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The first time it happens is on a lazy Saturday not-quite-afternoon in the dorm common area, where the majority of UA’s infamous class 2-A have gathered to study and do homework together. In reality, however, they’re just playing a friendly round of Among Us .
For the most part.
“Hey, Kacchan!” Kaminari looks away from his laptop to glance across the room, where Bakugou sits on the couch, reading, away from just about everyone else. Someone else is sitting next to him, but Kaminari can’t see them at this angle. He might be a little impressed at the mystery person’s audacity (or perhaps foolishness, not that Kaminari would know) if this were last year, but Bakugou’s not the same person he was then. Besides, Kaminari knows no fear, at least when it comes to Bakugou.
“C’mon, you gonna just sit there?”
Bakugou grunts as he flicks through his book irritably. Squinting, Kaminari can just make out the cover; it’s one of the class textbooks, for math. Ah, so Bakugou’s studying for that test on Tuesday. The one that Kaminari probably should study for too, and the one that he swore he was gonna study for when he came downstairs this morning. He will, of course. Most likely ten minutes before class starts, but the details are irrelevant, right?
“Kacchannn,” Kaminari says, stretching out the chan all nice and long.
Bakugou only grunts again.
“You’re no fun,” Kaminari pouts as he turns back to his computer screen. “Aw, no! Who killed me?” He looks up at the circle of friends and scans their faces, everyone’s eyes focused on their own devices. Kaminari stabs a finger at Jirou, eyes narrowed. “Was it you?”
Jirou snorts and rolls her eyes. “Moron, do you really think I’d answer that?”
Mina snickers, and Kaminari wheels on her. “Was it you , then?”
Mina grins. “No comment.”
“Not manly, dude,” Kirishima interjects, “turning on your friends so quickly.” He smiles then, showing off his shark teeth.
“...can’t be you,” Kaminari mumbles after a moment. “Killing me while I’m not looking is so not manly.”
“So not manly,” Kirishima agrees, teeth flashing.
Kaminari stares at him for another second before returning back to his own screen and typing a morose hey in the ghosts chat.
After Kaminari has played another three rounds of Among Us (and has been killed another three times, but that’s unimportant), he decides that the game is, unfortunately, no long satisfying the monkey in his brain that’s avoiding studying and all things academia-related. Being the monkey he is, he goes to pester Bakugou instead.
“Kacchan!” he sings, plopping his elbows down on the back of the couch and leaning forward on it.
Bakugou ignores him, still reading through his book like the annoyingly productive student he is.
Rude .
“Hey!” Kaminari leans to the side, waving his hand in front of Bakugou’s face.
Bakugou ignores him again.
“Oi, Kacchan! What’s up with you?”
Finally, Bakugou glances up.
“What do you want, Dunce Face?” he says quietly.
Kaminari is stunned for a moment. Bakugou knows how to be quiet? But he shakes it off because yeah, Bakugou might be a loud, angry Pomeranian, but he’s made loads of improvement since last year; he doesn’t yell quite as much, and he doesn’t get as angry or as violent anymore. Not to his friends, at least.
Kaminari swings himself back to his original position. “Kacchaaann, I just wanted—”
Wait .
Something soft brushes against Kaminari’s arm.
Wait a minute.
He looks down, and— what?
A bush of green hair is touching his arm, familiar green hair, belonging to—
“Midoriya?”
Kaminari scoots over to get a better look at his face, and— yep, that’s Midoriya all right. Freckles splattered over his cheeks, hair wild and falling in his face, big eyes closed as he breathes in, breathes out, breathes in…
Bakugou frowns and goes back to his book.
Holy crap.
Kaminari is shook .
Midoriya? Napping on Bakugou’s shoulder?
Briefly, Kaminari wonders if he’d somehow fallen into an alternate universe. Or maybe he got hit by a quirk and hallucinated the whole thing.
Be rational , he tells himself. After all, Bakugou and Midoriya have been getting along better lately. Bakugou doesn’t blow up at him with the slightest provocation and Midoriya no longer flinches at the sight of the other, or at the sound of explosions, or at loud voices, or… wow, actually, Midoriya used to flinch at a lot of things, Kaminari’s kinda concerned now. Probably has been concerned for a long time, really.
Kaminari stuffs that little tidbit away in a box somewhere in the back of his brain subconsciously labelled Important Things to Not Forget, But I Probably Will Anyways, But I’ll Try My Best Not To .
Come to think of it, Bakugou and Midoriya have been talking to each other more, too. For the past… month? Two months? Maybe three — unless it was four? Kaminari doesn’t really remember, but it’s actually longer than he initially thought, when he really digs deep into his recollection of their interactions.
Actually talking to each other. Kaminari thinks it’s rather incredible. A miracle, even.
I’m so proud of you, Blasty, he thinks, and mentally wipes away a dramatic tear.
Uraraka thinks something’s up with Deku.
Scratch that, she knows something’s up with Deku. And Shouto, now that she thinks about it. Possibly even Shinsou too, but that one’s still up in the air.
She sorta feels like they’re in on a joke that she’s only an outsider too. She feels like they’re hiding something.
And so, she makes it her mission to find out what that something is.
“Deku!”
Uraraka slams her tray down on the lunch table.
Deku startles, looking up from his hushed conversation with Shouto and Iida on the other side of the table. Shouto excuses himself to go grab some food — Uraraka notices that he’d walked in with Deku, not even getting himself anything as they sat down together — and Uraraka stares at his retreating back.
She turns back to Deku, still standing, her hands flat on the table framing her tray.
“Um…” he says. “What’s up?”
Uraraka looks at him for a second, before glancing at Iida — who is peacefully eating his lunch now. He continues eating his lunch, endearingly stiff as always, blissfully ignorant of Uraraka’s burning gaze.
Uraraka huffs and sits down.
She leans forward.
“What’s up with you? ” she blurts. “You and Shouto.”
“Me… and Shouto?” Deku’s face is blank with incomprehension. “What do you mean?”
“You—” Uraraka waves vaguely at Deku and then at the approaching figure of Shouto, returning from his quest for cold soba. “I dunno, something! Something’s up!”
Deku still looks hopelessly confused.
Shouto takes that at his cue to sit down at the table again.
“What’s going on?”
Deku shrugs.
“You’re hiding something,” Uraraka declares, pointing at both of them.
Shouto turns to Deku, his constant deadpan expression unchanged. “We are? Well, why didn’t you tell me?”
Deku shrugs again, and Shouto picks up his chopsticks.
“You are,” Uraraka insists, “and I’m gonna find out what it is.”
Shouto just slurps his noodles.
Kaminari has arrived.
Ojiro knows this because something — someone — is petting his tail, and nobody does that but Kaminari. He always does it as soon as he sits down, too. Ojiro doesn’t mind, though; he’d never admit it out loud, but the feeling is nice.
“Kaminari,” Ojiro says.
“Hm?”
“You’re forty minutes late.”
“...ah?”
“The exam is over.”
There’s a long silence.
“Ah.”
His hands abruptly remove themselves from Ojiro’s tail, and Kaminari is out the door before Aizawa-sensei can even unzip his sleeping bag.
A head full of shaggy black hair and possibly (more than) a few gray streaks pokes out of the yellow monstrosity. Aizawa-sensei looks at the door that Kaminari just fled through, and then back at the class.
“I’ll go get him,” Jirou sighs before he has to say anything. She slips out into the hallway.
not even a minute later, sounds of muffled complaints can be heard. Ojiro watches as Jirou walks in with Kaminari’s ear clutched in one hand, the boy whining the whole time.
“Jirou! C’mon, let go already!”
Jirou doesn’t dignify him with a response.
“Ow! Jirou—”
She drops him unceremoniously on top of his desk before sliding into her own with a smirk.
“You can’t just run away from your problems, Pikachu,” she says, not looking like she particularly cares either way, but finds Kaminari’s suffering entertaining regardless.
“I can and I will,” he mutters mutinously.
He rubs his ear. Jirou jabs his arm with one of her earjacks and he yelps. And then he reaches for Ojiro’s tail again.
The petting resumes as study hall wraps up — well, the part of study hall Aizawa-sensei can keep them quiet for, at least — and the students start chatting.
“Hey,” Kaminari says. “How come you didn’t come play Among Us with us?”
“Huh?” Ojiro thinks back to the impromptu gaming session over the weekend. “Oh, that. Went to visit my mom.” It was nice; his mom had made some sort of banana bread dessert, and he took a little of it back to the dorms with him. There’s still a slice sitting on his desk back in his room, come to think of it. He’ll eat it later, after today’s Hero Training is over.
“Hmm, okay.” Kaminari’s voice cuts into his thoughts. “It wasn’t that great, anyways — I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was fun, but like I died a lot , and—”
Kaminari promptly launches into a rambling play-by-play of the gameplay on Saturday, punctuated with frequent complaints about being killed so often. Ojiro doesn’t say much, just quietly enjoying Kaminari’s highly biased narration. Finally, Kaminari says:
“Oh, and guess what?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “So i finally just, like, gave up, y’know ‘cause my attention span can only handle so much—” He laughs a little. “And I just, got bored, I guess? So I went over to Bakugou since he wasn’t playing, that killjoy, because I do that sometimes. And guess what? I saw Midoriya napping on his shoulder! And he wasn’t even, like, bothered or anything. He was actually quiet . It was so weird.”
“Really?” It does sound a little strange, but Ojiro has seen how far Bakugou and Midoriya’s relationship has come.
“Whoa, what?” Uraraka’s voice interjects, and that’s when Ojiro realizes that at some point in the past minute or so she’d wandered over from her place by Iida’s desk. “Bakugou—” Uraraka’s face scrunches up a little, and Ojiro knows she still harbors a bit of her old grudge towards Bakugou for his treatment of her best friend— “and Deku?”
“Yeah!” Kaminari nods quickly. “Weird, right?”
Uraraka doesn’t say anything for a moment. “...I thought there was something going on with him and Shouto?”
Kaminari looks stumped at this. And then he looks delighted .
“Bakugou and Todoroki have been doing a lot of partner exercises together, now that I think of it,” he says thoughtfully.
“I meant Deku and Shouto, but I guess you’re right,” Uraraka says. “But they’re friends, aren’t they? Or at least Shouto says they’re friends. Since first year, I think.”
Kaminari stands up without a word even as Uraraka keeps talking, looking like he’d stopped listening after “Deku and Shouto”.
He dashes off to Ashido’s desk.
Uraraka and Ojiro look at each other, perplexed, but then they both shrug and mutually ignore Kaminari’s strange behavior. Midoriya comes into the classroom — Ojiro thinks he left to go to the bathroom or something — and Uraraka’s eyes light up, and then she bounds away too.
Sero likes to think that he’s pretty chill with everyone. He likes to think that he’s friends with everyone in his class, too, even if he’s not the closest to each and every one of them.
But right now, Mina is really getting on his nerves and Sero just got up .
“Mina,” he says patiently, “If you wanna know that bad, just go ask Bakugou.”
Mina pouts. “But he’s Blasty , ya know? I doubt he’d just tell me.”
Sero shrugs. “Won’t know if you don’t try.”
“Okay but seriously,” Mina persists, “What do you think? Do you think they have a thing?”
Sero raises an eyebrow. “Todoroki and Bakugou? Or Midoriya and Bakugou?”
“I don’t know!” Mina throws her hands up. “Either, or both! Or, what if it’s Mido and Todoroki and Bakugou?”
Sero takes a deep breath in. He lets it out.
“Mina,” he says, patiently but about to be less patient if Mina doesn’t back off a little , “it’s way too early for this. I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
Mina blinks at him. “Sorry,” she says, and moves to the side to let him take more than three steps into the dorm kitchen. He goes to the fridge and pulls out the icy concoction he’d thrown together last night. He shakes it, opens the thermos, and takes a slow sip. And then another. And then another.
“Okay,” Sero says, once he feels sufficiently awake enough. “I think if any of them are dating or anything like that, then it’s their business if they want to tell us about it.”
Mina pouts again. “But I’m just curious , y’know?”
“I do know, since you’ve been bombarding me with this for the past ten minutes.” Mina looks decently ashamed, and Sero sips his coffee again. “But if you want someone to talk to about it, shouldn’t you talk to Kaminari?”
“He’s the one who told me about it!” Mina says.
“Then doesn’t that make him an even better person to talk to? Since he already knows?”
Mina frowns thoughtfully. “I guess…” She perks up. “I know! Hagakure will understand! And Uraraka is friends with Todoroki and Mido, so she’s gotta know something, right?”
Mina leaves the kitchen as quickly as she’d appeared.
Sero finishes his coffee and goes back up to his room, before deciding that there isn’t anything of interest there to do before class starts, and returning to the common area. Tokoyami, Aoyama, Shouji and Satou are sitting on the couches, minding their own business. Kirishima, Bakugou and Midoriya’s shoes are gone from their usual place by the door, so Sero assumes they’ve already left for their various morning exercises.
Tokoyami and Shouji nod at him as he walks over and sits on the couch next to Satou. Aoyama is absorbed in whatever he’s doing on his phone; taking selfies, it seems. Sero can hear classical music coming from Satou’s earbuds as the boy himself appears to be asleep, his pencil still in his hand as his partially finished homework sits on the table in front of him.
Sero shakes him. “Hey man,” he says, when Satou blinks blearily at him. “You might wanna finish your homework.”
Satou sits up straighter and looks at the papers Sero holds in front of his face. He takes them from Sero, sets them down on the table again, stares at the blank spaces he has yet to fill, and sighs.
Kouda wanders into the common area, waves a quick hello, and disappears into the kitchen. Tokoyami glances up once before going back to his phone. Shouji watches him go, before turning another page in the book he’s reading.
Bored, Sero stands to go do something else, when Midoriya comes back inside from his morning run. He’s barely taken his shoes off when Mina and Kaminari appear in the doorway on the other side of the room, whispering furiously about something, and spot him.
“Mido!” Mina squeals, and she and Kaminari pounce on him.
Poor guy, Sero thinks as the broccoli boy in question is suddenly faced with two balls of energy peppering him with questions. He doesn’t even have a chance to say anything after whatever questions the two resident gossip queens ( queen and king? Sero wonders. He debates it for a second before settling for gossip royalty ) threw at him. Sero watches as Midoriya starts looking vaguely uncomfortable, a blush creeping up his face and his arms awkwardly wrapped around his head as if to protect him from the barrage of words. Sero is about to go and tell his friends, those lovable idiots, to knock it off, because obviously they’re getting to be too much for Midoriya, when a voice rings through the common area.
“Oi,” Shinsou says, voice weary but alert. “Leave him alone, you’re making him uncomfortable.”
“Really?” Mina gasps. Kaminari backs up quickly, a faint blush rising in his cheeks.
Mina flails her arms. “Mido, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it!”
“It’s okay,” Midoriya says, apparently trying to comfort Mina in her panic over crossing his boundaries.
Shinsou snorts as he makes his way over. “Hope you didn’t forget about that history essay
due today,” he says casually while steering Midoriya away from the other two.
Mina and Kaminari are suspiciously silent.
Shinsou stares at them. “You… didn’t, right?”
They look away in unison.
Sero sighs. “Guys,” he calls, “I’ve been reminding you about that essay for weeks. Bakugou has been too.”
Mina and Kaminari pointedly avoid his gaze.
“Well, we’ve still got some time,” Kaminari says desperately, “I can write something right now, right?”
“Yeah!” Mina’s voice is significantly shakier than it was about fifteen seconds ago. “Let’s do it!”
They run towards the stairs.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sero sees Aoyama’s gaze on Midoriya and Shinsou as they depart towards the dorm rooms as well.
Interesting .
Hagakure is not spying. She is not .
Shinsou and Bakugou just happened to be passing through the hallway she was also passing through, and she was curious, and, well, if they didn’t notice her, that wasn’t her fault.
Bakugou is saying something, and Shinsou smirks. He says something back and Bakugou laughs . For once, his smile isn’t feral.
Hagakure stares . Honestly, his laugh and smile are kind of nice when he isn’t cackling like a maniac. Hagakure absently wonders if she’s ever seen Bakugou not look insane when he smiled or laughed. She comes to the conclusion that she hasn’t. Eventually, she’s pulled out of her amazement as the pair keep walking and disappear around the corner.
Hagakure hovers there, wondering whether it would be worth the risk to follow them. But eventually she decides not to; both Bakugou’s and Shinsou’s senses are sharp, and Hagakure doesn’t want to know what it’d be like to be tag-teamed by them. She has a feeling it won’t end particularly well for her. Instead, she slinks away as quietly as she can, tucking the interaction away for later inspection.
Later inspection, as it turns out, ends up being much sooner than she thought it’d be.
“Hagakure!” Mina is onto her as soon as class lets out. “I need to tell you something! Actually, girls night tonight! I need to tell all of you something!”
“Uh—” Hagakure hasn’t even gotten a word out before Mina is gone again.
She stands there in slight confusion, before packing up her bag and walking out the door.
That night, Hagakure comes down into the common room to find Mina, Tsu, and Yaomomo already sitting on the couches. Mina waves as soon as she sees her. “Hagakure! Over here!” Hagakure sits down next to Mina and pulls her legs up onto the cushions. Uraraka bounces in and sits down next to Yaomomo, while Jirou trails behind her at a much more sedate pace. She sits on the other side of Yaomomo, stares at Mina for a long second, and says, “Why.”
Mina grins. “I’m so glad you asked!”
She starts on a long, rambly explanation — Hagakure wonders if she possibly picked that up from Kaminari, or if he picked it up from her — about how Kaminari told her that he’d seen Midoriya napping on Bakugou, and then Uraraka’s subsequent suspicions of something between Midoriya and Todoroki, and her own rampant curiosity over the whole situation. Hagakure can kind of relate.
“Hmm,” she says, “I saw Bakugou and Shinsou talking together today.”
Uraraka looks thoughtful, while Mina’s eyes light up with a mildly crazed fascination. “Really? Tell me more!”
Hagakure shrugs. “I didn’t see much, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but— you’ll never believe this.” She scoots closer to Mina. “Bakugou smiled! ”
Mina blinks at her. “Uh, yeah. Blasty does that. So?”
Hagakure waves her hand around and shakes her head before remembering that she’s wearing a tank top and shorts. “No, I mean— it was, like, a nice smile. Didn’t look like he was watching stuff explode with glee or anything.”
“...he was with Shinsou, you said?”
“Mhm.”
Mina’s silent for a long moment.
Uraraka takes this as an opportunity to chime in. “Y’know, Todoroki and Shinsou have been spending a lot more time together than they used to.” She shrugs. “I mean, Shinsou’s been spending more time with everyone than he used to, so. I dunno. But especially with Todoroki. I think with Deku, he didn’t have much of a choice.” Uraraka smiles sheepishly. “You know how he is. He’s mentioned Bakugou a couple times, though. So there’s that?”
Mina’s focused look sharpens.
“ Interesting ,” she says. “Very interesting.”
“So,” Jirou says, “is this all you called us here for? Because I think it’s not really our business who they all interact with.”
“I agree,” Yaomomo murmurs.
Tsu looks like she echoes their sentiment, but opts to not say anything.
“That’s what Sero said,” Mina pouts. “but I’m just curious , ya know? And they definitely know that, so I think if it really bothered them, wouldn’t they say something?”
“But Midoriya might feel bad, so he probably wouldn’t,” Tsu points out.
“That’s..true, I guess.” Mina’s face falls. And then she perks up again. “Maybe I could just ask Shinsou or Todoroki, then? Blasty won’t tell me anything, and I don’t wanna make Mido uncomfortable again.”
“Hmm.”
“By the way,” Hagakure says, leaning forward, “is that Yaomomo’s sweater, Uraraka?”
“Yep!” Uraraka leans into Yaomomo’s shoulder a bit, and Yaomomo stiffens slightly before slowly relaxing again. She turns her head away, enough so that Hagakure can’t see her face anymore. Uraraka doesn’t seem to notice. “It’s super soft!”
“You still haven’t given me my sweatshirt back yet, Ochako,” Tsu says.
“Or mine,” Mina adds.
Uraraka just grins.
Despite what his students may think, Aizawa is quite well-informed on the current drama circulating around the class. Particularly, the rumors most likely spread by Ashido and Kaminari about what the heck is going on between Bakugou, Todoroki, Midoriya, and Shinsou.
He hides a smile in his scarf as he watches the class undergo their regular combat training, each of them trying out new techniques and new components to their costumes.
Yaoyorozu and Kaminari are at the shooting range, Yaoyorozu practicing with some guns she decided to try incorporating into her fighting style, and Kaminari testing out the crossbows and darts a certain enthusiastic Support student had added to his costume. Aizawa isn’t sure where the idea for those came from, but by now he’s learned to trust in Hatsume’s chaotic brilliance.
Meanwhile, the four boys in question are taking turns pairing up against several of Ectoplasm’s clones. Most of the fights are over in minutes, even though there’s far more clones than there are fighters. Aizawa is proud to note that Shinsou’s doing well with his staff and throwing knives — shut up Hizashi, Aizawa is not a dad and Shinsou is not his son, he’s just proud of his student okay — even without the use of his quirk.
Todoroki, in a moment of distraction, takes a nasty kick to the head by one of the clones. Immediately, Shinsou slips in and jabs it with the end of his staff a little harder than necessary. It goes down easily.
Aizawa nods in approval. They’ve all come a long way, Shinsou especially, from where they began all the way back at the beginning of first year.
“Bakugou,” he calls, “swap with Shinsou.” Aizawa’s been pushing Shinsou hard, but he needs to see Bakugou’s progress too. His teamwork has improved significantly, but it seems to be even more cohesive with the other three. Aizawa wants to see exactly how well Bakugou can fight alongside one of them.
The boy grunts and stalks into the circle, while Shinsou walks out.
This time, Todoroki takes on a more supportive role, as opposed to his attacks when partnered with Shinsou. He covers them both with precise blasts of flame and strategically placed ice, while Bakugou goes for the semi-literal kill. Within forty seconds, all six clones are dissipating into gray goop.
Well done , Aizawa thinks, even as he tells them to go again.
Ashido and a pair of floating gloves that are most likely Hagakure stand to the side, watching. They whoop and cheer and clap every time Todoroki or Bakugou makes an impressive move, or if their synergy is particularly good for a moment or two.
Ashido whispers something to Hagakure, her eyes flickering back and forth between Bakugou and Todoroki.
Aizawa buries his face deeper into his scarf.
If only they knew.
Midoriya’s off talking with All Might again, Bakugou left to go to the bathroom, Aizawa-sensei took Shinsou outside for some reason, and Todoroki’s just gone, for reasons unknown. Naturally, it's the perfect time for the class to erupt into gossip.
Kouda sits in the back of the room, watching, listening. That’s what he does. He watches. He listens. He observes.
He doesn’t talk much, if ever, but he doesn’t need to. His friends, and the class as a whole, have been overwhelmingly welcoming despite his few words. It’s definitely much better than in middle school, when he was either mocked or ignored for his silence.
“—but I’m just saying!” Ashido’s voice cuts in. She’s standing by Kaminari’s desk, hands flat on the surface as she leans into Kaminari’s space. Neither of them seem to notice, though Jirou does look distinctly unimpressed.
“Yeah, but what are you gonna do if they say no?” Kaminari waves a hand, just barely avoiding smacking Jirou in the shoulder. Jirou leans away. “Like, I guess asking is the fastest way, but what if it gets awkward , y’know?” He shivers minutely. “I, for one, don’t want Shinsou to yell at me again.”
Ashido snorts. “He wasn’t even yelling, you just don’t like making him unhappy,” she says.
Jirou side-eyes Kaminari at that.
“Yes, but—”
It’s at that moment that Kirishima bounds over. “Hey guys, didja get the English homework? ‘Cause I need a little help…”
Ashido and Kaminari’s conversation is promptly forgotten as they greet Kirishima. “Hey man,” Kaminari says. “You want me to help you? I can do that.”
Kirishima beams. “Thanks, man, you’re a lifesaver!”
Kouda turns his attention away as pens and papers are pulled out, just in time to see Uraraka stand up and walk out the door. Kouda doesn’t miss how her eyes flicker to Kaminari’s table and the group clustered around it on her way out. Out of the corner of his eye, Kouda sees Yaoyorozu watching Uraraka leave, before she seems to catch herself and busies herself with her work.
Aizawa-sensei comes back eventually, and everyone immediately shuts up, scattering to return to their respective seats. With a red-eyed glare sweeping across the room, class begins again.
And so Kouda sits watching, silent. He listens. He observes.
He doesn’t need to, of course. He knows exactly what’s up. But for now, he’ll just keep that to himself.
Villains ambush the class on the way back from the USJ, because of course they do. They’re Class 2-A after all, UA’s infamous trouble magnets.
Shouji doesn’t really do much this time, because as soon as the trio of villains showed up — low-level ones by the looks of it — Bakugou, Todoroki and Midoriya had already jumped off the bus and into the battle. Shinsou quickly follows them.
Shouji has to admit, he hadn’t expected Shinsou to integrate so well into Midoriya, Bakugou and Todoroki’s dynamic. Even at the end of first year, when Midoriya and Bakugou’s relationship was still complicated at best — albeit it was much better than that mess the first semester final exams had been — and Todoroki was still having trouble opening up to people sometimes, they fought with a strange kind of fluidity, their quirks and fighting styles slotting into place almost like they were born to fight together. With the addition of Shinsou, the four of them make a formidable team.
The villains are taken care of in less than fifteen minutes. Most of the class stands around on the road while the driver fiddles around with something by the dashboard, swearing when the bus huffs and puffs but refuses to start. One of Bakugou’s explosions had hit the bus during the fight after the villain it was meant for dodged the hit, and Bakugou himself frowns at the scorched dent in the metal.
Shouji watches as Todoroki, and then Shinsou, make their way over to Midoriya.
“Are you okay?” Todoroki asks quietly. Shinsou sweeps his eyes up and down over Midoriya, clearly examining the boy for any signs of pain.
Midoriya sighs, but smiles good-naturedly and takes Todoroki’s hand. “I’m fine,” he says.
“Uh-huh,” Shinsou says, one eyebrow raised. “You sure?”
“Yes,” Midoriya sighs again, “I’m totally fine. See?” He raises his arms for extra effect.
Neither Todoroki nor Shinsou looks convinced.
“Oi,” Bakugou calls, tromping over, “he’s actually fine this time. You don’t need to worry so much, Izuku can take care of himself.” Shouji notices that Bakugou still looks Midoriya over for injuries, despite his words. Shinsou frowns at him, but doesn’t argue.
“I’m just glad,” Todoroki tells Midoriya. And he smiles.
Shouji’s brain keeps chugging along for a moment before it screeches to a halt. Todoroki smiled? Shouji doesn’t think he’s ever seen Todoroki smile before. And, wait , “Izuku”? Since when did that happen?
Shouji thinks he can recall a few times when Bakugou started calling Midoriya “Izuku” instead of “Deku,” but he’s not entirely sure. It’s about time, though; who calls their childhood friend “useless”?
All in all, it’s quite strange.
The four of them, meanwhile, are entirely unaware of Shouji’s sudden shift in perspective. Midoriya gives Todoroki a quick hug, reassures a scowling Bakugou, smiles at Shinsou, and heads for the bus. After one final cough, the bus finally starts up and everyone cheers.
Shouji gets on the bus, still musing over the last ten minutes.
He sits down next to Tokoyami, who’s navigating a blog on his phone, and watches the class’s resident goth start editing a moodboard for his next post.
Kaminari can’t wait anymore.
Neither can Mina, if her vibrating in her seat forty minutes before class starts is anything to go by.
Kaminari is really nervous, to be completely honest. He wants to ask, he wants to know (he thinks he does, at least); but, at the same time, he’s not sure what he’ll even do once he knows what’s going on between the class’s power quartet.
His time to think it over is up, though, as Shinsou slinks into the room, yawning. Kaminari stares for a moment — why is he so unfairly cute, his traitorous brain supplies before he quashes it down — and opens his mouth.
Mina beats him to it.
Before Kaminari can even get a word out, Mina is already out of her seat and in Shinsou’s face.
“Tell me what’s going on with you, Bakugou, Midoriya and Todoroki!” she blurts, shaking him back and forth by his shoulders despite the additional height Shinsou has on her.
“Uh—”
Kaminari snorts, then slaps a hand over his mouth when Shinsou’s confused eyes lock onto his.
“ What is going on ,” Shinsou hisses. Kaminari shakes his head, and Mina keeps shaking Shinsou.
“Tell meeee!”
“Mind your own business,” Bakugou says as he stalks into the room as well.
“Blasty! Tell—”
“No.” Bakugou sits down at his desk and proceeds to utterly ignore Mina’s increasingly vigorous attempts at getting his attention.
She bounces back to Shinsou.
“Are you dating them?”
Shinsou leans away from her and Mina leans in even closer, before seeming to remember herself and taking a step back.
“What.”
“Are. You. Dating?”
Kaminari muffles a sigh, but continues to watch. Maybe this’ll end in disaster for him — it’s looking more and more likely — but he wants to see how this goes down. He’ll find out eventually, anyways; better sooner than later.
It’s clear that Mina won’t give up until she gets her answer, and Shinsou fidgets awkwardly.
He glances at Bakugou, who gives no outward reaction, and then back at Mina.
He clears his throat.
“Yes?” he says.
Ah. I knew it.
Kaminari tries not to wince. It’s not like he hadn’t expected it; heck, he should’ve figured it out earlier. But it still hurt.
Kaminari decides to not focus on that for now, though. So Shinsou’s dating the others; that’s great. Kaminari’s happy for him, really.
“Congrats,” he says, and his voice is not wobbly, it’s not .
Shinsou looks at him, and his eyes soften.
He opens his mouth—
And that’s when the rest of the class starts streaming in.
Kaminari forces a grin on his face as Kirishima enters, claps him on the back with an enthusiastic “Mornin!” and then wanders off to Bakugou’s desk. Mina follows him, presumably to share the news.
Kaminari folds his arms on his desk, puts his head down on them, and pushes the disappointment away.
“So it’s true?”
Kirishima taps on the back of Kaminari’s chair, expression contemplative. “They really are dating?”
“Mm.” Kaminari nods. “Did Mina tell you?”
“Yup.”
“Figured.”
Kirishima’s fingers stop tapping the chair, and he takes a long look at Kaminari’s face. Kaminari looks away, and Kirishima frowns slightly.
“Hey, man,” Kirishima says quietly, “you okay?”
No. Not really.
But he doesn’t say that.
“Sure,” he says instead. Kirishima keeps staring at him, and Kaminari shrugs. “Or at least, I will be.”
“...alright,” Kirishima says finally, still looking unconvinced. “I’m here if ya wanna talk, or something, okay?”
“Okay.”
Six-and-a-half minutes later, Kaminari realizes that Jirou has been sneaking glances at him for… a while. How long exactly, he isn’t sure.
“What is it?” he says. “Checking me out?”
“Please,” Jirou snorts, though she looks somewhat concerned at the hint of strain in his usual cheekiness.
Jirou doesn’t say anything for another minute or so.
Kaminari just waits.
“Didn’t you like Shinsou?” Jirou asks finally, one brow raised.
Kaminari blinks.
Blinks again. Opens his mouth. Closes it, before opening and closing it once more.
“What.”
He tries not to think about the pang when— nope, nooope, not thinking about it.
Jirou just keeps looking at him with that flat, unimpressed stare.
“...no comment,” Kaminari says finally.
The burning he can feel in his face has nothing to do with the sudden question. Absolutely nothing to do with it at all. His quirk must be acting up, or something.
Kaminari lets a few sparks out of his fingertips to make sure he doesn’t short-circuit.
He ignores the burning in his eyes.
Jirou’s eyebrow ticks higher.
“Wait—” Kirishima interrupts as he leans forwards, apparently unaware of the awkward tension in the air. Thank God for Kirishima , Kaminari thinks as he pulls his gaze away from Jirou’s honestly unnerving stare.
“—I thought you liked Jirou?”
Kaminari’s momentary thankfulness immediately vanishes.
Jirou’s other brow rises up to join the first.
Kaminari lets out a few more sparks.
And then he flees.
Jirou watches the blur of yellow disappear out the door, and Kirishima stares, wide-eyed.
“What was that about?” he asks.
Jirou rolls her eyes, but gives Kirishima a half-smile-half-smirk. “Gee, I wonder,” she says. “It’s not like the person you thought he had a crush on is right here , or anything.”
She’s suddenly aware of a… sensation, crawling up her cheeks.
Let’s… deal with that later.
Kirishima’s still staring at the door, but his head snaps back to her at her words. “That’s—” His eyes widen even more. “Oh no! I just embarrassed him, didn’t I. That’s so unmanly of me.” He looks at the door again, and a tiny furrow settles between his brow. “Although, I guess that’s why he was all down earlier…”
“‘Cause of Shinsou?”
Kirishima makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Yeah, probably.”
He sighs.
“I’ll talk to him later,” he says.
“Mm, okay.” Jirou turns around again and waits for class to begin.
“How are your kids doing?” Yamada asks as he and Shouta make their way through the halls.
Shouta sighs and ducks his face deeper into his ever-present scarf.
“They’re not my kids,” he grumbles, for the millionth time.
“Uh-huh.” Yamada grins, and strikes a pose like he’s a reporter on television. “Breaking news! Local father is still in denial about his fatherhood—”
Yamada breaks off laughing as Shouta swats him.
“You know it’s true,” he teases.
“Is not,” Shouta mutters.
“Is too.”
“Is not.”
Suddenly, a flash of yellow and black runs by, and Yamada watches Kaminari sprint away.
“Should we go after him?” he asks, more than a little curious about… whatever that was.
Shouta hums. “No,” he says. “Let him be.”
“Guess they found out, huh.”
Shouta sighs, a weary, drawn-out sound, but Yamada can hear his smile all the same. “Took them long enough. They weren’t even trying to hide it.”
Yamada smiles and slings his arm over Shouta’s shoulder.
And then, because he’s just unable to resist…
“It’s true.”
“Is not .”