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Denki is woken by knocking on his door. He groans, rolls over in bed, and takes a moment to hope it'll go away.
Instead, Jirou calls, "Denki?"
Denki grumbles something, but manages to push himself up onto his elbows. "Whassit?"
He hears the sound of a broken laugh from the other side of the door, then a muffled sob, and suddenly he's wide awake.
"Jirou?" he calls as he pushes his way from the bed. He scrambles for the door, and yanks it open as quickly as he can manage.
Jirou is standing there, shoulders slumped and face turned towards the floor. Denki scrambles for a moment, trying to think of anything that had happened recently that would upset his friend— he's not always good at remembering that kind of stuff— but he comes up blank.
"I— I'm sorry," he says, once he's sure nothing is going to pop into his head. "I don't remember— Jirou, what happened? Are you okay?"
Jirou takes a step forward and drops her head onto Denki's chest. "I'm stuck in a time loop," she whispers.
It takes Denki a minute to process the words. He's always been slow. "A—"
"A time loop," Jirou confirms. "I'm living this day over and over."
Denki stares at Jirou, lost for words. He doesn't know how long this day has been repeating, or what caused it, or what's happened in all of the days he no longer remembers. But Jirou looks exhausted. He doesn't want to think about how many times it took to make her (presumably) first course of action showing up at his door and crying into his chest. He loves Jirou, but… he hasn't told her that. He can barely work up the courage to talk to her sometimes. Why would she come to him, and not Ashido, or Yaoyorozu, or even Uraraka? What's happened to her? How is he supposed to reach past all of the experiences she's had that he hasn't, and know the right thing to say?
The answer comes immediately— he can't. There's no way he can know what Jirou needs, not when it likely changes so rapidly and when he has no possible way of knowing how or why it does. He can't possibly understand.
But it's not like that's new. He never understands what's happening. So he turns to the only reliable thing that has ever given him half a chance at keeping up with his classmates in the past— he asks the smarter person in the room what's going on.
He wraps his arms gently around Jirou. "What do you need from me today?" he asks.
Jirou laughs again, that same broken sound as before. Denki wonders if she's gotten tired of hearing him ask that, tired of his complete failure to ever know what to do.
She presses her head further into Denki's chest. "Hold me tighter," she says.
Denki pulls Jirou closer and squeezes. She shifts just her head around on his chest, and though Denki isn't sure what she's looking for, he lets her. Eventually she seems satisfied and stops moving, and Denki squeezes her a little tighter still.
Jirou lets out a shaky breath. "Can we go inside?" she asks.
Denki nods before he realizes his chin will bump into her head. He winces. Hopefully that's the first time he's done that. "Sorry. But um, yes."
He lets go and steps further back inside his room. Jirou steps in past him, and then he shuts the door.
Jirou walks right over to Denki's bed, probably because she knows he won't mind, and sits down on it. She wraps her arms around herself and lets out a shaky sigh.
Denki walks over to the bed and sits tentatively down next to her. "Do you want me to hug you again?" he asks.
Jirou nods. Denki turns to face her and pulls her into his chest again. For a very long moment, they both sit there. Jirou doesn't move, so Denki doesn't move.
A million questions pop into Denki's head— what happened, are you okay, do you want to talk about it— but he's probably asked all of them a million times, so he doesn't bother repeating them. Jirou gets enough repeat questions from him during study sessions, she's bound to be sick of them by now. Even if she wasn't, there's no way anything he could have to offer that would be that useful.
But then, to his surprise, Jirou speaks.
"You're my favorite," she whispers.
Denki startles, and looks down at her. "What do you mean?"
"Everything you say is always so helpful," Jirou says. Her breath hitches, and Denki lets her breathe for a moment before she keeps talking. "How do you do that, Denki?"
Denki feels a slight jolt of surprise at Jirou using his first name. Then he thinks about it for a couple seconds and it's not surprising at all. He wonders how many times he's told her to use it.
"I just… I figure you're probably sick of my stupid questions by now," Denki says.
"You're not stupid," Jirou says. "You're so… I don't understand how your brain moves so fast. You're so smart."
"What?"
Jirou doesn't say anything else, and then they lapse into silence again. Denki gives her all the time she needs. She probably doesn't have enough of it anyway, he can at least do this. They both miss the beginning of homeroom by far too much, but neither of them move. Maybe it doesn't matter for today, anyway.
Jirou finally pulls back. She looks up at Denki, with a million worlds Denki has never seen swimming in her eyes. "Ask me again."
Denki opens his mouth to ask her what she's talking about, then stops. He thinks for a moment, tries to put himself in her head space as best he can.
Then he says again, "What do you need from me today?"
Jirou leans forward and kisses him. Denki, despite everything he's just learned, feels a brief ecstatic moment of oh my god crush is kissing me holy shit.
Jirou reaches up and grasps the sides of Denki's face, holding him like she knows exactly how they fit together, and maybe she does.
Denki leans into the kiss. He reaches up and touches Jirou's face just in time to swipe away a tear as his thumb finds it.
Eventually, they break apart for air, but Jirou stays right there, nose pressed against his. One of her earphone jacks winds itself over his ear, and Denki leans into it.
"That," Jirou whispers. Her lips brush against his again as she says it. "I needed that."
Denki sits there, thoroughly stunned.
Jirou looks up at him. "Is that okay?" she asks.
Denki nods. "More than," he manages.
Jirou moves her head to the side and drops it onto Denki's shoulder. "Can I stay here for the day?" she asks.
"I mean… I think Aizawa-sensei will probably come yell at us when we miss all of our classes."
Jirou nods into his shoulder. "He'll show up at 16:37," she says. "And then I'll tell him and we'll start trying to figure this out all over again. But I need a quiet morning first."
Denki nods. "Okay," he says. "Yeah. Of course you can stay here."
Jirou hums, exhausted and desolate sounding. Denki wants more than anything to fix this for her.
"I'm so sorry, Jirou," he whispers.
Jirou presses her head further into his shoulder. "You never call me Kyouka," she whispers.
"I… I'm sorry," Denki says. He opens his mouth, tries to force the name out, but it feels disingenuous.
Jirou doesn't say anything. Denki wants to ask if there's a way he can make her laugh, or at least stop sounding so miserable. But she didn't ask for that, so she must not need it today. Maybe she just needs this.
Instead, he wraps his arms around her again. Jirou doesn't say anything else, just leans against him and breathes.
Denki, feeling unbearably inadequate, does the same.