☆૮꒰•༝ •。꒱ა

It’s the look of vague constipation that catches your attention, initially.

Izuku finds you in the library. He finds you in the library, on your third cup of coffee at eleven in the morning, hunched over a book and a pile of highlighters, pens and sticky notes for annotations. You aren’t exactly sure why, you don’t see him outside of class, unless required (Debate). When you do, it quickly devolves into an argument the moment he corrects something unnecessary, and you snap. He does it on purpose—you know he does.

So, when you see forest green hair at the entrance, you just sigh, redirect your attention, and wait for him to find you. Silently hoping you won’t get exiled from the library, again.

You get distracted with what you’re doing, and forget about him entirely.

“Hey.”

You jump.

“Jesus—Izuku, you scared the shit out of me,” you huff with hand over your heart, but then you take in his face—his vaguely constipated face. Why.

He places hands on the long desk and leans forward with painful determination, but doesn’t say anything. He wavers, like when your roommate got her ears pierced and you didn’t notice for a week. You blink. And then, against your better judgement:

“Are you…okay?”

The spell shatters. His face goes red, and Izuku returns to himself. You wish you could say that you’re less confused.

“I—Yes, obviously. I just, um, had a question, but I answered it, so never mind.”

With bending eyebrows, and you faintly point to yourself. “You had a question…for me?”

“Not anymore,” he grins, before peering at the book you’re hunched over like a live grenade. “What’cha reading?”

With a growl, you pull the book away from him. Far, far away from him. “Why do you care.”

“Curious,” he shrugs, but it’s with a smile that hints he’s only talking to piss you off. At least, he stands up, up and away, and where you can’t smell him anymore. Good riddance.

“Tolstoy.”

Izuku hums with a nod, and squints his nose beneath round glasses. “Mm, yeah…he’s a little pedantic. You should try Dostoevsky.”

The highlighter you hold creaks under your fingers.

Your teeth grit into a smile, and you pray you don’t explode—one more citation from the librarian, and you’re banned for the semester. And, thanks to your roommate, you really, really can’t afford to be banned for the semester.

“I don’t like Dostoevsky.”

“Oh,” Izuku makes a face of light disgust, like he caught a whiff of something sour, and then it’s gone. You blink rapidly—angrily. He scoffs, and runs a disbelieving hand over his mouth. “Wow, um. Okay.”

You scowl.

“Why are you still here.”

“Honestly, great question,” Izuku nods, and you thank your lucky stars when his feet start moving. “I will, um, see you in Debate.”

“Looking forward to it,” you grin. It’s much more of a wince, and it’s to his back, so he doesn’t see. Then, under your breath, out of earshot, you mutter: “Loser.”

“Oi—Deku. The hell was that?”

“She pisses me off so much, Kacchan.”

Izuku hates the way he goes storming a few rows over and where he’s supposed to meet his friend. His face is hot, probably a little pink because he’s sweating, sweating from the angry little fire brewing in his belly. He hates you—God, he hates you so much—you’re rude, and dismissive, and need to get off your high horse and understand that you don’t know it all, that you’re not some cosmic architect with the secrets to the universe, that you’re just as human as everyone else at this school.

Izuku swears he isn’t normally like his—he’s a nice guy, really. He helps old ladies across the street, takes bugs outside the apartment instead of stomping them to nothing, fucking recycles—but, there’s something about you specifically that burrows under his skin, and makes it crawl.

He sits down in a stiff wooden chair, and kicks the empty one beside him until it topples. Katsuki snorts.

“Yeah, I know,” he nods, chucking a thumb over his shoulder, “I mean—why the fuck did you roll up on her like that.”

“Oh! Um, I have a plan,” Izuku slams a determined fist into an open palm, and turns to the blond. “But, it needs…workshopping.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “And, your plan is to what? Seduce her from her schoolwork?”

Katsuki says the last half as a joke, but Izuku goes silent. Katsuki looks away from his laptop to glower properly.

“Deadass.”

“It sounds worse when you say it out loud,” Izuku whines, crossing his arms on the table to he can tuck his head in between them.

“The hell am I gonna do with you,” Katsuki sighs. Izuku doesn’t lift his head.

“Put me out to pasture.”

“Tempting,” Katsuki grunts, and when Izuku looks, it seems like he’s mulling over something. His thumb rubs at his bottom lip with furrowed brows, eyes distant and thinking. Until they are no longer, and they snap to his face.

“Come with me.”

katsuki [11:15 am]

Code Green.

short circuit [11:15 am]

FUCK YEAH

eijiro [11:15]

holy shit deadass

okok lock in boys, get in positions

hanta [11:16]

,,,we’re in the same room ,,,,

Katsuki leads him to a private study room.

It’s dark, and Izuku doesn’t think much of it, assuming his friend will handle the lights. Instead, a heavy hand guides him into a chair by his shoulder, an articulated lamp clicks on. It’s blinding.

“Um…hello?”

Katsuki has disappeared into the darkness. Now, it’s just Izuku, and a lamp. Alone.

“Kacchan?”

“So. You like a girl.”

Not alone.

The voice is definitely not Katsuki’s—predictable gruff is replaced with something boyish, something mischievous, a voice Izuku recognizes as…

“Denki? And—wait a minute, I don’t like a girl.”

There’s a clearing of a throat, and Denki tries again.

“So. You love a girl.”

“Can someone turn the lights on?” Izuku presses against the chair to look behind him, but can’t see much, thanks to the blinding lamp. “This is weird.”

“That’s what I said,” Katsuki huffs, and flicks them on. The yellow canned lighting reveals Izuku at the head of a conference table, with Katsuki’s friends all gathered with hands steepled in front of their faces. Izuku knows them well, knows them enough, but not well enough for…whatever this is.

“What is this?”

“So. You love a—”

Hanta slaps Denki upside the head to avoid making everyone suffer for a third time. The electric blond whines.

Eijirō looks to Katsuki for an explanation, and Izuku’s dear childhood friend snorts as he settles in the open chair beside him.

“Apparently, we’re out here seducing academic rivals.”

“For distraction!” Izuku adds, wholly unsure as to why his business must be aired, and why Katsuki’s friends seem so invested. He sees them sometimes—at the big stuff, a few times a year—but couldn’t say any time he’s talked to them one on one. Eijirō, maybe.

But, Izuku finds himself divulging to the friends that are not his friends regardless. For research.

“I was, um,” Izuku fiddles with the hands in his lap, because, yeah, he sounds a little insane when said aloud. “I tried to…girls like forearms, right? So I like, flexed them on the table, and gave her, like, a look, but um, it…didn’t quite…work.”

There’s a shared look between the semi-strangers in the room, possibly an inside joke, a train of thought he didn’t buy a ticket for, something he lacks the context to understand. Eijirō gives a thoughtful hum, before turning to him.

“And, the problem is…what. She doesn’t like you like that?”

“No,” Katsuki chuckles. “The problem is that he’s bad at it.”

“Kacchan!” Izuku hisses. He’s not necessarily wrong, though. And, this—his friends could help, probably, but like—

“We got’chu,” Denki insists with confidence, mouth finally free from Hanta’s clutches. “We’re all very hot guys with an equal amount of pull.”

The room sighs, and something tells Izuku that is not the case.

But, Izuku is desperate. Folding is easy.

“…What would you have me do?”

Denki pushes away from the conference table, rolling in his chair for a moment, before strutting to a whiteboard in the front of the room. He pops the cap of an EXPO marker off with his teeth, writes in a faded yellow that’s almost too light to read, and talks into the plastic laminate.

“You my friend, need to—”

TIP 1 — DENKI’S IDEA — PLAY HOT TO GET. (LOSE A DEBATE.)

“…Hot to Get…” Katsuki mutters, reading what Denki wrote aloud, before shoving his face into palms and pulling. “Who let him go first.”

“Shut—“ Denki taps the whiteboard with the opposite end of his marker, “the fuck up, Kacchan, and let me lay down the law.”

Katsuki bristles. “I will blow your face off. Don’t you fuckin’ call me—”

“With what? Your hands?”

Katsuki grumbles something under his breath that Izuku can’t quite hear, and Eijirō groans to the ceiling.

“Guys.”

“He distracted me,” Denki defends, before turning to Izuku with a glint in his eyes, like he’s the next test subject in the lab. He points at the greenette, marker in hand, “Now. You.”

“Me,” Izuku straightens.

“You will send,” then, Denki turns back to the board, lower body bowing as he rests a forearm to write in slanted and uneven lettering. He speaks as he writes, and that just makes things messier. “M—i—xed si—gnals, right? Hot and Cold, you’re there, and you’re not.”

Izuku frowns, struggling to understand how he would even apply such a vague concept. Denki whirls back to the whiteboard, clumsily writing a 1. smushed in the left corner, before starting a second row below it, this time, labeled properly. 2.

“Are these…do they go in any particular order, or are these just general pointers?”

“Pointers,” Denki huffs over his shoulder, still writing furiously, before he pivots. The back of his marker taps the board again with a soft clink. “Look hot. You, my friend, have got to sell the Izuku Midoriya brand, and right now, this ain’t it.”

Denki forms a circle with the marker in the air in reference to Izuku’s…entire self. He looks down at his green zip up and frowns.

“…What’s wrong with my…brand?”

“Ugh, everything,” Denki scowls like it’s been bothering him for a while, Izuku’s ‘brand,’ then turns back to the board. “Send me your closet.”

“Like…a picture?” Izuku asks, because, he kind of needs his clothes, and that sounds awfully expensive to be taken literally. He looks at Katsuki—not exactly sure what he’s trying to find, and the ash blond, who doesn’t seem to either, just shrugs back.

“You dress like a nerd, Nerd—I don’t fuckin’ know.”

Denki, who is now writing 3. on the board, shouts straight into it in hopes the words ricochet enough for them to hear—they do. “Kat, you’d wear a garbage bag if it was socially acceptable!”

Katsuki snorts, chucking a thumb at Denki’s back. “Dumbass is just mad that I’d look good in a garbage bag.”

“Three!” Denki hollers, turning back to the room now, with a huff that has Hanta snorting. “There will be a moment. A Mo—ment, okay?”

He turns his upper body to put stars around the word ‘moment,’ which is already underlined multiple times, circled, and somehow, bolded. Izuku nods.

“Moment.”

“Yes,” Denki nods, pointing the marker at him, before he motioning wild enough that Izuku worries the marker will going to go flying and hit Kacchan in the head, or something, and then they’ll really have a problem. “You’ll feel it—the heat in the air, the glimmer in her eyes. And then, you attack.”

“I just want to distract her,” Izuku pouts, crossing his arms on the table. “Not…attack.”

“Not attack-attack, like—“

“God, I hope not.”

“Quiet, Kacchan, I’m in the fucking zone,” the crosshairs of the marker redirect to his heckler, who bristles until Eijirō places a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Attack as in that’s when you go in. That’s when you seduce.”

Izuku blinks slow.

“But…how do I…seduce?”

“That, my friend,” Denki moves to a different area on the whiteboard, where more words sit, circled and underlined, just like ‘moment,’ “is when your natural instincts come in. Now—”

He pops the cap off the marker again.

“Are you a top or a bottom?”

Is this the moment Denki was talking about?

Where it feel like time could stop and there’s a heat in your eye—is this it?

Izuku didn’t even think you’d agree, if he’s being honest.

The cafe part was Denki’s idea—the study part, his. Denki picked out his outfit, thankfully not too uncomfortable or out of character. (He was a little fearful about getting shoved in skinny jeans, and as great as Denki looks in them, Izuku feels like they may choke his knees.) They worked with what he owned until he was left wearing something a slight league ahead what he normally would, and either you don’t notice, or don’t care. But, that’s—

“Thanks,” you mutter, and take the drink he passes after freezing for a beat too long, eyes flicking back to your textbook.

—That’s something, right?

Despite all the effort he put into this, you wear what you always do, literally—there isn’t much in your closet under than high school mathlete t-shirts and college sweatshirts. He knows, because that’s all he sees you in. Meanwhile, Izuku’s eyes still burn from the twenty minutes it took to put contacts in.

He slides into the horseshoe booth, settling himself a little closer than necessary. Five pm sunlight cuts through the window and into the side of your face, and Izuku wavers, before realizing, no, this is tension, and Denki told him to cut the tension with a bold move. Bold move, um—

Deciding to forgo the recommended yawn, Izuku just stretches his arm along the booth behind your head. You don’t say anything about it.

“We got the topic early, this time,” he adjusts in his seat, returning to the reason you’re both here in the first place. Well. The fake reason.

You hum, nodding the head resting in your hand. “‘Perception and truth are fundamentally distinct’—pretty straight forward.”

“Yeah,” Izuku snorts. “Good luck to the Opposition.”

You pop the cap off a highlighter to run it across the sentence. For some reason, you insist on printing everything—something about a sheet of paper being easier to read, to annotate. But, all Izuku hears is the death of a forest and you struggling. “Why?”

“Because, we obviously have the right answer.”

“It’s a debate,” you huff, looking at him with the intensity of a college professor discussing their field. “There is no right answer.”

Izuku whines in consideration, teetering his head as he watches a mother and daughter cross the street. “Eh. There is, sometimes.”

“Well, I think it’s the opposite.”

“No, you don’t,” Izuku shakes his head, positive that you just said it to spite him. His urge to correct your spite and/or stupidity burns, and then, he has to say something, right? He leans his elbow on the table and speaks through a sardonic but polite smile. “Perception is subjective, and truth is objective—fundamentally, they’re distinct.”

“Fundamentally, you’re a pain in the ass,” you hiss, before fixing your face into something palatable again. “You can argue just as easy that perception is truth, because we understand truth through perception.”

And then, beautifully tacked on, the fin of your argument under your breath: “Dipshit.”

Izuku’s smile cracks.

“Does that not negate the literal definition of truth?”

With a yawn, you pull your phone up to glossed lips. The glare you wear so proud never falters. “Hey Siri—definition of truth.”

Siri bah-leep’s to life, and for some reason, yours is a grown man with an Australian accent.

“Truth is the property of being in accord with fact, reality, or actuality, or fidelity to an original, or to a standard, or ideal.”

“See?” Izuku gestures to the phone with an open hand. “Fact.”

You roll your eyes and set the phone down a little harder than necessary. “Fact is literally—it was a fact that the sun revolved around the earth in the 16th century!”

“Holy shit,” Izuku groans into his hands, completely flabbergasted by your idiocy. “Yes, but we have modern technology, now. Technology, that—“

“That we think is right, but who really knows? Also—get your arm off the back of my seat, you creep.”

“Gladly,” he huffs, and does exactly that.

You end it there, snatching the drink off the table to take a long, sugar-fueled sip. Your lips wrap tight around a plastic straw and your glower never ceases, looking through his eyes and into the back of his skull, and Izuku…Izuku—

What was he going to say?

What was he going to say, because he can’t think of anything other than how pretty those lips would look wrapped around something else, something like his—

IZUKU: 0. YOU: 1.

He hates you.

TIP 2 — EIJIRŌ’S IDEA — LOVE LANGUAGES. (ACT LIKE YOU THINK SHE’S SMART. YOU DON’T.)

“Riddle me this, Midoriya—What’s her love language?”

Izuku groans. What the hell is a love language?

Eijirō is perched at the opposite head of table, the one closest to the whiteboard, tossing a marker in his hand without a second glance. The confusion on Izuku’s face seems to explain everything to the football captain, as he starts to prattle on about something that is definitely not a science.

“‘Kay! So, there’s five, right?” He gestures to the board, to something written in red and done before Izuku’s arrival today. “Words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, quality time, acts of service, good deal?”

Izuku frowns—his head hurts from school already, and you, and now, this. Rubbing a knuckle into his temple, he says, “…I feel like I should be writing this down.”

“Yeah, probably,” Eijirō says over his shoulder without a second thought. Izuku has to shift around him to see the whiteboard better. “Now—looking at the board, do you think you could figure out which one is her love language?”

Izuku bites the inside of his cheek, adjusts thick rimmed glasses, and reads as well as he can between squinted eyes. That, and respectfully, Eijirō’s hand writing isn’t any better than Denki’s—just, somehow, more crooked. At least it’s missing the internet slang.

“Mm…” he hums, and mulls it over, and over, and over again, until he realizes, “no.”

Eijirō deflates a little.

“That’s…fine, let’s just, um,” he looks forward again, tapping the marker on his chin. The cap is still on, but he smears a line of red across his chin, regardless. “Well, quality time isn’t an issue…maybe, like, buy her coffee before class, or something? And compliments—maybe tell her she’s smart?”

Izuku bristles.

“She’s not smart.”

“Oh, but I thought you—”

“So, compliment her and buy her stuff,” Hanta shrugs at the board, before turning to Izuku with a grin, and ultimately saving both him and Eijirō from further embarrassment. “Seems pretty straightforward.”

“Yeah, say she has pretty eyes,” Denki chirps, drumming his fingers against the table. “Girls love that!”

Izuku groans, stuffs a hand into his hair, and hides behind his forearm. There’s no way he’s going to be able to do this. He should give up.

“Too late for that,” Katsuki grunts, reading his mind. “You already got those fuckers involved.”

“I didn’t get them involved!” Izuku says with a shrill whisper, lifting his head to accuse his friend with eyebrows in his hairline. “You did!”

Katsuki shoots him a quick and fake smile, one that reads ‘I know,’ before it drops. His jaw pops under the gum between his teeth, and he moves on, looking towards the front of the room again.

“And, y’know,” Eijirō adds with a shrug, “Maybe, like, a hug, or something—”

“I’m not touching her.”

“O-kay,” Eijirō nods slow, wary. “Well, I think those two things are good to focus on, either way. Oh! And, be manly—open doors, pull out her chair, etcetera etcetera.”

Izuku thinks those are all horrible things to focus on. Compliments? Chivalry? Are you fucking kidding me?

“…Guys, I think he’s gonna combust,” Denki says, eyeing his face. It’s probably red as hell, literally—he probably looks like a strawberry, he can’t help it, he’s pissed.

“I’m…fine,” Izuku whimpers. Though, he imagines the satisfying look of defeat on your face when you score lower than him on your last final of the year, and yeah, no, he’s totally fine.

He’s going to be the reason you fail, and it’s going to feel so good.

“You look good today.”

“I look good everyday, what’s your point?”

The grip Izuku has on the coffee he bought tightens, along with his smile. He places it on your desk.

“Got you coffee.”

Now, you frown, blinking up warily, “…It’s poisoned.”

“N—“ he lets out a sharp exhale, hands lifting and falling at his sides. No matter what he does, he literally can’t win. Just take the damn coffee and be flattered. “Do I look like Maleficent to you?”

You give him a good look. Up and down, studying him like you would a textbook, and it makes his skin crawl.

“Honestly? A little.”

He gives up.

“Whatever,” Izuku says, chucking a hand over his shoulder as he pivots. Luckily, his seat in Advanced Philosophy Seminar is far away from yours—the exact opposite side of the room, in fact. You sit on the left side towards the back, him the right side towards the front. It’s nice to not have to look at your face, but he still has to hear your voice, and that’s enough to enrage. Class begins, and you take all of the participation points. You raise your hand and answer without being called on, like an overactive teacher‘s pet. This is college.

“St. Thomas Aquinas outlined four distinct types of law in his Summa Theologiae, what are—”

“Eternal, Natural, Divine, and Human Law!”

“—and, what’s the definition of Eternal l—”

“Eternal law is God’s rational plan and purpose for all of creation, existing from eternity.”

“Thank you, Ms. L/N. Now—Natural law i—”

“Is the rational creature’s participation in the Eternal Law. It’s the moral code discovered through human reason and examining human nature.”

“Okay, Ms. L/N, thank you, but I would like to hear from your classmates as well.”

The class snickers. You huff, but don’t say anything else. Izuku catches your eye from across the room, mouths the word ‘embarrassing,’ and you flip him off behind your laptop screen.

The next time you raise your hand, you wait to be called on.

“Yes, Ms. L/N?”

“I think St. Aquinas’ biggest fault was associating reason with the church,” you say, wide mouthed and factual, hand still half-hung in the air. It’s kind of cute. “While it makes sense for the time, obviously, most Philosophy was, this risks turning philosophy into a tool for defending pre-set conclusions rather than questioning them.”

And now, Izuku must do the thing he’s been preparing for the entire class. Has to hype himself up for it, actually. His teeth grit, the bitter taste in his mouth already present despite the words still sticking to his throat, and he really doesn’t want to do this.

But also, he really wants to watch you flounder. So.

“I agree with Y/N on that one,” Izuku says, forcing it past his lips in and into actuality. Ew. “He builds a system where reason is expected to say inside a theological boundary. I think that boundary changes the definition of ‘free thinking’.”

Someone else has a rebuttal to that opinion, but Izuku isn’t paying it much mind. He finds you across the room, lips parted and eyes wide, hands tucked in soft balls on both sides of your laptop, bracing for something that never came. Izuku shoots you a smug smile.

Gotcha.

IZUKU: 1. YOU: 1.

You’re kind of cute, though. He’ll give you that.

TIP 3 — HANTA’S IDEA — A VERY PERSONAL, VERY PRIVATE ‘NOT DATE.’ (SWAP SPIT—NOT LIKE THAT.)

Hanta doesn’t even write anything on the board. Just stays where he is, spinning to face Izuku in his chair.

“Okay. We’re gonna pick up where Denki left off with the whole branding thing,” Hanta says with a snap and a point. Denki brings a fist in tight with a small and celebratory ‘yes.’ “What’s something you use everyday that’s, like, physical? Like a sweatshirt, or rings, or…”

“Um,” Izuku goes digging in his bag, hissing when poked by something, before he finds a small and oblong bag full of matching, “No. 2 Pencils?”

Katsuki sighs, massaging the bridge of his nose. “…This is depressing.”

“Hey,” Izuku pouts, and Katsuki gawks, pulling out a hand beneath folded arms to gesture to the pencil pouch like it’s a proper defense. It is not.

“How the hell are we supposed to woo a bitch with a pencil?”

“Easy,” Hanta shrugs, leaning into his chair. “You leave it.”

Izuku nearly gasps, clumsily pressing the pouch close to his heart. “But—”

“Nerd,” Katsuki begins carefully, like he’s coercing something feral out of its corner. “There’s a whole pack in there. You can donate one. To fail. Again.”

Izuku groans to the ceiling, and has to remember why he’s doing this.

“Fine,” Izuku exhales through a tight jaw, because he’s only human, and humans have their boiling points—and his, for some reason, is having to deal with you for more than five minutes, and losing one of his lucky pencils in the process. Looking back at Hanta, he loosens his clutch on the pouch. “So, what—leave a pencil, and then what? That’s it?”

Hanta hesitates, lifting a hand for a breath, before pointing at him with two fingers, “Yes and no. I have another thing—they’re two separate entities.”

Izuku sighs. “Okay.”

“Second thing,” the finger guns flip upward and split until they make a two. “Can you get her alone?”

“Uh,” Izuku almost snorts. Why does this feel like an sting operation? Operation it is, but sting it is not. “…How…alone…?”

Hanta looks up and into nothing in contemplation, and only for a moment.

“Like, a date, alone.”

Izuku snorts, chortles, guffaws, and all the other ugly noises that have weird names to match their weird sounds. Shaking his head, he insists, definitively, “I’m not asking her on a date.”

“I didn’t say ask her on a date. I said get her alone.”

Izuku groans in defeat, and now it’s his turn to pinch the bridge of his nose. There is a Debate this weekend out of town, meaning… “Yeah, maybe.”

“Okay,” Hanta snaps, “Do that—take her on a ‘not-date,’ but not like the one before. Make it private, make it personal. Like, at night.”

“Ooh, night time is so romantic,” Eijirō adds with wide eyes, and Izuku wants to do violent things.

“I feel like that’s going to waste both of our time, not just hers,” he mutters, and Hanta leans forwards on both forearms, squinting his eyes.

“Do you like this woman, Midoriya?”

This feels like a trick question.

“…No?”

“Is two hours of your time not a worthy sacrifice to get her to think about you twenty-four seven,” Hanta asks, with a lift of one eyebrow. Izuku’s head teeters in consideration. Then, he remembers—that face. Failure.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” and Hanta slaps a big hand on the table so hard it jolts Izuku’s soul right out of his skin. “Then it’s settled. Now, we gotta teach you how to talk.”

“I talk…fine?”

“Hey, um—I think I left my pencil.”

This is stupid. This is so stupid it hurts.

You look over your shoulder to the No. 2 Pencil that is, in fact, still lying on the hotel desk he left it on. Today’s half of the debate went well, and tomorrow is shaping to be even better—and the whole team crammed inside your hotel room to make sure of it.

But, it’s late, and everyone’s retired to their own rooms by now. As did Izuku—and, he thinks he’s supposed to leave the pencil for longer, probably overnight, but he cannot, in good consciousness, let his lucky pencil rot outside of its lucky pencil case for too long. So. Thirty minutes it is.

“Oh,” you notice, before you walk there and back, pencil in hand. Izuku twitches, thinking don’t touch it, don’t touch it, don’t touch it, but the circumstances are, seemingly, out of his control. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” He wants to pick it up by the eraser, but doesn’t. Is it possible to wash a pencil? He tucks it and his hands into the leather jacket he got while thrifting with Denki, and sucks at his teeth. Now, for the hard part. The other hard part.

“I was…um, thinking of going for a walk, actually.”

You scoff, crossing your arms and tossing a shoulder. “Okay.”

“And, uh, was wondering if you’d like to come with me.”

Your sour face curdles.

“…Why.”

“Well, you know,” Izuku laughs it off, taking a sweaty hand out of his pocket to gesture between the two of you. Honestly, his plans were to, like, invite you over for a movie, or something, but he’s sharing room with Shōto, and can’t exactly invite himself into to your room, can he? His mouth positions itself to spew a load of bull, throat tight because he really doesn’t want to do this. “Because, y’know, we gotta build camaraderie between Captain and Co-Captai—”

“There is no Co-Captain.”

“Right,” Izuku lets out a shaky exhale, one filled with rage, because how dare you undermine his role like that, literally everyone knows he’s a spiritual co-captain. “Well. Thought I’d extend the invite, either way.”

You waver, biting the inside of your cheek. That’s when he realizes, holy shit, you’re actually considering—

“Give me five,” you grunt, and slam the door behind you, leaving Izuku and his lucky pencil in the hallway.

Okay. Okay, cool.

You took ten minutes to what—put on a jacket?

Izuku tries to keep his cool on the walk, but it’s hard. It’s hard, when he points out a streetlamp and says he likes the design of the victorian ones, just for you to say they’re flawed because ‘sewer gas destructor lamps’ burned flammable methane and hydrogen sulfide fumes from sewers. He turns to you with a frown.

“You’re really depressing, you know that?”

“Thanks,” you beam. It’s fake, but it makes him feel weird, regardless. “It’s a part of my charm.”

Izuku snorts. Stupid.

So, when you pass a river with quacking ducks by it’s edge, and coo, saying ‘awh, i wish i had bread,’ he makes sure to pop your bubble right then and there.

“Actually, you shouldn’t encourage that because they won’t be able to survive on their own, otherwise—they’ll just live in the pond, probably die from malnutrition, diseases, or bad water quality.”

You blink at him with the most appalled look he’s ever seen. You’re…smiling, though, which is a weird on you. It’s weird, all around.

“And you say I’m depressing?”

“Mm,” Izuku taps his chin and hums like he’s thinking about it. He’s not. “Yes.”

Eventually, you two stumble across an ice cream shop. They close in five minutes, and he doesn’t even like ice cream, but you still in your tracks and stare at the place with stars in your eyes. A disgruntled worker behind the counter sighs, and puts their gloves back on.

Izuku buys your ice cream—and gets himself a cone, too.

He doesn’t know why. He likes sweets enough, and definitely isn’t in the mood for them right now. But, here is, with a waffle cone of mint chocolate chip dripping through the grated slats of a metal table. What a mess.

“Oh my God—it’s so good,” you moan past a spoonful of your own, before scooping another and shoving it under his nose. “Try it.”

Izuku doesn’t give himself much time to think—he’s tired, his brain hurts, mint melts over his knuckles, and he doesn’t know if he has enough napkins. With a distracted hum, he takes the spoonful into his mouth, with no consideration of the fact that it was just in yours.

It’s not until he’s pulling back, spoon halfway out of his mouth, that you also seem to realize your mistake. It’s your small squeak that gets his attention, as he looks at your wide eyes, and he—oh. Oh.

Izuku recoils so quick.

“That’s, um,” he remembers there’s ice cream in his mouth, remembers to swallow, forgets to breathe. “That’s not bad.”

“Uh…yeah,” you agree, also a bit breathless.

You avoid his eyes when you take the next bite, same spoon.

IZUKU: 1. YOU: 2?

Ah, shit.

TIP 4 — KATSUKI’S IDEA — GO GHOST. (MISS YOU, OR SOMETHING.)

“Saved the best for last,” Katsuki tosses up a marker and catches it, walking before the whiteboard in a half-hearted pace. Hanta rolls his eyes and Denki groans, but Eijirō just fist pumps the air.

“Hell yeah, Bro!”

“My pointer?” Katsuki punctuates his words with a heavy tap to the board, to what he wrote in bright orange. “Do fuckin’ nuthin’.”

Izuku sighs. He wants to go home.

Luckily, he’s not the only lost boy, as Eijirō narrows his eyes at the board, leaning forward like Katsuki wrote anything other than ‘FUCKING NOTHING.’ “…But—”

“You’ve done the groundwork,” Katsuki points at Izuku, wholly steamrolling his friend. “Now, you disappear. Should be easy if you don’t like her, right?”

Izuku swallows, nods. His hands lift to the sides of his face, and he’s prepared to drag them down at the slightest inconvenience. “Right.”

He hopes he doesn’t feel as unsteady as he sounds.

“So—go ghost,” Katsuki taps the whiteboard with a knuckle this time, before his pacing restarts. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or some shit—make her realize she misses you.”

“Maybe leave another pencil, give her something to reminisce over,” Hanta waves, absentminded, and Izuku can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He’s not leaving another pencil.

“…Okay,” he shifts with caution, eyes moving from the very determined pencil thief to his childhood best friend. “But, I still have to see her though, like, for debate and stuff.”

“That’s fine,” Katsuki shrugs, “the most important part is to go back to how things were.”

“Y’know, Kat, this explains a lot about you,” Eijirō hums with a hand on his chin and a vaguely distant gaze. He looks like some red bastardization of the Thinker. Katsuki whirls around with a look Izuku doesn’t understand.

“Watch it, Shitty Hair.”

Eijirō giggles, but leaves it alone.

“…Okay. Then what?”

“Then, you’re done,” Katsuki says like it’s obvious, and it is, it should be, but— “She fails, too busy missing you to study, and you win.”

He wins. Right.

“Um, are you sure?”

There’s a fist in his lap that tightens when a word flashes through his mind. Excuses. Why is he making excuses? He wants this to be over—he hates you.

Katsuki snorts, and gives him a knowing glance. Izuku is just confused as to what he knows.

“Yep.”

Izuku nods. “Okay.”

Okay. He can do this. It’s not like he’ll miss you, or anything.

He misses you—or something.

Or something, probably, because he still hates your guts. You still piss him off in Debate, in class, undermining anything interesting he has to say. So, vice versa—you say one thing and he says another, and that’s that.

Things have gone back to the exact way they were. Almost.

They did. But—

Izuku (11:34 pm)

hey, wyd?

It was a lapse in judgment. And, a lapse in alcohol. You don’t even respond.

Izuku wakes the next morning, sweaty with a unpleasant taste in his dry mouth. He groans, pulling at the knots in his hair, because fuck, Kacchan said no contact, and now it looks like he’s thinking about you. Which he’s not—and when he does, he gets mad. Because, he hates you.

Finals roll around, and he can’t fucking focus.

Not because of you—never because of you. But, because he feels like he hasn’t done his job thorough enough, and while he’s confident, if you get anything above a 50%, he will be a little annoyed. Maybe, he’s setting himself up on that one.

The morning of his Philosophy final, he gets a text.

You (7:45 am)

dont fail too hard

Izuku snorts, rolling onto his back in his bed, and stifles a yawn.

Izuku (9:05 am)

Oh, I’m passing with flying colors

YOU on the other hand…

Then, it’s 9:45, and he’s sat at his desk with his laptop open and ready, watching the minutes count down until 9:50. In that time, he triple checks his notifications, but isn’t quite sure what he’s looking for.

Izuku feels fine when it’s done. Apparently, the LMS has other ideas.

45%

“Forty-five?!”

Izuku groans, sinks deeper into his chair and drags a hand over his face, sending his glasses askew. He’s never scored 45% in his life, in anything. Social skills in middle school, maybe, but that was situational more than anything else.

45%

How did this go so wrong? And, yes, there’s still a writing portion to be graded by human hands, that should bump him up a little, but not nearly enough. Maybe, the teacher will let him re-do it—this is out of character for him. Maybe, he can feign a family emergency, or cite his mental health, or…or…

Izuku tries to pinpoint the exact reason, the exact moment he lost his grip on reality, when—

Ding!

He sighs, opening the messages on his laptop.

You (12:05)

READ IT AND WEEP BITCH

[attached photo]

It’s a picture of you in front of your desktop, with a thumbs up and a grin. Izuku has to zoom to properly see the score—100%, and wants to throw something. It’s when he doesn’t care all that much, stupidly grinning at the picture along with you, that he realizes—

Oh.

“Fuck!”

He slams his head into the desk. It hurts.

This is embarrassing.

TIP 5 — IZUKU’S IDEA — FOLD LIKE A LAWN CHAIR. (A LAPSE IN JUDGEMENT.)

The debate team goes out for drinks at the end of the school semester. As is tradition.

What isn’t tradition, is Izuku actually attending—normally, he sits it out, choosing to stay in with a movie and take-out to recover his poor battered brain. He teeters in the an entrance of a bar he’s never attended, and severe regrets passing on Tenya’s offer to carpool, as he’s left to fend for himself in a sea of people who know exactly where to go.

“Izuku—Hey!”

Oh, thank God.

“Ochako!” He nearly sighs at the sight of a familiar face, and gives her a half-hug in the threshold. “Oh great, I did not want to go in alone.”

She frowns, pointing at the sign, “You’ve never been here?”

Izuku shakes his head. Maybe this place is popular among the students, or something.

He’s proven correct as he steps in, and it’s packed.

Mainly, he assumes, with students fresh out of finals, just like them—dead and trying to resuscitate, with alcohol and weed and whatever other substance will put a pep in their step. The music is loud enough for him to feel the bass in his feet, for glasses rattle on their shelves. He can’t help but wonder if this is a bar, or a club masquerading as one. Wonders how much business they lose during finals season.

Eventually, they weave through the crowd and to a booth. You’re not here, yet—not that he’s looking for you, it’s just that he noticed—and he slides into the booth along with his friend, texts the group chat, waiting for others to arrive.

“So,” Ochako wiggles brunette eyebrows at him, “you and Y/N, huh?”

“Um,” Izuku frowns. “No?”

She giggles, quirking her head. “Was that a question?”

“No,” Izuku clears his throat, “Um—no, we are not…whatever you’re implying.”

“I could’ve been implying that you’re both excellent Co-Captains,” she shrugs, but Izuku narrows his eyes.

“Were you?”

“No,” she snorts, shaking her head, before pointing towards the bar—or, pointing towards a group of people that look like they’re surrounding a bar. “Want a drink?”

He waves a passive hand. “I’m good—want me to get it?”

“No. Just watch the stuff,” she says, already sliding away. “If anyone else comes and they want something—text me!”

He gives a stiff salute, watching her disappear between shoulders and into nothing. (Or—everything?) Izuku gets a little restless, after that. Nightlife isn’t really his thing. He likes hanging out with people, hell, he doesn’t mind a party as long as it doesn’t get too crowded and he can comfortably perceive an exit—but, the issue with college is, everything is crowded.

“Oh—it’s you.”

Izuku lifts his head off the booth to the apathetic voice, and—oh. It’s you, too.

And, you’re not in a mathletes shirt.

No, you’re actually in a dress—a form-fitting one, one that makes him wonder what you look like with it off, and that’s not a very good thought to have about your Arch-Nemesis For All Time.

“It’s me,” he drums his fingers on the table and he forces his eyes at your face, which doesn’t help as much as he thought it would. “Ochako went to go get a drink, if you want something.”

“Nah,” you huff, sliding into the opposite side. You take your jacket off, which is worse, actually, because now he can see shoulders and collarbones, and Izuku understands why the Amish cover their ankles now.

But, it’s okay—all you have to do is open your mouth, and say something that’ll probably piss him off, and the spell will be broken. Yeah, you’re pretty, so what—so are lots of other people.

“Ugh, I want to go home already,” you mutter under your breath. Izuku snorts.

“You just got here.”

“So?” You turn to him, and he can’t tell if the look of pure disgust is because of him, or the environment—probably both. “And I want to go home.”

“Well. I think you need to get out more,” he decides aloud, which is, albeit, a little hypocritical, but you don’t need to know that. He hopes it’ll rile you up, get you normal again, c’mon, look ugly—

“I don’t care what you think,” you growl, resting forearms on the table. Izuku hates the fact that it makes him lean a little closer. The fire in his belly burns just the same—but, different, this time. Sweeter.

“You should,” Izuku clicks his tongue and pouts in faux pity. “I’m, like, really smart.”

The Final stays between him and his laptop. It was a fluke. A fluke!

He hums, settling his chin on a hand, and watches you take the bait. (Except, the fish he catches isn’t quite the fish he expects—the fish he catches is a lot prettier, and he kind of wants to fuck the fish?)

You groan with your head to the ceiling before rolling your head right. Your hands on the table ball into fists, and your tone turns mocking. (Not that his wasn’t.) “You’re, like, really not. You like Dostoevsky.”

His frown borders on appalled, but there’s a smile threatening the edges. “You like Tolstoy.”

“Because Tolstoy creates a whole world, it’s interesting.”

“It’s pedantic.”

“Your pedantic.”

“Your mom’s pedantic.”

You snort, and narrow your eyes, but it’s not a glare—it lacks the heat. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

“No, that’s the best you could come up with, actually,” he points, and you huff when you realize he’s right. Izuku finally lets the smile slip.

“See? Smart.”

“You piss me off,” you spit, and Izuku shrugs.

“Feeling’s mutual.”

“And I hate you.”

“Likewise, Doll,” Izuku says with a polite smile. To be honest, the pet name just sort of slipped, but comes out relatively condescending, so he’s not too mad about it.

(Why aren’t you ugly yet?)

You falter. Well, not falter, per-se, but you look at him to ensure he knows what he just said. For a moment, he thinks he sees a glint, until disgust covers that sparkle in your eye.

“Never call me Doll again. That was disgusting.”

“Mm,” Izuku hums, because now, he has a theory to test. “Is Baby better, then?”

“None of them are.”

“Okay,” Izuku nods, just enough for you to relax a little, before, “Doll.”

You scowl and kick him under the table.

Okay, now—is it a lapse in judgement that he’s here? Or is it a lapse in judgement that he wants to be, in the first place?

“Okay, okay—f-fuck—okay.”

The genkan bench is not comfortable to sit on for longer than five seconds. Noted.

“Oh my—fuck, Doll, that’s so good, you’re so good, jus—”

You pull your mouth off of him while rolling your eyes, but not the good kind. Not the sex kind.

“Shut up, you’re embarrassing yourself,” you huff, hand working on his cock as methodically as it writes your essays. Izuku likes you better when your mouth is full, he realizes.

“You’re on your knees for me, and I’m embarrassing?” He chuckles, cradling the back of your head. “Right.”

That gets him what he wants—you hiss, and put him back into your mouth with a purpose. The issue is that the purpose has his toes curling, and the back of his head knocks into the wall. If he didn’t have that drink, this would feel much worse, he thinks.

You laughs at him around his dick, which has to be on a whole different level of disrespect, but it only makes the coil in his belly grow tighter. There’s a new determination in there, when he realizes there’s new environment to remind you of your place in.

This might work.

He forces your head further down, far enough that it wipes that gloating look from your eyes and replaces it with something else entirely, as you choke and splutter but don’t push at his hips. He lets go after that, and you pull off with a snarl and a cough.

“What the fuck was th—”

He snatches the back of your head again and forces it down with little resistance. You choke initially, but he lets you pull back to where you’re comfortable. Once you get too comfortable, he shoves you south again.

“Awh, look at you,” he coos, grabbing both sides of your face to move you, and yeah, this is nice, “Chok—fuck—Choking on me like a fucking slut, huh? Is this how you let the football team do you? No wonder you’re so good at this.”

But, you can’t even respond, because there’s a dick in your mouth—his dick—and that makes him giddy in the way cutting you off in class just can’t, building bubbles in his blood and depriving his oxygen. Izuku feels great—on top of the world, even—until you pinch his inner thigh, and he makes a sound wholly unlike himself. Anymore.

His stomach tightens tenfold.

“What—h-hey—”

You pick up the calm, peaceful rhythm that he set for himself—a rhythm he was relaxing into, thank you very much. It’s not his fault. It’s his arms fault, actually. Or, his hands…they frame your face too well, and when you look up at him, he realizes he’s a little too close for his liking. A little.

“Okay, okay, let—let’s slow down,” Izuku huffs a laugh, and thinks he might be drooling—that inhale was a little wet, “Let’s, um—oh shit—”

You choke on him, willingly, and hard enough to spring tears from your eyes. Izuku does not watch the mascara starts to run at the edges, does not watch the way your lips stretch around him, does not look down your dress and into your chest. Nope. Does not.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no—hey,” he coaxes, practically pleading, and massages corners of your eyes. Bad, stupid, dumb idea—wet mascara smudges under this thumb when it slides, and, you look—you look—

“Shi—it,” Izuku drones, slamming his head into the wall (didn’t he already do that?) as his thighs lock, and he spills down your throat. You cough and splutter, and pull off halfway through, and God, you look—

“The hell, Asshole?” You huff, wiping at the corners of your lips with a sour look on your face. “Warn a girl, fuck.”

—fucking stunning.

“Hey, Nerd—”

“Get out, Kacchan!”

“Yeah, no sh—wait, what the fuck—you didn’t tell me she was hot—”

“Um…Hello?”

“Go back to sleep, Baby—Kacchan, out!”

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