#yuuga

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@inmateofthemind @elenauaurs @theleechyskrunkly @thehollowwriter @sunsmilu

@starry-night-rose @tinyvirgodoodle

Feeling dazed, concerned and very confused, Ojiro did what he thought was right and got her a drink of water. He couldn’t leave her sleeping, but depending on her reasons for being in his bed, a glass of water might make for a good peace offering.

Leaving it on the nightstand, he took a deep breath then crouched down beside her, then gently shook her to rouse her awake.

“Hey, hello?”

She stirred. With a soft groan, she crinkled her brows and tried to roll over but he kept her still. With another moan, unable to get comfortable, she woke.

Ojiro felt nervous as she blinked herself awake with slow, sleepy bats of her eyelashes. Then she seemed to realise something wasn’t right. Her brows crinkled further. Her gaze focused on him. Then all of a sudden she shot up like a bolt, yelping as she backed against the wall, like she expected danger.

Though Ojiro fell backwards in alarm, banging his tail bone as he hit the floor, he quickly raised his hands to try to defuse the situation.

“Please don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe."

Instead of looking relieved to hear it, the girl seemed to grow more distressed. Ojiro wasn’t sure why, until she spoke and he couldn’t understand her. Definitely foreign, then. This was making less and less sense, the more he learned.

Reaching into the depths of his Pro Hero Rescue training, Ojiro forced a smile to his face to show her she was okay. Only, when he began to get up from the floor, feeling a sting in his lower back from hitting the deck, she spoke again and he didn’t need to know what she was saying to hear the horror in her voice.

She started pointing like she was looking at a ghost, then tried to back up even further against the wall. At first, Ojiro thought she was pointing at him, then looked behind to see if anyone was there, because surely she couldn’t see him as a threat, but with no one else around, she had to be pointing at him.

“What?” He asked, confused. He didn’t dare move in case she could see something he couldn’t. He swished his tail across the floor, experimentally checking for something unseen, but she squeaked again, pointing at his tail.

“Wait, this?”

He pulled himself up then turned his back on her to give her a full view of his Quirk. He heard the way her words caught in her throat. She stuttered but didn’t say anything more. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her genuine terror.

“It’s just my tail,” he muttered. He swayed it back and forth, letting her get a closer look if she wanted to. But she stayed rigidly pinned to the wall. He turned to face her fully and she flinched. “Don’t you have a Quirk?”

She didn’t seem to. At the very least, she didn’t have a mutation Quirk. Ojiro wanted to ask her many things but the language barrier was proving to be problematic. He couldn’t figure out which language she spoke and it certainly didn’t help that she panicked and flailed as soon as he stepped half an inch towards her, grabbing his pillow like some kind of blockade.

“You really don’t know what’s going on, do you?” He asked. Despite not knowing the circumstances, he found himself feeling sorry for her. Sure, he was confused, but by her reaction, there was definitely something worse happening on her end. “I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”

He reached for the glass of water on the nightstand then crouched down and offered it to her, tucking in his tail to seem less of a threat. He wasn’t used to feeling like a threat, at all. People rarely paid him any attention. He spent a lot of time trying to seem bigger and better, so this approach was rather new to him. But he stayed small, and smiled, and held the drink out for her like an olive branch.

“If you’re thirsty, you can have it.”

She eyed the glass suspiciously. He chewed his lip, wondering how to go about this. He wasn’t going to get anywhere at this rate. Then, struck by inspiration, he lifted the glass to his lips then took a small sip.

“See?” He said afterwards, opening his mouth so she could see he had swallowed. “It’s just water.”

He held it out to her again. Seemingly, it was enough to convince her that she was in no immediate danger. She relaxed, her face softening as she unstuck from the wall and released his pillow from her panicking death-grip. She took the glass.

Ojiro smiled as she took a sip then ran his hand through his hair. At least she was down from the immediate shock but as far as answers went, he was no closer to solving the mystery of her appearance. If only he could talk to her. Even if she knew nothing, at least they would be on the same page about it.

Then he realised. There was someone in this very building who might be able to help.

“Stay here.” He said suddenly, turning on his heel to go. Then he caught his mistake and turned back to her, miming as best he could for her to wait where she was. “Stay there. I’m coming back.”

She nodded slowly, unsurely, but pulled his pillow back into her lap as if she intended to be there for a while. He took that to mean she understood, then headed out.

He took the elevator down to the second floor then dashed for Aoyama’s room. It was a slim chance that his foreign classmate would just so happen to speak the same foreign language as the mystery girl, but given that Aoyama was bilingual, he was possibly the best shot Ojiro had.

He knocked on the door then waited, then waited some more, knocked once more then decided Aoyama wasn’t in. Cursing his luck, he headed back to the elevator and decided to try the common room. Perhaps Aoyama was having breakfast. He wasn’t the type to do early morning training, and even though it was the weekend, the shops weren't open yet. So hopefully Aoyama was still here.

When he got downstairs, it seemed everyone else was already awake and up to their antics.

“Morning, Ojiro!” Called Ashido as she led Iida, Sero and Yaoyorozu in their daily stretches. Many sets of eyes fell on him, alerted by Ashido’s welcome. Drat. For once, he wanted to blend into the background. He gave an awkward wave in greeting then kept his head low as he made for the kitchen where Hagakure was waiting on a cup-o-noodle to brew.

“You okay, Ojiro? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She bounded over to him and clicked her invisible fingers close to his face as if to snap him awake. He appreciated the gesture, well aware he was spacing out as a slow dread simmered inside him, but felt happier to offload his predicament onto her in the hopes of gaining some clarity.

“There’s a girl in my bed…” he muttered, only loud enough for her to hear. But had he wanted to keep it a secret, he should have thought to tell Hagakure in private. She tended to be overdramatic. Now was no exception.

“No way! You’re kidding! Ojiro, I didn’t think you had it in you!”

His eyes blew wide when he realised Hagakure thought she was there by his doing.

“It’s nothing like that.” He hissed, willing her to lower her voice as an embarrassed blush turned the tips of his ears red. But the damage was done. News travelled fast. Rumour travelled faster. And nothing was a secret when he shared a building with nineteen classmates, most of whom were currently in the common area, forever on high alert for juicy gossip.

“What’s this? Ooo, tell us. Tell us.” Ashido squeaked, abandoning her fitness session to eavesdrop. Hagakure pressed her hands to her mouth, realising she had made a scene. But it was too late to hide it now, and actually in a bizarre situation such as this, more heads could be better.

“Something strange has happened,” Ojiro began, noting that for once he had the attention of the room. “But I don’t know how it happened, and I did not have any part in it so please don’t ask the obvious question.” He pursed his lips, wondering if telling his classmates was worth the earache. But his aloofness had them on tender hooks. They might well tackle him if he kept his thoughts to himself now. “There’s a girl in my bed.”

As to be expected, the room split into distinct reactions. Shocked silence hit some, catcalls came from others, and many asked the question he had told them not to ask.

“Who is she?"

“I really don’t know.”

Ojiro was then hit by a barrage of questions that ended with the same answer: “I don’t know.”

Then, finally, when they seemed to have it all out of their systems, Ojiro decided to ask some questions instead.

“What should I do about her?”

He was surrounded by the girls in fearfully close proximity, as they had taken to his predicament like a fairy tale read at bedtime. He could see the nonsensical wonder in their eyes.

“Maybe she’s your soulmate.” Hagakure cooed, as she often let her imagination run away with her. Ochako and Ashido squealed at the idea, whereas Yaomomo – the girl with the most sensible head on her shoulders – pressed a finger to her lip in thought.

“Did you leave your balcony door unlocked? Perhaps she slipped in during the night.”

“Because she’s his soulmate.” Hagakure reiterated, hoping to have everyone accept her bizarre theory.

“Maybe she was running away from someone and just happened to pick Ojiro’s room to camp out for a bit?” Jirou wondered aloud, though she frowned as she said it like she didn’t quite believe her own idea.

“Why don’t you go and ask her?” Tsuyu croaked, never one to beat around the bush. Ojiro nodded, glad someone was talking rationally, only he had to confess he had already tried that approach.

“I did. But she doesn’t speak Japanese.”

“She’s awake right now?”

He could hear the excitement in Hagakure’s voice. He raised both hands to cut her off before she asked to see her.

“She seems on edge. My tail freaked her out. I don’t think seeing you will help.”

Or not seeing her, as the case was.

“Wait, what?” Ashido frowned. “Why did your tail freak her out? Did you do something weird?”

It was lucky for Ashido that she could not see Hagakure’s expression. She did not see the look of insult flash across her face.

“Ojiro would never! If you ask me, that girl lucked out. She’s in the safest place she could possibly be. Imagine if she’d wound up in Mineta’s bed!”

Although Ojiro appreciated Hagakure coming to his defence, he felt a sting of embarrassment. Perhaps it was because he had just been complimented for his kindness. Perhaps it was because Hagakure had just inadvertently called him a prude.

Either way, he hurried the conversation along, aware the girl might be back to panicking up in his room, or worse she might have fled. He didn’t know her, but it didn’t sit right if she was as disorientated as he believed her to be, running about in a place where she couldn’t speak the language.

“Has anyone seen Aoyama this morning?”

As if he had been waiting to hear his name, the blonde Frenchman pirouetted out of nowhere through the crowd, pushing aside the girls so he could make his grand entrance.

“Moi? How can I be of assistance, Monsieur Ojiro?” Sometimes it amazed Ojiro how much Aoyama enjoyed being the centre of attention. Actually, he liked it about him. They were like two sides of the same blonde coin – the dazzling and the dulled. If someone were to fuse them, they might end up as a person with a regular amount of attention.

“Do you think you can translate for me?”

Aoyama blew him a well-meant kiss.

“You say she is foreign? Then of course. I will do my best to interpret her every word.”

It took a while longer to leave the common room while Ojiro convinced the girls not to follow him upstairs, assuring them he would keep them up to date as long as they did not invade his room in a surprise attack, but when he was done, he and Aoyama ventured up to his room as he explained all that he knew. Even if that was very little.

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Part 2: [Coming soon]