Work Text:
It began with an attempt at mediating. It should’ve ended with an attempt at mediating.
Somehow, Todoroki’s preference for cold soba had gained attention from the rest of the class, and the ensuing argument somehow led to Midoriya’s current situation: judging noodles with Iida and Uraraka. Really, it surprised him that no one had noticed before then that Todoroki’s soba never had any steam rising from it, but he could also admit the detail wasn’t really important enough for most people to bother paying any attention to. When he’d arrived on the scene with Uraraka, Kacchan’s declaration of the “proper” way to eat noodles sent his train of thought spiraling into the abyss. Even after he tried to add that noodles were tasty either way, more and more classmates started piling in to argue. Maybe there were too many bodies in the kitchen to notice by then, but he could feel the temperature slowly dropping around them. At the same rate, Todoroki’s frown deepened. Just as he was about to cool everything down, though, Ashido suggested a competition.
The finalized contestants were Todoroki (unwillingly), Kaminari, Kacchan, Ashido, Yaoyorozu, Jirou, Kirishima, and Aoyama. Each member prepared their own noodle recipes (with the judges watching, and the rest of the class waiting in the common room), and Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka chatted among themselves about…rice, actually. Despite the passion everyone else had for noodles, he and his fellow judges had far fewer opinions to discuss about them. On top of that, they couldn’t risk letting the competitors try to cheat by playing into their particular tastes.
For most of the cooking time, Midoriya tried to scold himself out of his preconceived notions—even if Kacchan’s cooking never ceased to amaze. Maybe that’s why his peers chose multiple judges? Having multiple makes it nearly impossible for any of them to pick favorites. He gets along pretty well with any of his classmates, of course, but it’s no secret that he and Kacchan have a pretty lengthy history together. It’s also no secret that Iida and Kacchan get along about as well as vinegar and water, though, so it’ll be hard for anyone to label Kacchan a cheater if he manages to come out on top.
“..iya...doriya..Midoriya! Are you okay!” He jumps and turns towards the voice. Seriously, he needs to get on top of his habit of spacing out like that.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Iida!”
“If you need anything, let me know!” Midoriya laughs as Iida starts chopping the air with his left hand.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, where were we?” With that, the pair returned their attention to the array of noodles set out at the table. The kitchen had been a little chaotic, but thanks mostly to the class rep being right there , most of the cooking had been done quietly. Within a half an hour, most of the dishes were completely ready, with only Todoroki’s, Aoyama’s, and Yaoyorozu’s needing time to cool before being served.
Kaminari presents them with three containers of cup noodles, which he hadn’t even bothered to put into fresh bowls. While that doesn’t really bother him, he can tell it nags at Iida, whose frown carries with it the weight of generational wealth.
Uraraka must’ve noticed it too, because she leans over to him and whispers, “I think we might have to take some points away from him for the presentation! Iida does not look happy about the styrofoam.”
The flavor is pretty much the same as any other cup noodles—warm, salty goodness that he really only savors every once in a while. Anything more than a few bites is always enough to send him visions of premature deaths from poor nutrition, though, so he’s thankful he only needs a taste test.
“Ever heard of okra before?” Ashido asks as she sets down three bowls of a rather suspicious-looking stew. They hadn’t made any specific rules about what other ingredients could be in the dish, but there definitely seemed to be a serious lack of noodles in their bowls.
“Those are usually used to thicken stews, I believe,” Iida says, “but none of you had enough time to make a proper stew. I didn’t even know we had okra, how did you—”
“Don’t you worry about that! And yeah, okra’s usually used in stews, but my specialty is a dish I like to call ‘Mina’s Okratastic Ramen Supreme!’ It’s got a mixture of some of the chicken I shared with Eijiro, okra, chicken broth, and ramen noodles that I also shared with Eijiro.” Ashido speaks with confidence, and her presentation is definitely a lot better than Kaminari’s. Behind her back, he catches glimpses of a notecard she must’ve memorized her sales pitch with, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. The dish itself has a pretty strong kick to it, but growing up around Kacchan and his mother, Mitsuki, means he’s been exposed to plenty of spicy foods before. The flavors are definitely unique, even if they drown out the noodles almost entirely.
When he turns to see Iida and Uraraka reactions, he notices both of them have tinges of red on their cheeks (that is, more than what Uraraka normally has). As tasty as this dish is to him, he might not be able to persuade them on it too easily.
When Jirou presents them with her dish, she looks like she’s about to cry.
“Is something wrong?” Midoriya asks. “I’m not really much of a chef either—cooking is really hard!”
Somewhere in commons, Kacchan managed to overhear Midoriya acknowledging his weaknesses (ugh, the one time!), because he shouts above the clamor of several conversations to yell at him. “It wouldn’t be hard if you actually paid attention when I show you how I cook shit!” Despite how affronted he is about that, Midoriya chooses to be the bigger person. Besides, he has enough on his plate as is! How is he supposed to catch up to his peers if he gets distracted learning to cook? (He asks himself this as though Kacchan hasn’t managed to do both with ease.)
“No, it’s not that, it’s just—” Jirou sighs. “This guitarist I’ve been listening to a lot recently raved about a chocolate pasta dish he had at some fancy restaurant. I figured; how hard can it be? …Pretty hard, actually.” She laughs a little to herself.
“I’m sure it’s just as delicious as that guitarist made it out to be!” Uraraka exclaims. Kacchan, who’d come back to the kitchen to get a glass of water (and probably also to check out the competition), snorts. To his credit, though, he doesn’t say anything (probably because Midoriya shoots him a pleading look just before he opens his mouth).
Unfortunately, warm rotini noodles with chocolate syrup and shredded parmesan wasn’t really the masterpiece of a dish that the guitarist seemed to think it was. They power through their few bites in order to save as much of Jirou’s confidence as they could, and before moving onto the next set of noodles, Iida quietly gives her his two cents.
“Perhaps in the future, should you get wrapped up in another cooking competition, you might want to stick with your flavor over that of some musician’s.” Jirou nods solemnly, but she doesn’t say anything.
In a stark contrast to Jirou’s attitude towards her dish, Kirishima is grinning from ear to ear as he presents them with his creation. “I like to call this ‘Kirishima’s Not-So-Shabby Meat and Noodles Spread!’ It’s a great way to get all your protein in, and…” His voice trails off briefly. “Uh, it’s also a great way to use up meat the others didn’t need?” With the way Kirishima grins and gives thumbs up, Midoriya can’t help but feel like someone was feeding him a script from afar. Sure enough, when he turns in his seat to “fix his sock,” he catches Ashido paying awfully close attention, considering her turn had already concluded. This time, instead of fidgeting with index cards, she’s fidgeting with entire sheets of paper. Where does she find the time for these tactics?
Kirishima’s dish is neither impressive nor unimpressive. There’s something in there that each of them enjoy—Iida goes straight for the bits of steak, and Uraraka dives in for a mixture of the ramen noodles with the spicy-sweet steak sauce. As for Midoriya himself…well, he tries to get a little bit of everything in each of his bites. Bits of okra, carrots, celery, mushrooms, steak, chicken, and shrimp all combine in his mouth to make a unique flavor. The sauce definitely reigns all the flavors in; he can’t help but be a little surprised Kirishima thought of the perfect way to patch up what would’ve been a mess otherwise.
Briefly, Midoriya feels eyes on him, and when he snaps his head towards the source, he finds Kacchan looking in his direction. Is he trying to feel out the competition again? …No, that wouldn’t be like him to do. He’s way too confident in himself to be paying that close attention unless it’s his own dish—and that thought plants another idea in Midoriya’s head. Maybe Kacchan slipped Kirishima a few tips to score better for the competition? Those two are basically best friends, so that wouldn’t be too surprising…huh.
Obviously, Kacchan is beyond confident in his dish. Everyone in the class knows that he’s amazing in the kitchen, so he probably entered this competition for an easy victory. If Midoriya had to guess, his pride might still be wounded from his perceived failures as of late. Getting a victory again would definitely cheer him up, but…no. He can’t give in that fast, and who knows what he’d do if he ever found out Izuku was trying to help him out again!
“You’ve all tried my stir-fry, right?” All three of the judges nod in sync. He smirks, crosses his arms, and leans against the nearest countertop. “I was gonna do the usual recipe, but some idiot forgot the bean sprouts last week at the grocery store, so I had to improvise. I’ve got mushrooms, carrots, celery, and steak in there. Well-done, ‘cause that’s the best way to cook it.”
Midoriya’s slight favoritism aside, the food is delicious. As always, it’s decently spicy, but not so much that the flavor is overpowering. Even without bean sprouts, the mushrooms, carrots, and celery are a uniquely tasty combination. They pair well with the sauce, which, come to think of it, has a bit of sweetness to it…weird. It feels oddly similar to the sauce he ate just a little while ago in Kirishima’s dish. Nevertheless, he and Uraraka are immediately won over, with Iida not too far behind. Kacchan leaves before they can say any parting words (he’s probably feeling even more smug now).
“Is this…cold macaroni and cheese?” Midoriya asks.
“Oui.” Aoyama winks at him.
“With…glitter?” Uraraka jumps in.
“Oui. Fear not, my beautiful friends; these twinkles are perfectly edible.”
…They are classmates, after all, so Midoriya can probably trust his knowledge on edible glitter. He bravely takes the first bite, bracing for the worst, and…it’s actually pretty good. Homemade macaroni and cheese never tastes bad, even if cheesy flavors only give him flashbacks to Aoyama’s… other cheese-ridden schemes. The breadcrumbs are definitely a nice touch. He’s not sure why the dish was served cold rather than warm, but if he had to guess, maybe it had something to do with Aoyama’s peculiar ways of empathizing with people? He’s always been an oddball, to say the least.
When she presents the three judges with her dish, Yaoyorozu looks almost as nervous as Jirou did, but she seems to be handling it a lot better. As much as he wants to check in with her, he gets the feeling that she won’t open up about it in front of everybody.
“Hello, Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka. Today I’m serving you with a recipe we use at home for a family tradition. While I’m not the best at cooking, I happened to have some extra yimian from yesterday. There weren’t any rules barring food items previously prepared, so I decided I would use my old batch of noodles in order to meet the time limit.” She pauses, then, as though waiting for approval. Midoriya glances at both Iida and Uraraka, and when nobody offers an objection, he smiles.
“It’s alright! That was pretty resourceful of you, Yaoyorozu!” The tension in her shoulders and across her face vanishes almost completely. Midoriya wants to kick himself for not having paid close enough attention earlier to diagnose the issue faster than this.
“Besides the pasta, there’s also shrimp, oyster sauce, and cilantro. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to add vegetables.”
“That’s not an issue, don’t worry!” Midoriya says.
“Just as there was no rule for previously prepared goods,” Iida adds, “we also never made a rule that vegetables were mandatory.”
“Mhm! Even without any veggies, I’m sure yours is really tasty!” Uraraka chimes in with a few of the noodles already halfway to her mouth.
“Really? I’m relieved to hear that.” Yaoyorozu says. “Normally, we serve this dish with jasmine tea at home, but…I didn’t have enough time for that, either.”
“No worries! No one else prepared anything extra either,” Iida notes.
Again, Midoriya is taken aback by his classmates’ cooking skills. Admittedly, he’d seen enough of Yaoyorozu’s kitchen incidents to know she was a bit of a klutz in the kitchen, but family recipes are definitely hard to mess up. It’s more savory than anything else—the only qualm he has is the peculiar combination of not-quite-cold shrimp with cold pasta and cold sauce, but that’s also what happens during a time crunch.
“I just wanted to eat dinner,” Todoroki tells them.
“Ahh…sorry about all the trouble! Still, it’s kind of fun to see what our classmates like to eat, isn’t it?” Midoriya tries to bargain with him. As upsetting as it is to be interrupted just before a meal, he also knows that Todoroki’s been struggling to learn more about their other classmates. He’s obviously not the talkative type, and it probably doesn’t help that most of their classmates have already settled into established groups by now. Midoriya does his best to befriend everyone no matter what—in part because he knows well what it’s like to be an outcast, but also because he really does want to get to know all of the really cool people around him.
“...I guess that’s true,” Todoroki relents. He’s a stubborn one, but Midoriya knows that he’ll warm up eventually. In the meanwhile, he’ll have to be dedicated to sitting on his hands as much as he can to keep the cold from aggravating the pains he’s still learning to cope with in his hands. A constant reminder that he can’t let himself be reckless with One For All ever again.
“Your meal’s just cold soba, right Todoroki?” Uraraka asks. Todoroki nods silently.
“I see. Well, I’m sure it’s as delicious as you make it out to be!” He nods again.
“This is the traditional way to eat it.”
When Midoriya looks up from his hands, (had he gotten lost in thought again?) his gaze lands on Iida first. His friend definitely looks concerned about him—not good. He doesn’t really want to have a discussion about his dumb hand pain, though, so he just smiles and refocuses on Todoroki, who’d… also been looking at him weird. He’ll definitely have to do a better job of staying in the present next time.
“Cooking things the traditional way never hurts! If it didn’t taste good, it wouldn’t be a tradition, right?” When he pitches that point, Todoroki smiles faintly.
Ah. Finally, the room isn’t quite so chilly.
Like Todoroki said, soba is traditionally eaten cold, so the dish isn’t anything they’ve never tried before. The nutty flavor of the noodles lingers well after he swallows, and there’s nothing worth critiquing about it. While the noodles are somewhat frozen in places, he guesses that might be an aftereffect of Todoroki’s mood, rather than a broken refrigerator.
With all of the dishes successfully taste tested, the trio get to work on picking their favorites while the rest of the class waits eagerly in the common room.
“I think it’s worth mentioning Bakugou’s stir fry, even though we already know it’s tasty!” Uraraka pitches in. Starting with the hardest decision feels like fate just wanted a laugh, but Midoriya steels himself and sets aside fifteen years of friendship.
“Yeah, Kacchan should definitely be near the top of the list, if not in first place.”
Iida smirks. “Are you certain the others will not try to call you out for favoritism, Midoriya?”
“...That’s been my main worry. I feel like everyone’s expecting him to win—partially because he went all out, but also because I’m one of the judges. But I also want to add that it seems like he helped out some of the other competitors. Did you notice how the sauce in Kirishima’s dish tasted really similar to his?”
“Oh yeah! I was thinking about that earlier—it definitely surprised me!” Uraraka pipes in. “I think Mina might’ve gotten a little help too, because hers also had a similar flavor…wait, do you think he did that to give warm pasta the edge against cold pasta?” The silence that follows is thick. That does sound like something Kacchan would do; when he has a point to prove, he always goes all in . That would also explain why he’d entered the competition at all a lot better than his last theory. He’d definitely be careful not to let anyone see his insecurities, so his focus must actually be on winning against Todoroki no matter what.
“If that’s the case,” Iida says, “then I’d like to remind us all that the original goal of this competition was focused on the noodles themselves, rather than the surrounding flavors.” Midoriya and Uraraka both nod, so he continues. “And of the seven competitors, the one with the best noodles has to be….”
Once they’d figured out the winner of the competition, there hadn’t been too much debate for the rest of the rankings. Because he’d had a notebook and pencil on hand at the time (his current volume of Hero Analysis for the Future ), Midoriya had volunteered to write out their rankings on the inside of the back cover. That way, they could get through everything as quickly as possible. It’s definitely dinner time for a lot of people by now, so they wanted to hurry.
“Attention everyone!” Iida’s shout cuts through the clamor with ease. “We’ve concluded ranking the dishes! While not everyone can be a winner, I’d like to remind each of you that this is just a friendly competition. Just because we picked some dishes over others doesn’t necessarily mean we disliked yours.”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it!” Kacchan shouts back. “Get on with the damn thing already!”
“I was about to, before you interrupted! Learn some basic manners, won’t you?” Iida, flustered from being interrupted, makes a chopping motion with both of his arms. After a few swings, he aborts the movement and sighs. “ Anyways , the winner we selected is—”
“WOAH, SATO!” From the back of the room, Mineta’s yelling completely drowns out Iida’s voice (to Midoriya’s personal shock). “WHERE DID YOU GET ALL THAT BREAD FROM?!” Everyone’s attention snaps to the stairwell, where Sato stands holding a massive platter of sourdough, brioches, flatbreads, and several other kinds of bread Midoriya can’t quite identify.
Sato laughs. “I had some ingredients that were about to expire, so I’ve been experimenting with different types of bread lately. It’s way more than I can eat, though, so I thought I’d store them in a few bread boxes I’ve got in my room until I had enough to share with everyone! I was just gonna leave a note while people were eating dinner, but it looks like most of us were already down here. I can set them down out here instead if any of you want to try some!” Of course, being in a room surrounded by hungry teenagers, poor Sato got surrounded by said teenagers in the blink of an eye.
Midoriya turns to Iida (to his credit, he hasn’t yet lost his cool over the second interruption—probably because of how excited everyone is to eat). “Hey, why don’t we write a nicer list and stick it to the fridge?”
Iida considers this briefly. “…I suppose that could work.” His frown dissipates. “If we do that, it’ll also prevent the chaos of anyone disagreeing with our calls, which would be nice.”
“And the bread distraction will keep people from stampeding the kitchen while it’s still messy!” Uraraka adds.
“Then it’s settled.” Midoriya sighs. Crisis averted! “I’ll head up to my room and rewrite our list on another paper. Can you guys save me a piece of Sato’s bread while I do?” Uraraka gives him a thumbs-up, and the trio parts ways.
He’d only just made it to the top of the stairwell when a voice trickles in behind him.
“De— Midoriya. Got a sec?” Midoriya turns to see Kacchan had followed him. Even though they’re not technically fighting anymore, he can’t help but tense up around Kacchan in a one-on-one meeting like this. If old habits die hard, this is probably the oldest habit on the planet. He grips tightly onto his notebook, even though he knows Kacchan has no intention of destroying another one of his journals.
“Hi Kacchan. Yeah, I was just heading to my room to do something real quick, but I’m not in a rush. What’s up?” Much to his discomfort, Kacchan closes the distance between them.
“Iida wouldn’t breathe a word about who won. Said I had to ask you if I wanted to know.”
“...Oh. Just that?” Midoriya sighs, relieved that he didn’t have to go through another tough conversation with Kacchan so soon after their last one. “Well, while we really did love your stir fry, we wanted the focus of the competition to remain on the noodles themselves, rather than the meal as a whole. So…”
“So?”
“We picked Yaoyorozu’s dish as the winner. Her noodles were the homemade kind, and they were perfect!”
Kacchan snorts. “She’s a catastrophe in the kitchen. There’s no way she of all people—”
“It was a family recipe, Kacchan,” Midoriya cuts in before he can finish insulting their classmates. The silence that follows is…oddly satisfying.
“Mm.” He purses his lips. “...Let me see the rest of the list.”
“Huh?”
“You ranked them all, right? You and Glasses would never leave a job half-finished. Let me see.”
“I’m going to be posting the list later; can’t you wait until then?”
“The fuck? It’ll take you two seconds to let me look.”
Midoriya quietly groans. “Fine, but you can’t tell anyone the rankings!” He didn’t really want to relent like this, but if there’s one thing he knows about Kacchan, it’s that the guy’s stubborn as all hell when it comes to stuff like this.
Kacchan snorts. “Trust me, I’m not that invested.” Midoriya would say otherwise, considering the competition never would’ve happened without Kacchan’s original commentary on Shouto’s preference for cold soba, but he chooses to be the bigger person. There’s no point in arguing over that—it won’t get either of them anywhere. When he hands over the notebook, he already has it open to the inside of the back cover. At first, Kacchan frowns. As quickly as it appears, however, it’s replaced by a smirk.
“Sparky in last place? That’s not too surprising—I could feel Iida’s wrath all the way from the common room—but I’m surprised you guys put that below Jirou’s shitshow.”
“Well…Kaminari didn’t really do a lot of cooking with his dish.”
“HA. Yeah, that’s true.”
“So…you’re not mad?”
“Eh? No. Why the hell would I be mad?”
“You didn’t get first place.”
“As long as Yaoyorozu won fair and square and you guys didn’t put her above me just to keep me from winning, it’s fair.” Kacchan returns the notebook to him (he hadn’t even had to ask!) and brushes past him towards the stairwell leading to the third floor. Midoriya can’t help but wonder if he’s talking to the same Kacchan he’s known his whole life. Had he really just relented so easily? Maybe his attempts at mediating earlier had been more effective than he’d realized! Satisfied with the way their conversation ended, he walks to his door. Just as he twists the handle, Kacchan comes racing down the stairs again.
“Midoriya—one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“If you wanna have that version of my stir fry again sometime,” Kacchan pauses like he’s debating something. He must’ve decided it’s too late to turn back on his offer (and to be fair, it’s definitely way too late), though, because he continues after a few short beats. “Just ask. I’ll make it for you.” His gaze shifts between meeting Midoriya’s and fixating on the wall.
Midoriya grins. “Thank you, Kacchan! I’d like that.”
It started with an attempt at mediating, but Midoriya is thankful it didn’t end there.