Archive of Our Own ^beta

“What do you have?”

Izuku looked up to meet Iida’s gaze at the question, his fingers curling protectively over the unopened note that he’d found in his locker. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Iida, because he did. It also wasn’t that it was particularly nosy of Iida to be curious about it, since Izuku had just been staring at the completely blank unopened note for the last ten minutes and that was bound to draw questions from his friends. It was just a reflex, he supposed, some ingrained defensiveness over his things that he would never really shake, even with time and care and a thousand understanding and extremely nice friends.

Izuku forced his hand to relax. “It’s a note.”

“How curious,” Iida said, looking away for a moment so he could pull on his rain jacket. The walk from the main building to the dorms was short, sure, but still not exactly pleasant if it was raining, which it was. “You would think someone would just talk to you about whatever it was in person, since we all live on campus together now. Who is it from, do you know?”

“They didn’t write anything on the outside,” Izuku said.

“What about the inside?”

“I haven’t gotten that far.”

“Ah, you’re nervous,” Iida said, assessing him. “I would offer to read it for you, but I suspect that would probably be a violation of someone else’s privacy.”

Izuku nodded, because, yeah. That was true. If someone was leaving a note, it was probably important. Or maybe it wasn’t important. It could be unimportant, since notes weren’t exactly a great way to get in touch with people, compared to texting them. Or calling them. Or talking to them in person. Though didn’t some villains leave death threat notes? In which case, that probably would make this note important. But if it was a villain leaving a death threat, how did they get into UA in the first place? And if they had gotten into UA, why go through all of the trouble of leaving a note when they were already there and probably could have already carried out their threat in person?

Yeah, okay. It probably wasn’t a death threat from a villain.

Well, there was nothing to it, he supposed.

Izuku slid his thumb underneath the top of the note and quickly popped it open before he chickened out. If he chickened out, Iida would remind him of the note’s existence (because there was no way Iida wouldn’t do that) and then it would be awkward because Izuku would have to explain he hadn’t forgotten, he was just avoiding it. And Izuku was already awkward enough as it was without adding to it.

Izuku read the inside of the note.

He blinked.

He blinked again.

“Midoriya-kun?” Iida asked. “Is everything alright? Your face looks—”

Numbly, Izuku showed him the note.

There was a moment of silence, and then there were two moments of silence, and then Iida said, “It is unsigned.”

Izuku flipped the note back around, looking at it again as if he expected the words to have changed in the time Iida had been reading it. Honestly, Izuku would have been less shocked if they had, because, well…

I like you.

Izuku wasn’t exactly…crush-worthy. He was plain-looking. He was more than a little bit mentally unstable, according to Hound Dog. He’d drunk too much bone-breaking juice in his lifetime and not enough milk. He snapped and crackled and popped whenever he stretched like he was a bowl of Rice Krispies, and he had more scars than he had regular skin. Also, he talked. A lot. About not very important things.

“Midoriya-kun…?” Iida prompted, and Izuku realized he’d been thinking too much about glowstick bones and how truly undateable they made him and not enough about how to actually have a conversation with his friend about how undateable his glowstick bones made him.

“Sorry,” Izuku said, though he didn’t really know what he was apologizing for. Another reflex, at this point, he supposed. “Yeah, sorry. Um. Right. Anyway, do you recognize this handwriting?”

Iida looked unimpressed for a long moment before he seemed to take pity on Izuku and looked at the note again, zipping his raincoat up to his nose and back down again while he studied it. That was something about Iida Izuku had noticed a long time ago—he didn’t really like to have idle hands either.

“My deepest apologies, Midoriya-kun, but I don’t think that I do,” Iida said.

“Ah, that’s too bad! I was going to, uh, ask them. Whoever they were. What it meant, you know. But if anyone was going to recognize the handwriting it would be you, since you know everyone’s handwriting best, being class president, and everything. But you do not. So, yeah.” There was a long, awkward pause, and then Izuku held the note up like one would a finger when they had a particularly striking idea. “Anyway. They probably got the wrong locker, whoever they are. Maybe it’s for you, Iida?”

Izuku eyed his friend. Actually, it seemed likely. Iida was nice. More than willing to help people. Very fit. Very tall. Even more reliable than he was nice, helpful, fit, and tall. And fast, too! He was fast. And his Quirk was really amazing, the fact that he could reach speeds faster than cars by running was just—

Iida waved his hands in front of his face, a bit of pink coming onto his cheeks at that. “No, no! It is most certainly not for me! I’m sure it’s for you, Midoriya-kun! It is quite difficult to mix up these lockers, as you may know.”

“Right,” Izuku said, because he recognized Iida’s distressed hand chops and therefore knew that arguing wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

There was still no way the note was his, though.

“Anyway,” Izuku said, casting about for somewhere to stick the note that was not his. He came up with nowhere, and so he sat it back in his locker instead, taking his umbrella out and closing it gently. “I’ll just keep that safe there until I figure out who it was really meant for. That sounds like a good plan.” Yeah, right. That note was going to disintegrate in that locker before Izuku worked up the courage to go around asking people if they were expecting crush confessions they hadn’t gotten. That was a ridiculous thought itself, actually. How would people even know to expect crush confessions? They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t because crush confessions were either a surprise or they hadn’t happened yet.

Izuku shook the thought from his head, turned abruptly, and marched towards the exit. There were shuffling noises behind him, and then Iida’s voice as he tried to catch up to him. “Midoriya-kun, wait! What are you going to do about the note?”

“It’s not for me!” Izuku called, as he opened his umbrella and walked out into the rain.

“Midoriya-kun! You know what Hound Dog said about running away from social interactions!”

Izuku turned his umbrella so it blocked out the worst of the wind and ran for it. Iida chased after him, because that’s just who Iida was.

They were both soaking wet when they got to the dorms.

Due to the way Iida’s voice carried in echoey places and the way they’d tumbled into Heights Alliance the night before in an arguing puddle, everyone in the class had figured out that Izuku had a “secret admirer” within minutes. By the end of the night, Izuku had implemented end of the world measures—i.e., he had locked himself in his room and refused to come out.

However, end of the world measures didn’t work when he was required to attend class in the morning with everyone anyway.

The morning, before Aizawa emerged from his sleeping bag chrysalis and silenced them all, was filled with chatter about Izuku’s secret admirer. It was also filled with questions directed to Izuku about his secret admirer, which he stuttered and stammered his way through and otherwise didn’t do much else about.

And then lunch happened.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Izuku said, as soon as he was surrounded by his friends as he packed up his stuff at his desk.

“Midoriya-kun,” Iida said, and Izuku already felt like he knew what was coming, since he’d heard it on his very wet sprint back to the dorms last night. “It’s not very plus ultra of you to not even attempt to locate the person that left the note.”

“Yeah, Deku-kun,” Uraraka said, grinning almost mischievously at him. “It’s not very plus ultra of you to give up!”

“I’m not giving up!” Izuku said. Shouted. Said-shouted. “The note isn’t for me, anyway!”

“Who else would it be for—kero?” Tsuyu asked, tilting her head in curiosity as she did.

“I don’t know! Iida-kun?”

“I assure you it’s not mine,” Iida said. “It was in your locker, after all.”

“It could have been put in the wrong locker.”

Iida sighed.

“I think you’re probably just scared,” Uraraka said, her voice light and teasing. “You don’t want to admit that someone would have a crush on you.”

“That’s—” Izuku was going to say it wasn’t true, but stopped himself, because it was. He changed direction instead. “Well, why would they?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Uraraka argued, raising one brown eyebrow as she did. “You’re nice, you’re handsome, you’re very heroic—”

“He nearly died at least fifteen times in the last three months alone,” Todoroki quietly argued.

Izuku pointed at him. “See, this man makes sense. You should trust him.”

“He’s very heroic,” Uraraka insisted, shooting Todoroki a look. Todoroki blinked back at her blankly.

“He is very heroic—kero. You can’t argue with that much.”

“Guys, come on,” Izuku said, because a note was bad enough but actually hearing compliments being spoken from someone’s mouth was worse. “None of that’s true. Hound Dog says I’m unhinged and I don’t have healthy coping mechanisms—”

“You shouldn’t use your sessions with Hound Dog as grounds to argue against your merits!” Iida said, sounding scandalized. “That’s very counteproductive to why you have sessions with Hound Dog in the first place!”

Izuku shrugged. “I also drank too much bone-breaking juice and not enough milk—”

“I don’t think that milk actually makes bones stronger,” Todoroki said, sounding vaguely amused. Maybe. Just a little bit. It was sometimes hard to tell with Todoroki. Actually, it was always hard to tell with Todoroki.

“And!” Izuku said, pointing at Todoroki, since he was the only person backing him up right now. “And, I snap, crackle, and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies whenever I walk.”

“It’s true,” Todoroki confirmed. “You do indeed do that.”

“See?” Izuku said, proudly turning to the others, his argument successfully and irrefutably delivered. “I’m very not dateable. Those are all bad qualities. Nobody sane would like me, you know? So for whoever wrote the note’s sake…it was to someone else. It had to have been.”

There was a moment of heavy silence afterwards, and all of Izuku’s friends looked at him. He looked back, growing more and more fidgety the longer it went on.

“Midoriya,” Todoroki said, ever the bringer of peace to the storms that were Izuku’s rampant anxiety. Izuku looked at him hopefully, expecting him to agree all bluntly and Todoroki-like so they could move on completely from the whole affair afterwards. There was no arguing with Todoroki. Not unless you were willing to break all the bones in your hand to do it, and Izuku certainly wasn’t doing that again. He hoped. “I would date you.”

Any and all thoughts about Todoroki being on his side vanished like a whisper on the wind. Izuku stared. He spluttered. He turned red. He died at least four times and then came back to life five, and Todoroki just stood there, looking back at him patiently the whole time, no particular expression on his face.

“What?”

There, yes, a word. It was a slow-coming word. A hard-earned word. Fought for in embarrassment and anxiety and an incurably expressive face alike, but it was a word, and Izuku had gotten it out.

Todoroki nodded to himself. “Yeah. I would date you.”

“You—” Ah, yes, another word. Now he just had to keep them coming. “You…” Nope, that was the same word, it didn’t count. “…would date…me?”

“Sure,” Todoroki said, like it wasn’t an earth-shattering revolution.

“Sure,” Izuku echoed. “Hey, Todoroki-kun, you weren’t the one that left the note, were you?”

“No,” Todoroki said. “I’m just saying I would date you. As a comfort thing.”

“Oh!” Izuku said. “So you don’t really mean it then?”

“No, I mean it.”

Izuku felt dangerously close to combustion.

Uraraka chose that moment to laugh, saving him from trying to come up with something he could say in response.

And then she promptly ceased any and all saving efforts. “I would date you too, Deku-kun! Well, I’m taken, and gay, but if I weren’t, I would date you.”

Tsuyu gave them all an amused look. “I would also date you—kero.”

Iida coughed delicately into his hand. “I, too, would date you, Midoriya-kun.”

“Right,” Izuku said. “Sure. Um…are you all sure that none of you wrote the note?”

“Not me!”

“Sorry, Midoriya-chan.”

“It wasn’t I.”

“I already said I didn’t,” Todoroki said.

“The point,” Uraraka said, turning tail and leading the charge towards the open classroom door instead of loitering about Izuku’s desk, “is that you’re very much dateable, Deku-kun! Anybody would be lucky to have you. And therefore, the note is probably for you!”

“I—” Izuku started, but never finished, because they stepped out into the hallway in the midst of the entirety of Class B walking by them. He scanned their ranks quickly, double-checking for blond hair as he did. He spotted Tsunotori and Honenuki, but missed the one he was looking for completely. Then he waved back to Kendou, because she waved first.

“You what?” Uraraka asked, looking at Izuku over her shoulder as she did.

“Is Monoma-kun not with the rest of Class B?” Izuku asked.

All of his friends paused and scanned the passing students themselves, because they were just like that. Helpful. Nice. Good friends. Honestly, he would probably date all of them too. He didn’t really think he wanted to, because, well…

“I don’t believe so,” Iida said, raising one hand to shield his eyes as if he was blocking out the sun to see better, despite them being in an artificially lit hallway.

“Huh,” Izuku said. “He’s always with his class.”

“He’s probably just in the bathroom, Deku-kun,” Uraraka said, turning back around and starting their trek towards the lunchroom again.

Yeah. The bathroom. He was probably just in the bathroom.

Totally.

Izuku wasn’t sure when it was that he first developed feelings for Monoma.

It definitely hadn’t been when Izuku met him. It hadn’t been a lot of the times afterwards either, definitely not. Monoma wasn’t exactly likeable. He definitely wasn’t crushable. As in, it was unlikely Izuku would develop a crush on him, back then. Not as in he couldn’t be crushed, because he most definitely could be. Unless he nabbed Kirishima’s or Tetsutetsu’s Quirk immediately beforehand, but even then, the crushing could still happen, he just would be more likely to survive it.

And Izuku had completely lost his train of thought.

Right.

So, crushable, Monoma was not. And yet crush Izuku did.

Actually, if he had to put his finger on it, it was the exercise near the end of their first year when it all started. The joint exercise, where Izuku fought him. Well, Izuku mostly fought Shinsou and Uraraka mostly fought Monoma, but still. Izuku had seen a little bit of something then that he hadn’t necessarily seen before.

And that something was that Monoma was, in a way, similar to him.

Izuku thought it probably smarted the same way to be told that you couldn’t fulfill your dream by somebody else regardless of whether you had a Quirk to console yourself with or not. And so, Izuku thought that they were similar, briefly, for that one moment, and then everything else spawned from there.

Once he saw himself in Monoma, it wasn’t hard to see why Monoma would be desperate for a little bit of the spotlight. It also wasn’t hard to see why that desperation would turn into the one-sided competition Monoma had started with 1A. It wasn’t hard to see why he would dislike people like Kacchan, who seemingly had the world handed to them on a silver platter.

Izuku was good with Kacchan. He had been for a long time now, but he would be lying if he said the thought had never crossed his mind. Jealousy, anger, resentment at being so close to someone that so clearly resembled everything he couldn’t have—those were all things that Izuku had felt about Kacchan in the past. Even now, sometimes, on days where Izuku failed in a particular training mission or bones—his bones, more often than not—got broken, he still felt them.

So he understood. He understood what it felt like to look at someone and think of them as golden compared to oneself. He knew, and for the first time, he saw in Monoma what he knew what was inside himself, and so he thought about it.

It was different, Izuku thought. Being viewed as weak—even if you never thought of yourself as weak—it did something to your mindset. It birthed something in you that you couldn’t understand unless you had it yourself, and some people rolled over and accepted the stigma, and some fought against it.

And there was, of course, the time he tried to copy Eri’s Quirk.

Monoma was loud. He was brash. He was entitled and self-absorbed, obsessed with being the best. Honestly, in those ways, he was a lot like Kacchan. It was probably why he hadn’t been crushable before, at least not to Izuku, because it would be like having a crush on Kacchan. And if Izuku was going to have a crush on Kacchan, he would probably just have it on Kacchan himself.

But he was also quiet and deliberate, when he had no one to put on a show for. He was intelligent, and probably more than a little bit caring too.

Izuku remembered it clearly, how it seemed a bit like a switch had been flipped, as soon as Monoma was inside the teachers dorms, separate from the rest of his class. He was still sharp but sharp like a razor blade instead of like a knife, not as good at killing but just as capable of wounding. He’d been quiet as he touched Eri’s hand and then explained he drew a blank.

And…people didn’t end up in UA if they didn’t have a reason for wanting to become a hero. It wasn’t like hero work really drew the usual crowd—heroes in training came for the spectacle. They came because they wanted to help people. They came because all of them—not just Monoma—wanted a moment in the spotlight, a time to shine, a person they could hold their hand out to and say “I am here to help.”

Every single one of them wanted that, in some part of their being. They wouldn’t have become heroes otherwise.

And so Izuku’s curiosity bred more curiosity, which bred more curiosity, until finally he was burning up with questions he was itching to ask. Then, those questions carried him directly to the corner of the lunchroom that Monoma held court in one day.

“Why do I want to be a hero?” Monoma asked, sounding incredulous, maybe a little bit surprised. “That’s your question?”

This was after they’d gotten through all of the “look at Class A’s Golden Boy, come to grace us lowly peasants with his presence” and the “well go on then, get your bragging out of the way.” (Izuku had kindly ignored that up to that point, Monoma had been the only one bragging.) This was also the first time that Izuku had ever approached him of his own volition without needing a class exercise of some sort to prompt it.

Honestly, Izuku didn’t know what had gotten into him. That was a lie, it was the curiosity. According to All Might, Izuku had all the impulsivity of the best heroes. According to Aizawa, Izuku was a reverse problem magnet—meaning the problems drew him to them. According to Kacchan, Izuku was nosy. Ironic, really, considering of the two of them Izuku wasn’t the one that listened in on private conversations in random hallways during the Sports Festival.

“That’s my question, yeah,” Izuku said, doing his best not to feel awkward.

He felt awkward anyway. It was partly because he was standing, while Monoma and all of Monoma’s friends sat. Monoma ate with Tokage across from him, Tetsutetsu next to him, and Kendou diagonal from him, and all three of them were doing their best to act like they weren’t staring at Izuku while they blatantly stared at Izuku. It was also partly because Izuku was still holding his lunch tray and not eating as he stood there. And it was also, and mostly, awkward because all of Izuku’s friends were making no effort at all to disguise that they were staring, even halfway across the cafeteria.

Monoma gave him a suspicious look. “Why do you care?”

“I’m just…curious,” Izuku said. “You know.”

“You’re collecting information on the enemy to use against us, aren’t you?”

“Monoma-kun…” Izuku trailed off, reaching behind his head to rub at the back of his neck. “I don’t know how to break this to you, really, but the only people that care about the Class A/Class B rivalry are you guys.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Tetsutetsu asked, choosing this moment to own up to the fact that he’d been eavesdropping this entire time, which Izuku already knew was happening. “You think you’re too good for us? Are we not even worth your time or something?”

Right. Oh, boy. This was going very terribly already.

“That’s not what I meant!” Izuku exclaimed. As it were, if his hands were free, he would most certainly have been waving them about. He had to settle for slightly vibrating his lunch tray instead. “I just meant we all want to be friends, you know? Friendly. Nice. On good terms. We don’t want to…you know. Fight you.”

“You were plenty ready to crush us last time we had battle training together,” Tetsutetsu said. “Didn’t feel all that friendly to me when we were all—”

“I want to be a hero for three reasons,” Monoma said, swiftly interrupting Tetsutetsu by holding up three fingers. He was gazing sharply at Izuku, his eyes almost burning in how intense they were. Izuku felt himself swallow, unsure, as he met Monoma’s gaze. Honestly, he was kind of surprised that Monoma was answering him at all.

“Reason Number One.” Monoma dropped one of his fingers. “It’s a well-paying job. Sometimes you have to risk your life, but do well and save a lot of people, and otherwise, you’ll live nice and comfortable. I have somewhat expensive tastes.” Monoma paused here, peering out at Izuku from beneath his heavy eyelids. If Izuku wasn’t mistaken, Monoma looked almost unsure. Not expression-wise, though, that was the same. The difference was in his eyes. There was a sharp edge that usually there that wasn’t there right now.

Izuku thought he might be waiting for criticism.

“Reason Number Two.” Another finger went down. “I want to stand out. I want people to look at me. I want them to see me. I work hard, and it’s obvious I would want to see that pay off. Fame, success, money. I want all three things, and being a hero is a good way to get them.”

Izuku nodded along with that too. It made sense, really, that Monoma would be after fame. Monoma had honestly been upfront about the fact that he was after fame since the first time that Izuku had met him. That was nothing new. It was nothing surprising.

“What, nothing to say for yourself, Golden Boy?” Monoma asked, his last finger still up in the air. He raised one eyebrow, haughty and intense. But it was there again, that uncertainty in his eyes. Monoma was bluffing. “Not going to tell me my aspirations aren’t very heroic and I should be looking into other careers if all I want is fame and money?”

“No, I’m not,” Izuku said, clenching his tray tighter as he looked at Monoma. “For one thing, I haven’t heard all of your reasons yet, and for another, there’s nothing wrong about wanting to go into a career field just to look out for yourself in some way. Besides, it takes a certain person to be a hero anyway. It’s not something everyone wants to do. It’s not something everyone can do. And so if you’re willing to…” Izuku trailed off, not sure what he had to say was really enough. He shrugged and said it anyway, though. “If you’re willing to, for whatever reason you’re willing to, you should.”

Monoma stared up at him for a long, long time.

Izuku stared back.

Monoma looked away and dropped his final finger. “My third reason is that I want to be a role model. I want to be a hero so little kids like me will see that they can make their dreams come true, even if they have a weak Quirk that’s not suited to heroics. I want them to see me and know that it’s possible for them to be whatever they want to be too.”

“I see,” Izuku said. And then he very quickly and very swiftly discovered he was not very eloquent at the moment and therefore not equipped for this conversation he had decided to start. He shuffled awkwardly, since shuffling was all he could do while standing around and holding a lunch tray. Well. There was nothing to it but leaving, then. “Thanks for answering my question!” Izuku called, turning to walk away.

“Hey!” Monoma shouted.

Izuku really, really wanted to walk away faster, just out of pure embarrassment alone.

“Yeah?” Izuku asked instead. He owed Monoma that much at least, for being so weird in the first place. He didn’t turn back around though.

“That’s it?” Monoma asked. Izuku heard the sound of a chair scraping and turned to look back now. Monoma had stood and was walking towards, all the swagger he usually carried with him oozing out of every facet of his posture. He smirked, he raised one eyebrow slightly, he tilted his head. “You’re not going to brag about how great and noble your aspirations are? That’s not very—”

“I already told you I’m not interested in fighting you, Monoma-kun.” Izuku paused here, balancing his tray on one of his hands so he could awkwardly rub the back of his neck with the other one. He caught sight of the scars decorating his arm like candy cane stripes as he did. Why he wanted to be a hero… “Besides, to tell you the truth, I think my reasons for being a hero need a little bit of workshopping anyway.”

“No more saving people with a smile?” Monoma asked, folding his arms across his chest. “I swear I’ve heard you say that line at least ten times.”

Izuku felt a small smile curling at his lips and ducked his head to hide it. “Well, there’s that. There will always be that, you know? But I wanted to do that because I looked up to All Might. I want to come up with something for me, you know? The Hero Deku. What my goals are.”

“Sounds complicated,” Monoma said, tilting his head to the side. A moment passed, and then his lips curled up into a full-blown smirk too. “You sure you up for the challenge of figuring that one out, Golden Boy?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Izuku said. “I’m always up for a challenge. It’s practically my thing, at this point.”

“Hey, Deku-kun!” Uraraka shouted, from Izuku’s usual table with all his friends. Izuku looked over his shoulder and noticed her half standing, one arm raised to get his attention. She gestured for him to come over, not being subtle about it at all.

Izuku turned back to Monoma with a grimace. “That’s my cue. Thanks for answering my question, though.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Monoma said, but it lacked the usual bite. “Run back to your little Class A friends, if that’s what you want. It’s not like I care.”

Izuku thought that he might care at least a little bit, though.

“Sure,” Izuku said, turning to go for real this time. “I’ll see you around, Monoma-kun.”

“Hey, Midoriya.” Izuku paused, looking at Monoma with wide eyes. He was certain he’d heard Monoma say his actual name before, because he had to have, right? In any case, it was rare. Rare enough to make this moment feel like it was important. “Let me know if you figure it out. I’d be interested to hear it.”

Izuku grinned, feeling all light and bubbly inside. It was like Uraraka had used her Quirk on him, like Todoroki had put a frosty hand on the back of his neck, like he was being carried by Iida while he used Recipro Turbo.

It was the feeling of a new friend.

“Of course,” Izuku said.

He was still a little bit red by the time he got back to his own table.

Izuku’s curiosity still bred curiosity, which bred more curiosity.

And so that night—not the night of the secret admirer incident but the next day—he took his note out of his pocket and he looked at it and he wondered…he wondered.

He didn’t think he actually knew what Monoma’s handwriting looked like. But he thought it might look something like this—straight up and down, evenly spaced, perfectly centered on the page.

He wondered.

It was two days after the mystery confession, and for the first time in a long time, Izuku was treated to Monoma’s elbow in the back of his skull as he ate with his friends at lunch time. It stayed there too, digging uncomfortably into Izuku’s head.

“Whoopsies,” Monoma said, sounding a lot like the old Monoma. Haughty, self-assured. Looking to pick a fight with whoever was willing to rise to the bait.

Izuku was confused.

“Looks like that big head of yours got in the way again, Golden Boy,” Monoma said. Izuku chanced a peek up at him, though it was undeniably awkward given the angle of his head and the way Monoma’s elbow was still digging into it. Monoma looked undeniably unhinged—unhinged was maybe not the best word for it but it was the only word that Izuku could come up with—with his eyes gleaming and his smile wide and manic. He was wrong, though, it wasn’t exactly like the old Monoma. There was something different about it.

Monoma also hadn’t called him Golden Boy quite like that in a while.

“Sorry?” Izuku said, because the days where he bore Monoma’s Monoma-ness in silence had passed long ago.

“You heard me,” Monoma said, digging his elbow in a little more. “I hear someone has a secret admirer. I bet that must be nice—feeling so self-important that you think that someone would admire you secretly. Really, that person probably just didn’t want to admit to liking someone as awful as you, you know, or—”

“Monoma!”

Izuku looked away from Monoma to Kendou, still shocked and reeling from the words. Even shocked as he was he noticed something—Kendou, for once, hadn’t hit Monoma to stop his rants. She was just standing there, staring at him, looking shocked and hurt. The latter of which was an emotion that Izuku should have had the monopoly on at that moment.

Monoma laughed sharply, shoving off of Izuku now with enough force to knock Izuku’s head down a bit. “You’re right, Golden Boy. Nobody sane would like you.”

It was Todoroki that caught it first, unsurprisingly. “You were listening to our conversation in the classroom yesterday.”

“Tch,” Monoma said. “Maybe I was. Like it—”

“You had no right,” Uraraka said, standing up now. She looked ready to fight. She probably was going to fight, actually, knowing Uraraka, so Izuku stood up too, putting a hand on her shoulder. He noticed Kendou was doing something similar with Monoma, tugging him away by his sleeve. “That was a private conversation, you had no business listening in.”

“The door was open!” Monoma said. “Of course I would stop and listen for a bit! Every bit of information I collect on you people will make me stronger in the next—”

“Monoma!” Kendou snapped again, tugging on him harder. “Don’t do this, please, Monoma.”

Monoma shook Kendou off, shooting a glare directly at Izuku. “Whatever. It’s not like it matters, anyway, huh, Golden Boy? Not as golden as you pretend to be, are you?”

Izuku looked at Monoma.

Monoma looked at Izuku.

It wasn’t quite like early Monoma, because this Monoma was hurting, deeply. He wasn’t just doing this because of some one-sided rivalry or as a side quest on his journey with the end goal of stealing the spotlight right out from under Izuku and the rest of Class A. No, this was driven.

This was personal.

Monoma turned and walked away.

Kendou shot them all an apologetic look but said nothing, already following after Monoma.

“Ah, jeez,” Izuku said, rubbing the back of his head as he collapsed back into his chair.

“Deku-kun, are you alright?” Uraraka asked, turning towards him now, all of the fight drained out of her.

“Yeah, yeah,” Izuku said, waving one hand dismissively through the air. “Yeah, I’m alright. I’ve had worse than Monoma-kun’s elbow.”

“Midoriya, with your permission, I would like to go challenge him to a duel,” Todoroki said, while stirring his soba with his chopsticks. It looked incredibly ominous, in that context. “I’ll go easy on him, I promise.”

Izuku snorted. “You don’t need to fight him on my behalf, Todoroki-kun. Besides, he would probably just copy your Quirk. And you and I both know that the best counter to your Quirk is…your Quirk.”

“Mm,” Todoroki said.

Izuku had a feeling Monoma was going to get challenged to a duel anyway.

Ah, well. It would be good training for both of them, at least.

“Midoriya-chan,” Tsuyu said, in that grave way she said things sometimes. Izuku looked at her, his hand still on the top of his head. She leaned forward, folding her hands in front of her. “I’m sorry if this comes off as blunt, but I haven’t seen Monoma-chan like that in a long time. It seemed personal.”

“I didn’t do anything to him, I swear!” Izuku said, waving his hands for a moment. He sobered then too, leaning forwards in his chair until his elbows rested on his knees. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been trying to work it out myself. I know it might sound silly, but I thought that Monoma-kun and I were…friends? I just…I must have upset him somehow. I just don’t know what it is.”

“You have to stop thinking that you cause everything, Midoriya,” Todoroki said, surprisingly gently. “Sometimes people are just assholes, and that has nothing to do with you.”

“Ehhhh—”

“Midoriya-kun,” Iida said, clapping Izuku on the shoulder to get his attention. “Todoroki-kun is right, on that front, but—oh, how to say this—Uraraka-kun, do you…?”

“Right,” Uraraka said, sitting back down now and resting her chin on her fist. “I think Iida-kun is trying to say that Monoma-kun probably likes you, Deku-kun.”

Izuku blinked once. He blinked twice.

“Monoma-kun must have hit me on the head harder than I thought he did,” Izuku said, melting into a puddle on the table instead.

“Oh, Deku-kun, don’t be like that,” Uraraka said, poking him incessantly in the shoulder facing her. “Do we have to all declare how dateable we find you again?”

“Please don’t,” Izuku whispered into the table.

“Did you say please?” Uraraka said, and though he wasn’t looking at her, he just knew that she was grinning all cheekily at him. “Well, then, you’re very dateable, Deku-kun! If it weren’t for the fact that I was dating Mina, and, you know, a lesbian, I would totally date you. Easily.”

“No,” Izuku softly wailed, in an increasing state of distress.

“Midoriya-chan, all joking aside, the others have a point—kero. It’s odd that Monoma-chan would go back to being his old self when you just got a love confession. And considering there haven’t been any villain attacks or important test scores or anything since then, it only makes sense that his behavior towards you today and that are connected.”

Izuku made an incoherent noise halfway between a mumble and a groan.

They all ignored it.

“Besides, Kendou’s reaction was odd,” Todoroki added. “She seemed to know something about why he was acting the way he was.”

“That much is very true, Midoriya-kun,” Iida said. “You should consider talking to her about it.”

“Talk to…Kendou-san?” Izuku said, lifting his head from its table grave to stare blearily at Iida. “I’ve never had a one-on-one conversation with Kendou-san in my life! Do you realize how weird that would be?”

“She trains after school for an hour in one of the gyms on Thursdays!” Uraraka said, with an unapologetic slap to Izuku’s back as she did. “You’ll be fine, Deku-kun!”

Well. That was that, he supposed.

He needed friends that were more sympathetic to his woes.

Izuku didn’t think he’d done this much shaking and rattling in fear since the USJ in his first year, but he shook and rattled and feared his way all the way to the gyms after school to talk to Kendou. She was indeed there, just like Uraraka said she would be, hitting it off—ha—with a punching bag there.

Right. Izuku needed a way to start this conversation. Something cool. Something not weird.

Izuku opened the door to the gym room and walked inside, letting the door fall gently closed behind him. Something cool. Not weird.

He could do this.

“Do you get stretchmarks on your hands from using your Quirk?”

Kendou jumped, accidentally swatting the punching bag from its hook with one enlarged palm as she turned towards Izuku with wide eyes. “Ah—what?”

As if saying it once wasn’t bad enough.

Oh, dear gods.

“I asked you about stretchmarks,” Izuku said. “And your hands. And whether they get stretchmarks. I didn’t really have a reason for asking that—I was just thinking about ways to start a conversation with you before I walked in here, which led to me thinking about the journal entry I have about your Quirk. One of the questions I wrote down there was if, you know, you got stretchmarks? Because I don’t really see your hands a lot so I don’t know for sure if it was true but then I also thought that it probably wasn’t true. Quirks tend to come along with a lot of secondary mutations, you know? So I wouldn’t be surprised if you also had some sort of stretchy skin mutation to allow for the rapid expansion of your hands. But sometimes Quirks are weird and they don’t always give you everything you need to get by, like that Dabi villain, so—stretchmarks! But also, if you have hand stretchmarks I also know of a really good brand of stretchmark cream because my mom uses it and—”

The sound of soft laughter cut through his rambling—thankfully—and Izuku blinked at Kendou, feeling his face warm up both at the fact that he’d just up and asked her if she had stretchmarks and also at the fact that she was laughing at him now.

Whoever let him out in the world to go talk to people needed to come and get him. He clearly could not be trusted with words.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I promise.” Kendou walked over to him, tilting one hand towards him so he could see that it was decidedly stretchmark free. That was neat actually, he would have to update his notes later to include it. “I guess I have that secondary mutation you were talking about.”

“That’s really neat,” Izuku said, poking her skin with one finger. Immediately afterwards, he realized how weird that was and quickly clasped both hands behind his back. Really, he had no sense of personal boundaries anymore. Or any boundaries. Or impulse control. “I, uh, didn’t expect you to listen to everything I said, though.”

“Sure, I listened,” Kendou said, smiling at him. The expression was a touch strained, though, which caused Izuku to pause, to reconsider. Honestly, maybe all of the others were onto something. Maybe she did know stuff about Monoma and his weirdness. “And just so you know, I laughed because of a nostalgia thing.”

“A nostalgia thing?” Izuku asked.

“Yeah,” Kendou said, turning away to pick up the punching bag and reset it. “I guess—Monoma talks about it a lot. That mumbling thing you do. He used to call it irritating, but in that Monoma way that meant he wasn’t really irritated about it. I don’t know if you know what I mean, but you did talk to him a lot.”

Izuku definitely knew what she meant, but at the moment, he had a bigger concern. “Kendou-san, why are you using past tense to talk about all of this?”

Kendou paused in hanging up her punching bag, shooting a surprised glance at him before she looked away again. “Well, you…you know.”

Izuku tilted his head. “I don’t think I do know?”

“You—” Kendou sighed. “Well, you sort of completely shirked his confession, you know? Saying it was a secret admirer, saying nobody sane would like you… I mean, I don’t want to be rude or assumptive, Midoriya, but I didn’t really expect something like that from someone like you and—are you okay?!”

“I’m great,” Izuku said. “I just thought the floor looked really lonely, you know, down here all by itself, so I thought I would join it. So it wasn’t so…lonely. Yeah. Do you have a spare bottle of water or something, maybe?”

“Did you just faint?” Kendou asked, that edge of alarm still in her voice. She did go rummage through her gym bag, though, so Izuku assumed she was looking for water.

“No, no. I just sat down. There was no fainting involved.”

“Right,” Kendou said, disbelievingly.

Well, that was fine. It wasn’t Izuku’s problem if she was hiding from the truth.

Hiding from the truth, right. Monoma. Notes. Confession shirking.

Confession shirking?!

“This isn’t a spare water bottle, but you can waterfall,” Kendou said, reemerging from her gym bag with one of those fancy squishy water bottles. Izuku accepted it, tilting his head back and squishing some water out into his mouth before he passed it back to Kendou, who accepted it, despite the way she was still eying him doubtfully. “Are you sure you didn’t faint?”

“The floor really did look lonely,” Izuku said, drawing his knees up to his chest.

Kendou laughed. “Midoriya, I mean this entirely positively, but you are very strange.”

“Thank you…?”

“You don’t need to question it, it was a compliment,” Kendou said, fully sitting down across from him. “Besides I think anyone would have to be strange for Monoma to end up liking them.”

“Right,” Izuku said. Thank goodness he had already made the floor less lonely, because he surely would have done it again if he wasn’t already down here. “You keep saying that. Why do you keep saying that?”

Kendou raised an eyebrow. “That Monoma liked you?”

“Yes, that.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kendou said, passing over amused for irritated now. “I know you got the note, because of all the secret admirer stuff, and—”

Ah, right, the note.

Izuku knew he brought it with him for a reason.

Izuku interrupted Kendou by holding it out to her, still folded up neatly, all the straight-up tidy letters concealed behind milky white, fancy paper. “Sorry,” he said, as Kendou took it with a confused expression. “I’ve been told I need to be less obstinate about doubting myself, and though I admittedly still don’t feel particularly likeable—I especially don’t feel likeable when the person doing the liking is as cool and handsome as Monoma-kun—but you’ve said it three times now so I think you at least have to think it’s true. And that’s what the others thought too, and…well. That’s what I found in my locker.”

Kendou opened the note and read it, her face going through several different expressions as she looked at it. Eventually, she settled on angry, which. Not exactly great, since that was what Izuku was trying to avoid. “This isn’t signed,” Kendou said.

“I don’t recognize the handwriting,” Izuku said, looking away. He didn’t want… “I’ve gathered that you think Monoma-kun left the note. I don’t know if that’s true for sure—if that’s just something you think or something he told you, but to tell you the truth, I wish it was true. Because I like him too. I’ve liked him for a while, and I know…he probably doesn’t want to talk to me anymore, but if you could…do you think you could tell him for me? That I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, that is.”

Kendou stared at the note for several moments, her face growing angrier and angrier with each second that passed. Izuku returned to the shaking and the rattling and the fearing, because surely this did not spell good news for him.

But, he was nothing if not stupidly brave, so he prompted, “Kendou-san?”

“Get up,” Kendou said, getting up herself and brushing off her sweatpants. Izuku got up too—scrambled up, really—if only because he didn’t want to risk disappointing her even more than he already had. She grabbed his sleeve with one hand, the note clenched tightly in her other one, and began dragging him towards the door.

“Uh, Kendou-san, your bag—”

“It’ll be fine.”

“If you say so,” Izuku said, going along with his dragging. He wondered where they were going, actually. The Class B dorms? So she could bring him before the Class B jury to be judged for crimes against Monoma’s heart? He hoped they would take mercy on him. He already had glowstick bones and popcorn machine joints, he didn’t need eternal damnation thrown into the mix too.

“Don’t worry,” Kendou said, like she had read his thoughts. Maybe she had read his thoughts. Or heard them. He had a tendency to think out loud sometimes. “We’re going to get this sorted out once and for all.”

Izuku liked to think he was known for his dramatic entrances.

He’d had a lot of them, since he came to UA. There were all the battles where he dropped in last minute to punch a villain, all the—

Well, really, his only dramatic entrances were mid-battle. He definitely didn’t mimic All Might on that front, because, honestly, he couldn’t if he tried. He was way too awkward, in his natural state.

Case in point.

Of all his entrances, this one was somehow the most dramatic and the most awkward, as he was being dragged into the Class B dorms by Kendou. Their dorms were nice—Izuku had been here a few times before. They had a pretty extensive video game set up hooked up to their TV, but, honestly, it wasn’t that different from their own dorm building. He’d never been dragged here before though.

“Kendou, what are you doing?” Tetsutetsu asked. A chip fell out of his mouth as he did. It would be funny, if Izuku wasn’t still mildly terrified he’d been dragged here today to meet certain doom. “Monoma’s going to be—”

Kendou paused in the dragging—actually, dragging wasn’t really a fair word, since it was more like Izuku was following and she was just holding onto his sleeve very tightly so he couldn’t escape. Walking? Was she walking him like people walked dogs? Huh. Actually, yeah. She was walking him. Right, Izuku needed to stop walking too before he walked into her.

“Monoma,” Kendou said, very brisk and businesslike. She reminded him a bit of Uraraka, now that he was spending all this time with her. Nice, friendly, kind, but also terrifying. Very terrifying. “Where is he?”

“In his room,” Tetsutetsu said, sitting up ramrod straight as he addressed her.

“Great. You’ll let me into the boy’s side, then.”

“I will absolutely let you into the boy’s side, yes,” Tetsutetsu said, rising immediately to do just that.

All three of them packed into the elevator. Kendou kept her death grip on Izuku’s sleeve. She also kept her death grip on Izuku’s confession note, and honestly, he wasn’t willing to ask for it back at any point in the near future.

“So,” Tetsutetsu said, as they ticked up the floors. “What d’ya got there, Kendou?”

“Midoriya…?”

“No, not him,” Tetsutetsu said, sparing a glance at Izuku. He offered him a sympathetic grimace, which Izuku appreciated, if only because he was still slightly confused about what exactly was going on and appreciated having someone at least somewhat on his side. Or maybe he just looked exceptionally pitiable right now. Either or. “I can clearly see you have him. I meant the other thing you have.”

“Oh,” Kendou said, looking down at her hand like she was only just now realizing that she still had the note grasped there. “Right. That’s Monoma’s confession note.”

“Is it?” Tetsutetsu asked, blinking at it curiously. His very bizarre eyelashes fluttered as he did.

Izuku would ask him about them, if he wasn’t still rolling around in embarrassment about asking Kendou about stretchmarks earlier.

“Yeah. Oh, Midoriya, can I show him?”

“Why not,” Izuku said faintly. He appreciated her asking for consent, though, definitely. Though he also got the feeling that Tetsutetsu and Kendou were already in on the whole note-giving thing, so to speak, so he didn’t know if it really mattered.

“Oh,” Tetsutetsu said, and Izuku could tell by the change in his voice that he’d read the note. “Oh, he didn’t sign this.”

“He didn’t sign it,” Kendou repeated. She sounded like she was rolling her eyes. “Honestly. And all this drama too…”

The elevator doors dinged.

“Thank you, Tetsu!” Kendou called as she walked Izuku out of the elevator. Tetsutetsu waved as they left, so Izuku waved back. Extremely awkwardly, and with his hand that wasn’t acting as a leash, but he waved. Tetsutetsu seemed amused by it, if nothing else, before the elevator doors shut, obscuring him from view.

“Um, Kendou-san…” Izuku ventured, finally working up the courage to talk as they hurdled full-speed towards Monoma’s room, supposedly. “Do you, uh... Well. Do you have some sort of plan, or…?”

“To tell you the truth, I can’t really say that I do,” Kendou said, shooting him a nervous smile. “But there was a misunderstanding, and I want to see it cleared up, for both of your sakes. I know it probably doesn’t seem like I really like Monoma all that much from the outside, but…he’s a good friend of mine, you know? I don’t want to see him hurt.”

“…I feel like there’s some unspoken threat hiding in there somewhere,” Izuku remarked. “Shovel talk? Is this a shovel talk?”

Kendou grinned wickedly at him. “This is definitely a shovel talk.”

“Right.” Izuku swallowed. “Don’t hurt Monoma-kun’s feelings. Don’t…break his heart.”

“Or your bones.”

“I…what do my bones have to do with it?”

“They don’t really have anything to do with Monoma,” she said. “They have something to do with you, though.”

“Oh,” Izuku said. He felt very touched, as he caught on. “Oh, is Monoma-kun getting a shovel talk too?”

“His is later,” Kendou said, “but yes.”

“Kendou-san…” Izuku paused, doing his best to collect his thoughts and his tears. “The day I asked Monoma-kun why he wanted to be a hero, I meant what I said, you know. I want to be friends with you too. Also, I’m sorry about asking you about stretchmarks.”

Kendou laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m glad to be your friend, Midoriya.”

“Alright,” Izuku said. They’d stopped moving a while ago, and Kendou had also let go of his sleeve, so he assumed this was it. He was shaking again, but this time, it was worse than the USJ, worse than talking to Kendou, worse than any battle he’d fought or almost fought.

Gods, being a teenager was weird. Having a crush was weird too.

But that was sort of the point of all this too—not just having a crush anymore.

He had this.

Izuku held out his hand, and Kendou dropped the note into it. “Any words of wisdom?” Izuku whispered.

“Do your worst,” Kendou whispered back. “He likes you for you, you know.”

“Right,” Izuku said, feeling tears burning at the corners of his eyes. It was hard to believe, it was still so hard to believe. It would have been easier to swallow, he thought, if someone said they liked Deku, who was cool and suave and somewhat put together if a little bit aggressive. It was harder to believe that someone would like him for himself, for all his mumbling and his awkwardness and his invasive questions.

But if anyone was going to like him for him, fully, he felt like it was Monoma Neito. Sense of self was important to Monoma, Izuku knew that much. There was some part of Monoma that delighted in being able to loudly declare “this is who I am.” It was almost ironic, considering the nature of his Quirk was based on earning bits and baubles of strength from external sources, from relying on the inherent skills of others to form his value as a fighter.

Or maybe it wasn’t all that ironic. Izuku understood what it was like to carry around other people with you. Gran Torino had told him once that his admiration for All Might was like a shackle tying him down, and it was true, wasn’t it? The more he borrowed from others, the more confused about himself he was. Not that borrowing strength was wrong, of course, but the trick—

The trick was knowing your own heart too.

Kendou offered him a fist bump.

Izuku knocked his knuckles against hers and smiled. It wasn’t Deku’s confident battle grin. It was just his smile, whatever that looked like. It was enough.

Izuku knocked as Kendou made her way down the hall. He closed his eyes when he heard shuffling inside the room, and then opened them again when he heard the handle of the door catch with a soft click.

Monoma looked back at him. For just a moment, before Monoma remembered to pull on all the masks he wore when he was trying to defend himself, Izuku could see all the hurt and distress etched into his face. He looked surprised, he looked sad, he looked like he was grieving, he looked angry.

And then he looked like Monoma, but how Monoma looked before Izuku put in the work to befriend him and Monoma did the same.

“Oh, ho, ho,” Monoma said, shooting for some sort of self-assured posture but missing it just slightly. “What do we have here, Class A’s Golden Boy descending from on high to speak to the commoners? What, is hurting people once not enough for you? You just really have to prove you’re the best at everything, huh, with no room for us others to grow in your shadow?”

Izuku put his palm on the door, the scars on his hand facing him. Mostly it was so Monoma couldn’t shut it in his face.

It was time to do his worst.

“My name is Midoriya Izuku,” he said, with absolutely no preamble. “My name is also Deku. Deku was derived from the term dekunobu, which is a useless person. It was my best friend that gave me that nickname when we were kids. It stuck, because not long after that, I was diagnosed as Quirkless.”

“What…?” Monoma looked very caught off guard. It was a very unusual expression on him, but also, it was fair. Izuku didn’t really know what he was doing either.

“I stayed Quirkless! For a very long time. And then I got a Quirk, and it broke my bones, but I have to not do that anymore because Kendou-san said so and she’s very scary. By the way, she has stretchy skin, which is something I know we talked about once when we were talking about you potentially copying her Quirk, so—you also copy her stretchy skin. Just so you know.”

“Okay…?” Monoma said.

“Right,” Izuku said, trying to remember what his nonexistent point was. “So I was Quirkless. And then I wasn’t. And Uraraka-san told me she thought Deku was like dekiru, which means you can do it! Which was a really nice thing to say and it meant a lot to me. And anyway, the point of all of this, I grew up admiring All Might. I wanted to do everything just like him, like going to UA and being a hero that saved people with a smile. And I also chose Deku as my hero name, but Deku isn’t a name that I came up with or defined for myself, right? And so then I started to wonder, you know, who am I? Who is Midoriya Izuku, because I don’t know. I didn’t know. But I think I’m starting to get it.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Monoma asked, raising one very judgmental eyebrow at Izuku.

Fuck, he was very pretty.

“You told me to tell you, when I knew,” Izuku said. “Why I wanted to be a hero, I mean. I want to save people with a smile. I want to continue naming all my super moves after places in the United States. I want to be named Deku, and I want to carry with me both the person that gave me the name in the first place and the person that redefined it. I want to carry these scars for my friends, and have ultimate moves like theirs. I want to borrow my strength from others, but I want to have some of my own too. I want to be the sort of hero that isn’t perfect. Because I’m just me, and I’m not perfect.”

When Izuku smiled this time, he felt like it was tinged a little bit with some kind of madness, but it was him. It was still just him. “I’m Midoriya Izuku. I drank too much bone-breaking juice and not enough milk. I snap, crackle, and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies whenever I walk.” As if to prove his point, his shoulder popped from how he was holding his arm straight out. “I’m weird and awkward and ask people really invasive questions. I think these are all things you know, but I just wanted to say it again.”

There was silence following the wake of Izuku’s words, and Monoma clenched his jaw. He was angry, Izuku could see it plain as day, but he hadn’t tried to slam the door in Izuku’s face yet, so maybe he was getting somewhere. Maybe.

“Anything else?” Monoma asked.

“I think these are all things you know,” Izuku repeated, and now he shifted, so he could hold up the note clutched in his other hand, “but I don’t think you know that you forgot to sign your note.”

“No, there’s no way,” Monoma said, but he reached for the note anyway, his fingers brushing against Izuku’s as he did. He flipped the note open, and stared, his expression slowly shifting from confident to devastated.

Izuku felt the first few tears pricking his eyes as he watched Monoma’s expression shift, because that. Right there. That was a sign, if nothing else was.

“So, it was you,” Izuku said. The floor looked lonely again, so he joined it, sitting with his knees up and his bodyweight propped on his good arm. He covered his eyes with his other hand, collecting tears with his fingers as they fell. “I wanted to believe it, but I wasn’t…I—”

Monoma looked up from the note and then looked down to accommodate the fact that Izuku had decided to have himself a sit, his eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion as he did. “What are you doing?”

“I thought the floor looked lonely.”

“Really, now,” Monoma said, but it was almost distant, how he said it. After a moment, he sank too, sitting across from Izuku, a contemplative look on his face as he studied his note. It was a testament to them, Izuku thought, the fact that Monoma didn’t even question it before he joined Izuku in keeping company with the floor.

Izuku liked him. Izuku liked him so much.

“Monoma-kun, listen,” Izuku said, because he had not a suave bone in his body. Or if he did have one, he’d broken it a long time ago. “When I met you, I thought you weren’t crushable. Not as in crushing like, you know—” He smooshed his palms together to demonstrate. “—but the other crushing.”

“Wow,” Monoma said, looking absolutely and genuinely insulted.

Right. Izuku needed to speed this up before things went south again.

“No, listen. I thought you weren’t crushable then, but I also thought I wasn’t crushable. I still a little bit think I’m not crushable. But you like me, somehow. At least that’s what your note says, and I don’t really think you would lie about that sort of thing.”

“No, I didn’t lie,” Monoma said. “Midoriya, do you have a point, or…?”

“My point,” Izuku said, “is that I like you too. I have for a really long time. And if you still mean your note and, you know, everything, I would very much like to not like you anymore.”

A moment later, he realized that came out very wrong.

“As in, I would like to not have a crush on you,” Izuku said, scrambling a bit over the clarification. “I would still like to like you. As a person. As a friend. Uh, a boyfriend. Oh, wow, it feels weird to say that word, oh man. But boyfriends. If you want. Still.”

“You’re really not one for smooth talking, are you?” Monoma asked.

Izuku deflated just a bit, sighing as he did. That was it, then, he supposed. He came, he talked a lot, he definitely didn’t conquer. But at least he tried. At least.

Nah, it still stung.

“Afraid not,” Izuku said on an exhale, looking down at the floor beneath his feet as he did.

“I already knew that about you, too,” Monoma said. “Izuku.”

Izuku looked up quickly enough to give himself whiplash. “Izuku?”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Monoma said, though he was smiling. It was Izuku’s favorite version of Monoma’s smiles, the ones that were just him, not put on as part of a show. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you called me insane earlier.”

Izuku felt his lips curling into a smile of his own. “All due respect, of course, but you really aren’t a poster child for sanity…Neito.”

Neito laughed, loud and brash and just a little bit manic, throwing his head back as he did. He was beautiful. Crazy, but beautiful.

“I knew that too,” Neito said when he was done laughing, his eyes gleaming with mischief and happiness and a thousand layers of delight. “And so did you, and yet here you are, liking me anyway.”

“Here I am,” Izuku agreed.

Neito kissed him, and then kissed him again, and then Izuku’s brain kicked back on and he kissed him back. It probably wasn’t perfect, as far as kisses went, but that was okay.

It was real. It was true. It was just a teensy bit insane.

And that was good. That was enough. It would always be enough.