Chapter Text
Izuku was in the kitchen of the dorms making himself an afternoon snack. Some of his classmates had already grabbed their own snacks and sat down at the table to talk amongst themselves. Izuku didn’t mean to eavesdrop as he waited for his eggs to finish boiling, but he couldn’t help but to hear the conversation of his boisterous classmates.
“It’s not that big of a deal, Kami.” Sero said. “There are a ton of different science projects you can do. Just go online and find something that you find interesting.”
“Easy for you to say.” The blond protested with a hint of a whine in his voice. “I know my grades don’t exactly show it, but I actually really like science stuff. The problem is that there are too many things that interest me!”
‘Minari threw his hands in the air in exasperation before sinking into his seat with an exaggerated sigh. Mina patted his head gently and shook her head. “Then why don’t you make a list or something and then narrow it down. We have plenty of time.”
The boy whined and the group at the table let out a few laughs that they quickly tried to cover with fake coughs.
“Kami, it’s going to be fine. I mean, you could always try to find a partner. That might help.” Kirishima tried, hoping to cheer his friend up a little.
‘Minari pushed his snack out of the way and laid his head on the table. “Yeah right, like anyone would partner up with me. Everyone thinks I’m stupid because I’m at the bottom of the class.” His words came out kind of muffled because of the way his cheek pressed into the wood of the table, but Izuku heard them anyway.
The timer for his eggs went off and he immediately pulled the eggs from the boiling water and placed them in an ice bath. He turned the eye off of the stove and moved to stand by the counter closest to the group at the table. His eggs could wait.
“That’s not true, ‘Minari.” Izuku protested, stepping towards their table.
The blond’s head popped up and the rest of the group turned to look at Izuku. The green haired boy began to wave his arms in front of him frantically. “I wasn’t purposely trying to listen to your conversation, but I did overhear. The only reason I said something was because I was planning to ask if you wanted to work on the project with me anyway. I have this idea that I think could be really interesting, and I thought that you might find it kind of cool too. But if you don’t want-“
“Really, you want to work on the project with me?” Kaminari asked, his face lit up in excitement as he cut off Izuku’s rambling.
Izuku was relieved to see the bright smile on the other boy's face. “Yeah, of course.”
‘Minari jumped up from his seat and darted towards Izuku. Izuku stood there stiffly as Kaminari hugged him, his arms pinned to his sides by the taller boy. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
When the blond finally dropped the hug Izuku smiled up at him. “No problem. I was going to finish my snack and then start coming up with a plan for the project. Do you want to meet up at my dorm in an hour or so? We won’t actually be working on anything yet, just discussing what we’re going to do, and working out a schedule for when we should meet up. That sort of stuff, you know?”
Kaminari returned the smile and gave him two thumbs up. “Sure thing, Mido! I’ll be there.”
With that settled Izuku nodded and turned back towards his eggs. He was glad that ‘Minari wanted to work with him. He’d definitely been a little nervous about how it would turn out. Izuku had been pretty sure that one of his other friends would have wanted to partner up with him for the project, or that he’d prefer to work with someone he was closer to. Izuku really hoped that his project idea was something that the electric hero would like.
As soon as he found out that they had to do a science project he’d immediately thought of the blond. A few weeks ago he’d seen something interesting on HeroTube about an electro-magnetic instrument that could be played with your hands. He’d wanted to talk to ‘Minari about it when he’d found out such an instrument existed, but the blond was always so busy. It was sometimes intimidating to try and initiate a conversation with him about things outside of class or heroics. ‘Minari was so outgoing that it sometimes awed Izuku. He was so extroverted he’d somehow managed to bulldoze right past Kacchan’s tough personality and actually become friends with him (though he knew Kacchan would likely never admit it). And even though ‘Minari was friends with Kacchan he was always nice to Izuku.
As Izuku finished cleaning up the mess he’d made when preparing his snack he found he was unable to keep himself from smiling. He grabbed the bowl with his seasoned eggs and a bottle of water before retreating to his room. He really couldn’t wait to get started on their science project.
~~~~~
Denki had been through it. At least emotionally anyway. He had been in a doom spiral over the science project they had been assigned when an angel of the forest had stepped in to save him. He would be forever grateful of course, but the emotional whiplash from the unexpected turn of events was almost too much. Even for him. It also didn’t help that his friends had decided to act like actual goblins about it as soon as Mido had left.
Sero nudged him in the side with his large elbow. “Look at that, you got yourself a knight in shiny green armor coming to your rescue.”
Kaminari spluttered. “What are you talking about?”
His friends laughed. “Yeah, it was pretty manly how Midoriya volunteered to help you out.”
Denki felt the heat rising on his face. “I don’t know why you guys are making a big deal out of it. He’s a nice dude, of course he’d offer to help someone who needs it. That’s kind of like his entire thing.” He gestured vaguely at the space in front of him.
“Aww, don’t try and downplay it.” Mina cooed as she clasped her hands together in front of her chest. “Didn’t you hear what he said? He’s got an idea about what to do. That means he’d already thought about it before he knew you needed help.” She wiggled her eyebrows conspiratorily at him.
Denki laid his head back down on the table and groaned. He lifted one hand and swatted in the general direction of his friends. “Go away,” he whined.
“Absolutely not.” Mina said before Kirishima and Sero started laughing.
“Dude, come on. We’ve seen the sparks between you two.” Sero snickered at his own lame pun.
“Yeah, you two really light up when you’re around each other.” Kirishima snorted.
“Oh don’t tease him too much, he might blow a fuse.” Mina crowed before they all lost themselves in a fit of laughter.
“You guys are the worst.” Denki grumbled to the table.
His complaints were met with more laughter. Denki loved his friends, truly he did. But in that moment he wasn’t sure what he wanted more, for them to disappear or for him to melt into a puddle on the floor. Since neither spontaneous liquefaction nor spontaneous dematerialization were in his wheelhouse of expertise Denki decided the best thing to do was to go to his own dorm until it was time to meet Mido.
“I’m going to go look over some notes in my dorm. I’ll text Bakugou and Jirou to let them know I won’t be in the study group.” He said as he sat up and grabbed his abandoned snack.
“Don’t be like that Kami. You know we were just messing around.” Sero said, all traces of laughter and teasing gone. “We won’t tease you about it anymore.”
“Yeah, we’re sorry.” Mina and Kiri spoke at the same time.
Denki sighed. “It’s fine, I’m not really that mad. Just slightly annoyed. Besides, I really do want to go look over a few things before I meet with Mido. I actually want to help on the project. I don’t want him to think I’m just using him for a good grade or something.” He explained before moving to put his snack away.
He pointedly ignored the look that his three friends shared with each other as he left the table. He knew what they thought. They’d been teasing him about it for a while. They were all convinced that he had some sort of crush on Mido. Which he absolutely did not. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. He saw the sour look on Bakugou’s face anytime they brought it up around him. He knew that Bakugou and Mido had known each other since basically forever. He also knew that they had a pretty rocky history, but they had somewhat started to mend their relationship. It would be weird to have a crush on one of his best friend’s, whatever Mido was. Rival? Friend? Possible lifelong secret love? Who knew? Definitely not Denki, that was for sure. And he didn’t even want to try and figure out exactly what Mido felt about Bakugou. Denki was pretty sure that even if he did try to go there with Mido that it would end with teary green eyes and a thousand apologies. So there was no going there. Ever.
Denki shook his head to rid himself of the crush or not crush nonsense that he didn’t want to think about and pulled his phone out as he left the common area. He texted Bakugou and Jirou to let them know he had to work on his science project with Mido as he climbed the stairs to the third floor. He hated bothering them when they were training together. Bakugou and Jirou took their stealth training way too seriously sometimes. Normally a single text wouldn’t irritate them, but he was also sort of blowing them off. Jirou probably wouldn’t be too annoyed, but considering who he was planning to study with instead, Denki feared that there would be an explosion in his near future. Well, more of a vocal explosion than a literal one, but either way the idea sucked.
When he got to his room he went straight to his desk. He was a man on a mission, damn it, and he wouldn’t be derailed. He wanted to look up different project ideas. He knew that Mido said he had an idea already, but he still felt like he should come up with a few of his own to show that he was taking it seriously. Maybe if he found the right one he could impress the green-haired brainiac. Not that Denki wanted to or really needed to impress him, it just couldn’t hurt.
Diving into his research Denki was able to mostly forget about the teasing from his friends. He was so caught up in it, in fact, that he lost track of time. When Kiri texted him that Mido was in the common room looking for him he nearly bricked his phone in his panic. He grabbed the notebook he’d been scribbling his research notes and ideas in before he dashed out of his dorm. He was about to reach the landing for the second floor when he smacked into something and tumbled feet over ass down the last two steps. His notebook went flying down the hall and a loud “oof” sounded from directly underneath him.
Denki started to push himself up from the ground, but instead of the hard floor he could feel something much more pliable. To his absolute embarrassment Denki realized that he had landed on the poor soul he’d crashed into. He quickly moved his hands to find the floor and push himself up. He could feel his face heating up from his mortification, but then he found a pair of shimmering green eyes staring up at him in worry, and he felt his stomach drop.
“I’m so sorry!” Denki shouted as he tried to fully disentangle himself.
At the same time Mido asked, “are you okay ‘Minari?”
Their eyes locked again and Denki couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh. For just a second a wave of confusion flashed over Mido’s face, and then he was laughing too. Denki shook his head as he stood up and reached his hand out towards Mido. When Mido grabbed his hand Denki quickly helped the boy to his feet.
“I really am sorry about that. I was in a bit of a hurry, I didn’t realize I was late.” He explained as he walked to pick up his notebook from where it had landed haphazardly.
Mido dusted himself off and adjusted his clothes. “It’s okay, I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt.”
“I’m glad you aren’t hurt either. You could have hit your head or I could have, like, busted your spleen or something. I feel like I landed on you pretty hard.” The blond said, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.
Mido laughed. “My head and spleen are both doing just fine. Thanks for worrying though.”
Denki smiled and held up his notebook. “Should we get to it then?”
Mido nodded. “Right, let’s go.” He said as he started walking down the hallway to his room.
Denki had been in Mido’s room a grand total of one time. The night they had that ridiculous (and rigged) dorm room competition everyone had seen just how much of a hero fanboy Mido really was. At the time Denki had thought that it was kind of cute. Then Mina had given him a very pointed look and Denki had quickly changed his mind, it was endearing or sweet. Not cute. Never cute. So he readied himself for the onslaught of smiling heroes as he walked through the door. To his surprise there wasn’t as much All Might as he remembered. There was still more than most people had, but some of it had been taken down or replaced with the merchandise of other heroes. Specifically heroes that Mido had worked with directly.
Mido didn’t seem to mind that Denki wanted to take a look around first. The green haired teen just walked to his desk and opened his laptop while Denki moved to look at the bookcase. There were a series of notebooks like the ones Mido always wrote in lined up in a neat row on the top shelf. There were books on quirk analysis and quirk theory. There were a few books that surprised Denki, like the ones about music theory or the biochemistry of lipids. What Denki found especially odd though was the distinct lack of manga or other fiction on the book shelf.
“Hey Mido, why don’t you have any fiction in your collection?” He asked as he turned towards the curly headed boy.
Izuku spun around in his desk chair and shrugged. “I don’t want to get too distracted when I’m supposed to be studying so I left my fiction at home. If I really need a study break and fiction is the only thing that will work then I just read from my phone.”
“Oh that sucks, but I guess it makes sense. I definitely get distracted by my books a lot.” Denki said with a soft chuckle.
“Maybe next time we can meet in your dorm and you can show me your books.” Mido offered, and Denki didn’t miss what he was doing.
Mido was trying to find a subtle way to pull the topic back towards their project without dismissing him or the conversation they were having. Denki smiled and gave in. He could always keep asking the other boy about his books later, after they worked out their schedule.
“Sounds good to me.” He smiled and walked towards the desk and sat his notebook down. “If you want to flip through there I came up with a couple of ideas for the project. That’s kind of why I was late. I didn’t want to show up empty handed.”
Mido lifted the notebook with a smile and began to flip through some of the now messy pages. “I pulled up a video on my laptop, it’s what gave me the idea for the project. Do you want to watch it while I go over your notes?”
“Sure, we can talk about it after.” Denki agreed with a smile.
The freckled boy stood from his chair with the notebook and moved to sit on his bed. Denki took that as a sign that he could sit at the desk and watch the video. There was a set of large over the ear headphones resting next to it so Denki assumed he was supposed to put those on. Once his ears were snug in the headphones Denki moved the mousepad to get the funky screen saver on Mido’s laptop to go away. He was immediately greeted with a paused video from HeroTube.
There was some dude standing in front of a wooden box that had a couple of pieces of metal sticking out of it. The guy had his hands hovering in the air over the box. Denki raised his eyebrow at the image. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but he decided to hold off on his judgement until he actually watched the video and hit play. Immediately the headphones were filled with sounds of a song that Denki recognized. It was an older song, but it was definitely still popular and he knew for sure he had it on at least one playlist. The guy in the video stood there for about fifteen seconds before he moved his hands over the wooden box. Denki gasped when the sound filled his ears and he had to stop the video. It was such a strange sound, definitely not part of the original composition of the song. It was kind of a haunting sound. Otherworldly almost.
He took a deep breath to calm his surprise and the sudden overflowing curiosity. Video first, questions later. Denki watched the dude’s hands as he moved them over the box. The strange sound added an entirely new depth to the song he’d heard more times than he could count. It was riveting, his entire being was laser focused on the video. Four minutes and fifty-four seconds later the video was over and Denki was staring at Mido’s laptop with his jaw hanging open. He took the headphones off and turned to Mido with wide eyes.
“What was that?” He whispered, almost reverently.
Izuku beamed at him, his eyes seemed to sparkle as brightly as Aoyama’s navel laser. “That was a theremin!”
“That sound was so weird and cool! How did he do that?”
Mido stood up from his bed, he was clearly excited. “It works through electro-magnetism! I found that video on accident a few weeks ago and I thought you would like it. Then when we got assigned this science project I thought that maybe we could try to build one together.”
Denki was on his feet in an instant, he closed the space between them impossibly fast and placed his hands on Mido’s shoulders so that he could look directly into those green eyes. “You want me to help build this with you?”
His question was sort of loaded and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. Everyone always cracked their jokes about how dumb he could be, and everyone knew that he was at the bottom of the class in terms of grades. Denki didn’t usually like working with partners because he always felt like they didn’t want him there. It always sucked when he tried to help and his ideas got dismissed or ignored. He didn’t want it to go like that, especially with Mido. In the back of his mind Denki knew it wouldn’t be like that, but still he had to ask. He had to be totally sure that Mido wasn’t just going to try and do all the work and leave him to twiddle his thumbs like an idiot.
Mido tilted his head and studied Denki. The blond had to resist the urge to squirm under that intense gaze. When Mido nodded his head and smiled, Denki felt his stomach twist into knots.
“Of course I want your help, I wouldn’t have asked you to be partners if I didn’t want to.” Mido said so casually. The verbal confirmation dispelled some of the anxiety the blond had without being dismissive of his worries.
Denki wasn’t sure how Mido did that, how he was able to read a situation so quickly and figure out a way to make it better. It was just like when he watched Mido in training exercises or battle simulations. The unassuming boy in front of him held so many mysteries, and Denki just wanted to know him any way that he could. Any way he was allowed to. But there was one more question he needed to ask.
“Why do you want me to be your project partner?” He asked as he let go of Mido’s shoulders and stepped back.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Mido retorted, another confused tilt of his head sending a few curls into his face. “I heard what you said earlier in the common room, about everyone thinking you’re stupid. You know that’s not true, right?”
Denki couldn’t take those green eyes boring into him so he averted his gaze to stare at his feet instead. “It is though, even Mineta talks shit about how dumb I am. I honestly can’t think of a reason why you’d want to risk your grade on me.”
Denki could see Mido’s fists clenching at his sides. “I’m not risking anything.” He stated firmly as he grabbed Denki’s forgotten notebook from the bed. “I read your ideas, you have some really good ones. I mean doing a project on the electrolysis of water could be really interesting. Your idea about building an ultrasonic levitation device is well thought out, including the notes you wrote about it. Not to mention your other ideas like the science behind optical illusions, building a battery using saltwater, and my personal favorite, growing your own rock candy! All of the ideas you brought are different from what anyone else would have tried to do. So that’s why I wanted you to be my partner, because you have a unique and interesting way of looking at things and I think we would work really well together.”
Denki lifted his gaze from the floor and was met with Mido’s determined expression, the one he used when he was getting ready to go all out for what he wanted. Denki had to fight a full body shiver. He’d never been on the receiving end of that look and the fact that it was Denki himself that Mido was so determined to fight for made his heart rate spike. The blond folded his arms and gave Mido a determined nod. “Okay, let’s do it. Let’s build a funky little electro-magnetic instrument.”
Mido grinned, clearly overjoyed that Denki had agreed. But just as quickly as that smile had shown up it faded. “But what about all of your ideas? We don’t have to just go with my idea ‘Minari. We can talk about it first, and make sure we pick the right project for us.”
Denki ignored the way he felt when Mido referred to the two of them as “us”, that was something for him to lock away and never acknowledge. Instead he shook his head. “I’m not just going along with it because it’s your idea. I think the concept is amazing, and honestly I want to build the thing so I can figure out how it works. Plus anyone can go online to find any of the ideas I wrote down. If neither of us had ever heard of a theremin before I’m pretty sure no one else has, except maybe Jirou. So building one would be totally original. So yeah, I think this is the right project for us.”
“Really, you actually want to do this?” He asked, a tentative smile reforming on his freckled face.
Denki nodded more enthusiastically than before. “Absolutely.”
Izuku’s grin had his cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk and small dimples that Denki had never noticed before were peeking out. The blond couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen the freckled boy smile like that, but he was glad to have witnessed it. Even if it did tug at those feelings he was keeping locked down.
“We should work out some sort of schedule, and we should probably discuss exactly what we want the overall project to be about.” Izuku spoke as he grabbed a notebook off his desk and started writing. “Building the theremin will help us demonstrate our knowledge, but we also have to use it for an experiment. Maybe we should build two and have them be different sizes, then we can test how the size affects the pitch. Or maybe we build one from scratch ourselves and then test it against a kit that has all the components mostly put together.”
Denki shook his head and smiled fondly at his new project partner. He was torn as he watched Izuku think out loud; part of him wanted to hear every thought that wonderfully big brain came up with, the other part wanted to share his own ideas. The latter won out. They couldn’t have a proper partnership if Izuku was the only one coming up with anything. And he wanted to be a good partner. A good project partner that is.
“I think we should build two in different sizes to test the pitch instead of getting a kit.” Denki said, cutting off Mido’s spiral before it got too far. “I know building one from a kit might be easier, but I don’t know, I guess I just like the idea of having one that I built myself. Does that make sense?”
Izuku nodded. “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense actually. I think it will be fun that we’ll both get to keep one after the project is over too.”
“Exactly, we could both build one to different specifications.” Denki started.
“And if we’re both building one from scratch then we’re putting forth the same contribution so no one can claim that one of us did more work than the other.” Izuku continued.
“We could even get a video camera to record our process so that way we can focus on building the instruments. We can review the footage later so that our notes can be as detailed as possible for the final report.” Denki suggested as he started to pace the length of Izuku’s room.
Izuku watched from his desk chair. “That’s a great idea! We can record the tests when they’re finished, but I think we should also do a live demonstration during our presentation.”
“That’s also a great idea. I wonder if different materials would also change the way it sounds, like if one is an aluminum alloy versus a copper alloy, but that might be too many variables.”
“We should probably talk to a teacher to see if we can get one that’s already put together so we have a control for the experiment.”
Denki hummed his agreement. “We should also probably look into the materials we’ll need to get in order to build our own. I’d rather buy the materials ourselves, but I wonder if the teachers would let Yaomomo assist us if there are materials we can’t get our hands on. They might consider that cheating since we’re not allowed to have more than two people in a group.”
“Worst case scenario we can talk to Powerloader and the support students to see if they have scrap materials we can use.”
Denki stopped pacing to look at Izuku. “You would risk being exploded by Hatsume again for our project?”
“I risk being exploded when I don’t leave enough coffee in the pot for Kacchan in the morning, Hatsume doesn’t scare me.” Izuku laughed.
“Speaking of our favorite walking explosion, he’s probably going to be mad at me so for your own safety keep your distance from me for the next few days.”
Izuku’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Why would Kacchan be mad at you?”
Denki shrugged. “I might have ditched our group study session for project planning.”
Izuku jumped up from his seat. “Why didn’t you just tell me you had to study? We could have done this after your study session, or after dinner. Literally at any point in time when you didn’t already have plans.” He marched over and swatted Denki on the arm. “You didn’t have to cancel on your friends.”
“You’re my friend too, Izuku.” Denki blurted out in protest.
Izuku froze mid swat, eyes a little wide. And as those big green eyes locked onto his it hit Denki like a ton of bricks what exactly had just left his mouth. He wasn’t usually so informal with Izuku. He’d been calling him “Midoriya” or “Mido” since they met. Denki felt betrayed. He’d been betrayed by his own brain. Then his brain had dragged his mouth into it, and the two of them had decided it would be best if he perished from embarrassment. He found himself wishing for a second time that afternoon that he could spontaneously liquefy. He’d get washed down a drain and go live in the sewers with the sewer people and the rats. He’d make friends by reciting poetry and-
“You’re right, Denki,” Izuku said with a dimple popping smile, “we are friends.”
Denki’s panicked thoughts were ejected from his brain like a pilot bailing out of a fighter jet. Izuku had called him “Denki”. There were no thoughts, only the echo of his own name in Izuku’s voice. He could feel himself grinning back at Izuku, sure, but he had no control. He was screwed. So totally, utterly, absolutely screwed. That place in the back of his mind that had been locked away, ignored, and avoided was suddenly demanding his full attention. But he was in the wrong place and it was the wrong time. If he was going to acknowledge it he couldn’t very well do it in front of Izuku. Especially when they still had to work out their project schedule.
The project schedule! Denki wanted to kiss his useless backstabbing brain
“Exactly. So since we’re all friends I really don’t think it will be that big of a deal. I mean, I was mostly joking about him being mad anyway.” He could still feel what he was sure was a goofy grin stretched across his face as he spoke. “Plus, if we go ahead and get a tentative schedule made we can avoid it happening again, and then he really won’t have a reason to be mad.”
“Oh crap!” Izuku’s smile dropped as he whirled back towards his desk. “I keep forgetting to do that. I’m sorry, Denki. I don’t know what’s gotten into me today, I’m usually not so distracted.” His laugh was short and nervous as he picked his notebook up and grabbed his phone.
Denki waved off his apology, and tried to fight blushing at the sound of his own name. “It’s all good, I know I’m kind of distracting like that.”
Izuku’s head snapped up, a rosy pink dusting his freckles. “R-right. Um, so, what does your schedule look like?”
Denki pulled out his phone and started rattling off the things on his schedule that he could and couldn’t work around. Izuku had his own schedule pulled up and did the same once Denki was done. Izuku didn’t look up from his phone or notebook again until they were done. With a schedule in place and a general idea of what their next meeting looked like, Denki figured it was time for him to leave. When he stood to walk to the door Izuku quickly stopped him.
“Here, I wrote down a copy for you.” He handed Denki a piece of paper. “Thank you for agreeing to work on this with me Denki. I can’t wait to get started on our project. I’m really excited.” His face was almost too serious as he spoke, but when he finished he looked Denki right in the eye and unleashed his most blinding smile yet.
Denki looked down at the paper and then back up at that smile. “I’m pretty excited too, Izuku.” He said as he gently grabbed the paper. “I’ll see you later.”
“Have a good night!” Izuku called as Denki closed the door.
Denki wasn’t sure how he made it to his room without completely falling apart. When his own door closed behind him Denki placed his hands on his face and groaned while sinking into a deep squat with his back against the door.
“What am I gonna do?” He asked the empty room.
~~~~~
Kaminari was a fun and silly guy. He knew how to crack a joke, and Kyoka knew he liked to laugh. He wasn’t normally a very serious guy, and when it came to school work (with a couple of exceptions) it seemed like he couldn’t be bothered. So when her friend had blown off their group study session with the excuse of working on the science project they’d been assigned that day she had been pretty sure that that’s all it was, an excuse. But the next day when she walked into class and sat down at her desk she was surprised to see Kaminari with his phone and notebook out, taking notes on whatever he was looking at. When she looked away from Kaminari and her eyes landed on Bakugou she noticed that his face was less angry than usual. She couldn’t decide if his expression was confused, suspicious, or contemplative. Whatever it was, it was definitely directed at Kaminari.
Then Midoriya walked in, neck-tie a total mess, and a smile bright on his face, as usual. Kyoka looked up at the exact moment Midoriya noticed Kaminari and watched as his smile got impossibly brighter. The green haired boy quickly waved at his friends that were huddled around Iida's seat before walking up to Kaminari’s desk and knocking lightly on the wooden surface to announce his presence to the distracted blond. When Kaminari’s head shot up and he recognized Midoriya his shoulders relaxed and a goofy looking grin took over his face.
“Hey, Izuku, what’s up?” Kaminari asked.
“Hey, Denki. I just wanted to see if you wanted to go talk to Powerloader during lunch today? I got the list of materials we needed and figured we could go talk to him so we’ll know what we have available before Saturday.” Midoriya word-vomited at Kaminari.
Kyoka looked at Bakugo and arched a questioning eyebrow at him. Bakugo scrunched his nose and shrugged a silent “I don’t fucking know,” back at her.
She wanted to shrug it off, but she just couldn’t. She knew Kaminari and Midoriya were friendly, but she didn’t know they’d gotten to ‘using each other’s first names’ levels of friendly. As they continued their conversation Kyoka found herself scanning the room to see if anyone else was as confused as she was. When she saw Mina she couldn’t help but notice the excited way she flicked her eyes between Kaminari and Midoriya, or the way they didn’t seem to notice her blatant eavesdropping at all. Kyoka turned in her seat to look at Kirishima and Sero, only to laugh immediately because the two of them were trying to smack each other but failing and swatting the air between their desks instead. Both of them were sporting excited grins.
Of course the three of them would be invested in the interaction. They were always teasing Kaminari about his crush. He’d vehemently denied it, but when she turned back around in her seat and saw the way they were smiling at each other she couldn’t deny that there was definitely something between them.