.
“Ah, jeez, look at us, bein’ all in sync ‘n shit!” Yousetsu laughed. “You've got a good voice! F-For humming, I mean!”
Did he just get flustered!? Oh, he's… really cute when he's flustered… “T-Thanks, you're not so bad yourself! Your whistling is really catchy!”
Maina then looked around at the support studio, and gaped.
“This… THIS IS CLEANER THAN IT'S EVER BEEN!” She exclaimed, elated beyond words. “How did you even get it to be this clean!?”
“Ah, it's just a knack!” Yousetsu humble-bragged. “You're looking at the three time champ of the ‘Room Cleaning Olympics’!”
“Room Cleaning Olympics?” Maina repeated, her eyebrow raised, almost teasingly, missing the slight blush on Yousetsu's face at such an action. “Is that a real thing?”
“A-Ah, well, it's… something my folks did… to make me and my brother clean our rooms…” Yousetsu admitted. Maina felt her heart squeeze ever so tightly at such a soft (and incredibly silly…) confession. “Contrary to popular belief, I was not, and still am not, the most neat and tidy guy in the world.”
“And here I thought it was just a knack…?” Maina snickered, Yousetsu once again finding himself in all sorts of a flustered state.
Why is her laugh so cute!? Why am I getting flustered!? What is HAPPENING!?
“Oh, I should probably show you the new schematics I worked on for you!” Maina suddenly realized, jumping to her blueprints, and proudly holding them up to Yousetsu. “Y-You see, you were complaining a lot about the design of your chestplate, but honestly, that is about the only thing I could find wrong with the design itself!”
“Really?”
“Kinda! I have no idea what your quirk is, but I do know that you run the risk of getting severely injured by having that giant hunk of metal on your chest. Having it be a removable piece of equipment would be much better for you in the long-term!”
She then looked at his costume again, pencil to her chin.
“Wait a minute, what is your quirk, exactly?”
“Well, it's-”
“Heeeeellooooo, my lovely little students!”
Maina and Yousetsu both jumped at the sudden feminine (and oddly seductive-sounding…) voice, seeing Midnight standing in the door's frame.
“A-Ah, Midnight-sensei!” Yousetsu shrieked, turning a bright shade of red Maina swore wasn't on any color scale.
“Hello, Awase-kun! Furasu-chan! I sure hope nothing scandalous was happening here!” The R-Rated Hero teasingly cooed, as both students turned even more red. “I'm just teasing darlings! Anyhow, curfew is fast approaching, I'm simply here to inform you of the time you have left before Aizawa-kun starts making his rounds!”
As quickly as she came, Midnight disappeared with a ‘ta-ta’, and swiftly shut the door behind her.
Both students stood there for a moment, not really sure what to think. Neither knew what to say to the other, not at first.
“U-Uh, s-so…” Maina carefully ventured. “I-I… I think it'd be best if w-we… We went our separate ways for now.”
“Yeah, probably…” Yousetsu agreed.
Another deafening silence followed for a moment, before Maina, before her brain could stop the words flowing out of her mouth, blurted something out.
“MAYBEWECOULDEXCHANGENUMBERS!?”
OH NO! NONONO I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO SAY THAT-!
“O-Oh, yeah, probably! For the whole… Costume design upgrades stuff!” Yousetsu replied. “I gotta text you all about my quirk anyways, I didn't even get to tell you about it!”
…HOW THE FUCK DID THAT WORK!? Maina internally screamed, having to resist the urge to jump up and down excitedly while simultaneously vomiting her guts out. “U-Uh, yeah! T-That's… That's exactly what I was thinking!”
Almost in an instant, numbers were hastily exchanged, and Maina went to grab her things from the corner of the room as Yousetsu went to leave. She was just packing things up, when…
“Hey, Furasu.”
“Yes, Awase-sa… Awase?”
“Let's… Make this a regular thing, yeah?”
“...Yes, let's,” Maina smiled, her heart swelling at the simple thought of such a thing. “M-Meet me back here after your training tomorrow?”
“Count on it!” Yousetsu agreed, before turning to the door. “Catch you later!”
Maina, for once, felt an unerasable smile on her face. Perhaps Hatsume would always outdo her, maybe she would always be second best, maybe most of her classmates didn't get her…
She had a good feeling about tomorrow.