Chapter Text
His throat itches.
It’s probably because of the same thing making his palms sweat and his eyes twitch, but then again, he should be used to this by now.
He’s standing in front of a door to a classroom. He can hear the students inside, and even though they’re indistinct, they make his heart beat out of his chest.
Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, he hears a word he thinks is his name, beckoning him inside. His legs burn like he’s been standing there for days, so maybe he has been. His throat burns too. Still, he steps inside.
He steps into a room full of faceless people. They stare at him with no eyes, snickering and talking amongst themselves. One waves at him, another scoffs. He’s unsure whether or not to feel welcomed.
A nameless teacher gestures for him to introduce himself, so he does.
“Hello! My name is…” His throat feels like it’s been rubbed raw with sand. “Um, well. I’m new here. I’m…” It’s getting harder and harder to speak by the minute. His palms feel sweaty.
The classroom is starting to get louder. People are beginning to outright laugh at him. They’re talking about him, but he can’t hear what they’re saying. He tries to speak again, to say something, say anything that will just get them to shut up, but even trying to talk is so painful it brings tears to his eyes.
His teacher looks at him disapprovingly. He tries to apologize, but even that is impossible. All that comes out is a pathetic whining, wheezing sound.
By now, the classroom is an uproar of laughter, of jeering insults at him.
He tries to yell at them, to tell them to shut up, to leave him alone, but all he can do is cough. He coughs and coughs until he’s brought to his knees. His ears ring, his heart beats violently, his eyes water as he feels something crawling up his throat.
Putting his hand to his mouth, he hacks something up. Looking at his hand, he realizes it’s hair. It’s hair, and the -
- the alarm is ringing.
Izuku quickly sits up, his pulse pounding rapidly - he can just barely hear the horrible screeching of his alarm over it. He takes a moment to breathe and calm himself, before turning over to shut the alarm off.
For a minute,he can only hear the sound of birds. The distant humming of the house. The wind blowing outside his window. Then, there’s finally something else: his mother calling him out for breakfast.
“I’ll be there -
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- in a minute, ma!”
Ochako rushes down the stairs, nearly tripping over herself as she does so. She grabs the eggs and toast already on the counter, quickly stuffing it into her mouth and munching down.
“Careful, Ochako. Don’t inhale it that quickly, you don’t want to choke like last time!”
“Sorry, ma! I promise I won’t choke!” she says after swallowing the last piece of egg.
“Goodness. I hope you know how much you make us worry, sometimes. You’ll let us know if something happens at school, okay?”
“I’ll be fine, ma. I swear! I’m sure the new school will be great! But I gotta go now or I’ll be late!”
She’s halfway out the door when she’s interrupted by her dad clearing his throat. She looks back to see both of her parents smiling gently at her, arm in arm, staring at her as though she had hung the moon itself.
“Be safe, okay?” her dad says. “Have a good day at school.”
She grins blindingly and nods.
“I will!”
And just like that, she’s off running to her new school. She quickly pulls her phone out for the directions she wrote down to ‘Aldera Junior High’, still jogging as she does so. She nearly runs into a telephone pole a couple times, but soon she’s at the school gates.
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“I’ve heard there’s going to be a new student today! Are you excited, Izuku?”
Izuku hums in response, slowly picking at the rice and fish in front of him. Honestly, he doesn't really feel all that hungry after that dream - every time he takes a bite all he can feel is hair in his mouth. So instead he double and triple checks the rice, just to make sure there aren't any spare strands in it.
"A-Are you sure you're alright, Izuku? You seem a little… well. Out of it."
"I'm fine, mom. I just had a weird dream this morning," he replies, continuing to pick at his food.
"Oh, do you... want to talk about it?"
"Well, it was, um, huh, it was just really weird and…" He looks pointedly up at the clock. "Oh, I'm going to be late! I'm sorry, mom, I'll tell you about it later, okay?" he says, picking his bag up off of the chair and rushing to the door.
It takes a short few minutes for him to get to school.
He sees Kacchan on his way through the school gate, but luckily isn’t approached by him or any of his friends. He must be in a good mood! That or he’s just distracted today. Either way, Izuku’s thankful for it.
Humming a little happy tune, he walks into his classroom and pulls out his notebooks.
He opens one of them and spends a bit looking through his current notes on various heroes, before turning to a blank page and starting new notes. Miruko was on the tv this morning, so he had plenty of thoughts he wanted to get out.
He must’ve gotten a bit carried away, because when he looks up again, there’s a girl standing in front of the class, nervously smiling, and staring - well - directly at him?
“This is Uraraka Ochako. She’ll be joining us starting today. Miss Uraraka, is there anything you’d like to say to the class?”
“Um!” She says. “Hi! Thank you all for having me! I hope we’ll get along!”
“Great. Now, hmm. Sit next to Midoriya, I suppose? That seat is free.”
Wait, sit next to who - oh god she’s heading right for him, isn’t she? He slams his notebook closed, dropping his mechanical pencil in the process - bending over to pick it up off of the floor, by the time he’s sitting normally again - yup, she’s sitting right next to him, and looking directly at him of all people.
“Hi! My name is Uraraka Ochako - but, I guess you already knew that. It’s nice to meet you!”
“O-oh! Nice to meet you too! Well of course it is, it’s always nice meeting new people, haha, I mean, you get to learn new things, like new quirks, and stuff! Anyway, you’re new here. That’s cool!”
Oh god I hope she doesn’t think I’m weird.
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Well, he’s a little weird, she thinks. But I mean, I’m probably a little weird too! Besides, he looked so lonely. She pauses at that thought. Yeah, that’s it, that’s why I’m talking to him! It’s not like I’m lonely as the only new kid at a school where I don’t know anyone or anything!
“Um…” The boy’s voice snaps her out of her thoughts. “Are you alright there?”
“I’m fine! Did I do something to make it seem like I’m not okay?”
“Well, your eyebrows did this…” He scrunches up his forehead, pointing at his eyebrows in demonstration, “thing. Looked like you were stressed about something.”
She stares at him blankly, and in response his face seems to get even redder than before, if that were even a possibility. Did her face really scrunch up like that when she was thinking about stuff? She must be a lot more obvious about things than she thinks she is.
“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, uh, point out something you didn’t want to be pointed out?”
“It’s okay,” she says cautiously, looking at the panicked expression on his face. “I just didn’t realize I was making a face. Um, I introduced myself, but I don’t think I caught your name?”
“Oh! I’m uh, Midoriya Izuku! It’s nice to meet you!” He takes a deep breath before whispering under his breath, “Wow, I can’t believe a girl asked my name…”
“What was that?”
“N-Nothing! Don’t worry about it!”
She just smiles and blinks, confused. He certainly is an odd kid. So nervous, too - he flinched at every movement she made. It made her feel a sort of misplaced guilt, although she didn’t know what she’d done to warrant that sort of reaction.
Just as she's about to ask about it, the bell rings, and everyone starts scrambling to their seats before class starts.
During the first half hour or so of class, whenever she looks over at Izuku, he’s looking at her too - and then he notices that she’s noticing him, blushes and quickly buries his face back into his textbook.
Unfortunately, the homeroom teacher realizes that she’s distracted and uses this to his advantage to sneak up on her and clear his throat.
“Miss Uraraka? Would you like to answer the question?”
She nearly jumps up out of her seat at the sound of her teacher so close to her. When did he even start walking over here? What were they last talking about? History? Dear god, what was the question!?
“U-um. 1984?”
The class bursts out in laughter. Clearly, she had the wrong answer.
“See me after class, Miss Uraraka. Try not to make too much more trouble on your first day here.”
“Y-yes sir,” she says, face beet red.
After a particularly humiliating lecture from the teacher after class about paying attention during class, how he expected better of her, and how he would have to contact her parents if this happened often, she went to her next class - rather uneventful in comparison, really. Izuku wasn’t in it, or the next one, but when lunch came she saw him in the cafeteria.
Not knowing anybody else in the school, she made a beeline for him, of course.
“Hi there! I hope you don’t mind me sitting here.” She greets cheerily, sitting down next to him and setting her own food tray next to his.
There’s a moment of silence. She begins to start to wonder if maybe she didn’t say it loud enough, or if maybe he’s hard of hearing , but then he looks up at her. He then looks away, and then looks back at her, looks around her, and back at her again. He has this strange puzzled look on his face, altogether rather flustered.
“I-I’m sorry. Did you, uh, say hi to... me?”
She blinks.
“Um... yes? Who else would I have said hi to?”
“Oh. No one, I guess. I’m sorry.”
She scrunches up her face and resists the urge to lightly punch him in the shoulder, because he’s pretty sure that if she did that he would start crying on the spot.
“You don’t have to apologize, you know. Is there some reason I wouldn’t want to talk to you?”
“Oh, well, I’m kind of weird? Plus, uh, Kacchan might see you, and get mad, and I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
Kacchan? That’s a cute nickname. A jealous girlfriend, maybe? “Who’s Kacchan?”
“Oh!” He looks startled at the realization that she doesn’t know who this apparent Kacchan is. Maybe he forgot that she’s actually a brand new student. “Kacchan is… Kacchan is. Well. It’s kind of complicated? He used to be my best friend, but now he kinda hates me, but I mean, who doesn’t! Haha!”
“I don’t hate you, I wouldn’t be sitting next to you otherwise,” she points out.
“Well yeah, you don’t know me very well yet.”
The urge to lovingly punt him is growing stronger by the second. Still, she holds back, and instead gives him a strained smile.
"Anyway, um, why would Kacchan be mad if he saw me talking to you?"
"I dunno, I think he just doesn't like the idea of someone like me having friends. I mean, maybe he won't be angry! Maybe I'm just making assumptions?"
Ochako frowns. For someone with such an adorable nickname, this Kacchan sure didn't sound like a very nice person. Especially if he was so mean to Izuku, who, while being a very strange person, seemed to be rather nice and polite. Maybe she'd have a strongly worded conversation with a teacher about how her friend was being treated. Then again, maybe not, having already been labeled a troublemaker on her first day of school.
"Your face is doing the, um, thing again," Izuku says.
"Heck," she curses.
So, no going to the teachers. Probably no directly confronting Kacchan either, at least until she knows more about him. But at the very least, she could keep an eye on Izuku, and try to keep him out of trouble.
They make a bit of small talk for the rest of lunch, though Izuku is still rather awkward. Still, the time goes by quickly and soon, the bell is ringing so they part ways.
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“G-Goodbye, Uraraka! I’ll see you later!”
It’s sad, leaving Uraraka. It’s his first friend - is she his friend? - first person that’s been nice to him in... years, at least. It’s because of this, maybe, that he feels so reluctant turning away from her and walking away to get to his next class - even if he wasn’t able to talk with her about anything of substance.
He had been holding himself back that entire time, trying not to ask about who her favorite hero was, what her quirk was, how it worked, whether or not she had any All Might merch - he couldn’t mess this up after all! He had to show he was a normal person, capable of talking about normal things in a normal way, so that he’s worthy of being friend material! If that was even possible, anyway.
Lost in thought, and quite possibly muttering to himself in a very loud manner, he doesn’t notice that he’s getting incredibly close to someone - until he bumps directly into them.
He freezes. For a moment, he just stands there, pretending that maybe if he closes his eyes hard enough, this won’t be real and he’ll wake up in bed and he’ll be safe and happy. But that’s not what happens when he finally opens his eyes.
“Getting careless there, aren’t you, Deku?”
Standing before him is Kacchan and his friends, sneering down at him. He tries and fails to not start shaking.
“Saw you hanging out with the new girl. You know, I didn’t expect you to get so bold at this point.”
She was the one who approached me, Izuku wants to correct, but doesn’t, because he knows it’ll get him into more trouble. Instead, he just braces himself for whatever sort of punishment he’s going to get this time.
“I think you should leave her alone. Honestly, she probably has a bright future in front of her. You shouldn’t get in the way of that. She doesn’t need trash like you dragging you down. You got that?”
Izuku gulps.
“Well?”
“Yeah. Yes, I do. I-I’m sorry.”
“Great. Now get the fuck out of my way.”
Izuku steps aside, but Kacchan knocks into him anyway.
“See you later, loser!” one of the lackeys says while the other snickers.
Izuku just stands there, tears in his eyes but not falling. He won’t cry. He can’t cry over something like this. But Kacchan is right. Uraraka doesn’t deserve some quirkless crybaby hanging over her. Not when she’s so bright and wonderful.
He takes a deep, shaky breath, and steels himself to tell Uraraka that they can’t be friends the next time they talk.