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You are nothing but a useless Deku.
Who’d ever want to date a creepy girl like you?
Typical girl, can’t do anything but bawl.
You really thought you could be like All Might?
Take a swan dive off the roof and-
You CAN be a hero!
“I don’t know what your connection to All Might is,” Todoroki Shouko tells her in the girls’ locker room, her eyes cold as her ice. “But I will win this, and I will beat you.”
Cut your hair, Shouko, it’s useless for a hero’s work.
We ought to buy you better binders, you’re getting almost as bad as your sister.
Are you cramping again? Fuck, get a grip!
Fuyumi! I told you not to buy her dresses, they are impractical, it’s bad enough her school makes her wear skirts!
You will surpass All Might!
It’s YOUR power, isn’t it?!
“Don’t give up, Todoroki-chan!” Midoriya Izumi’s voice echoes from the stands, and Shouko burns.
Izumi can’t remember the last time she spent time with other girls without being the butt of a joke, but then again UA has been a lot of firsts for her, in a lot of ways.
She gets to Mina’s dorm room with an All Might blanket and a Mirko pillow under her arms and is let into the bubblegum pink room to the sound of giggling and chatter. “Izumi-chan! I’m so glad you decided to come!”
She smiles, only a little bit nervous still. “Can’t always hide away in my room.”
“No, you really can’t,” Tooru agrees, her invisible hands grabbing her by the wrists and tugging her down to sit beside her, electric blue and gray nail polish already clutched between her fingers. “Manicure time!”
Izumi is at her mercy before she can protest against it - she bites her nails, it’s really no use wasting time on them - and Momo is behind her and brushing her fingers through her thick curls before she knows how that happened. She hums. “Why do you keep it so short? It’s so soft!”
She could tell the truth; that Kacchan kept singing it off, pulling at it, that her classmates used to stick gum into it. But she bites her tongue. “I prefer it like this.”
Momo accepts the lie without fuss and works some very nice smelling oil into her unruly hair, and, okay, that does feel pretty nice actually.
There is a sudden knock at the door and Mina bounces over, opening it to reveal Shouko to all their surprise. “Oh, hi!”
“Hi,” she grumbles, awkwardly scratching at her left arm, the oversized t-shirt she’s wearing hanging off of one shoulder and revealing the strap of a sports bra. Her eyes lock on Izumi’s with something like a pout. “You weren’t in your room, so I thought I’d… look around, but I guess I’m interrupting.”
“You’re not!” Mina quickly grabs her arm and drags her inside, Shouko’s eyes widening. She stumbles over the hem of her too-large joggers, socks slipping on the carpet floor. “You know you’re always invited to girls’ night!”
“... I am?” She sounds genuinely surprised, and Izumi once again contemplates killing the number one hero. “I… figured you wouldn’t want me around.”
Tsu taps a finger against her chin and tilts her head. “Why not, kero?”
Shouko shrugs, awkwardly standing in the middle of the room like she was lost at what to do. “I’m… not really good company.”
“That’s not true,” Ochako argues, getting up to maneuver her to sit beside Izumi. She picks up the green nail polish she’d been using on Tsu and attacks Shouko’s fingers. “We like to have you around, Shouko-chan.”
“O-oh,” she mutters, some of the tension leaving her shoulders as she looks at Izumi, eyes lingering on the nails Tooru was still painting. “Guess we… match?”
“Huh?” She looks down at her hands and, god, Tooru had seriously matched her nails to Shouko’s eyes, she wants to die. “I guess so,” she squeaks, feeling the blood rise to her cheeks. “Besties, huh?”
Shouko blinks at her, then a soft smile spreads on her face. “Yeah, besties,” she says, and-
Oh.
Oh shit.
“Wait, you’re a girl?”
Something in Shouko’s veins freezes at Yoarashi’s words, and she isn’t even sure why. All her life her father had done his level best to suppress any ounce of femininity she had, as if to pretend his masterpiece had been a son instead. It had taken medical intervention for him to stop having her train in binders and switch to sports bras instead, and he’d grumbled and groaned about it all the way from the doctor’s office.
Shouko had never really been a girl girl, never been allowed to be, so why did these words hurt so much?
(a quiet voice in her head whispers that Izumi likes girls, so if you don’t even register as one-)
Bakugou cackles beside them. “Man, this is gold.” And all Shouko wants is to lock herself in her room and hide.
“Don’t listen to the big oaf, Shouko-chan,” Camie trills, patting her shoulder. “Though, I guess your suit does make you look kinda androgynous? You could probably use to be a bit more girly.”
Was that supposed to make me feel better?
That evening she looks at herself in her mirror, at her short hair, loose clothes, the way her sports bra flattens her chest to almost invisible under her oversized sweater.
She bites her lip and tries to imagine herself with longer hair; she already takes after her mother and sister in her built, surely she could at least try? She knows she can never be pretty, she is too damaged for that, but maybe she can get close, at least? Maybe if she looked a little more girly Izumi would-
Shouko shakes her head with a sigh.
She should just be happy with what she gets, with Izumi’s friendship, and stop hoping for things she can’t have.
“Can we go shopping?”
Shouko still doesn’t know what had gotten into her when she’d asked Momo that.
Well, that’s a lie, she did know, but she’s always been good at denying herself.
“Shouko-chan?” When she turns to look at Momo the girl is biting her lip. “Why did you want to go shopping with me? You never seemed very interested in these things.”
She can feel a blush spread on her cheeks and she quickly turns away, hiding her expression behind her hair. “No reason.”
Slim fingers wrap around her wrist, gentle and careful, and Momo’s voice is kind when she speaks. “You can tell me, you know?”
Shouko sighs. “Yoarashi thought I was a boy the whole time.”
Silence, then. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” she shrugs. “I just, I don’t know.”
“It hurt, hm?”
“I guess.”
Momo is quiet for a bit longer, but when she speaks again her voice is smiling. “Let’s start with some proper bras; a good bra makes all the difference.” Her friend drags her over to a very pricey looking boutique and she frowns, but follows without complaint.
“They do?”
“Yeah,” she turns to look at her over her shoulder. “Trust me?”
Shouko swallows, but nods.
She hopes she won’t regret this.
She can feel Momo’s eyes on her as they browse through the fifth store that day.
“Shouko-chan? Is there a reason other than what Yoarashi said that you want to look more… girly?”
She stiffens. “No.”
Momo hums knowingly but lets it go. “Do you like wearing skirts?”
That makes her come up short, and she turns to her friend, suddenly at a loss. “I don’t know? I usually change right after classes.” That it was a habit she’d developed from Endeavor blowing a fuse whenever he saw her in a uniform skirt she wisely kept to herself.
Her friend tilts her head, gray eyes trailing over her turtleneck sweater and jeans. “You know, you don’t need to wear skirts and dresses to look feminine. Different colors can already make a difference, or some mascara and lipgloss, jewelry… have you ever thought of growing out your hair at all?”
Shouko fiddles with a strand of her cropped hair and shrugs. “I was always told it was bad for hero work.”
Momo frowns, a pinched expression that would look angry on anyone else but just sad on her. “Mirko is a great hero.”
She blinks. “I guess.”
“You could try it out and see if you like it. If not, just cut it off again. It’s just hair.”
Shouko hums, looking back at the rack of dresses she’d been looking at. “I do like pants, they’re comfy.”
“Skirts can be comfy, too, but only if you like wearing them.” Momo steps closer and puts a hand at her elbow. “How about I find you some things I think you might like, and we go from there?”
She sighs, deflating slightly. This was going to be the bra thing all over again, right? She had been so glad the third one she’d been handed had been comfortable. “Okay.”
Shouko comes out of the changing room and is confused. “Doesn’t this look… boyish?” She’d paused at the outfit Momo had handed her but trusted her friend enough to try it on, but now that she is looking at herself in the mirror she can’t help but frown. The black slacks are comfortable and a lot more form-fitting than she usually wears, and the white blouse is distinctly feminine, especially with the dark blue vest hugging her curves, but still.
“You’re a girl, and you look like one,” Momo insists, stepping behind her and gathering the red half of her hair up and putting it back with a glittering barrette she made with her Quirk. “If we give you some nice earrings and a necklace, maybe some mascara and lipgloss, you’ll make Izumi swoon when you go on a date.”
Shouko clamps down on the fire simmering under her skin, but blushes regardless. “I, what?” Momo gives her a knowing look through the mirror and she deflates. “Am I that obvious?”
“A little.”
She bites her lip and averts her eyes. “When?”
“Hm?”
“You said when we go on a date.”
Momo blinks. “Yes, when.”
Shouko hasn’t cried in years, but feels close to it now. “Izumi would never go out with me.”
“Why not?” Momo, bless her, looks honestly confused.
“She’s too good for me,” Shouko mutters, idly fumbling with the hem of the blouse. “She’s so pretty and cute and sweet and I’m… me.”
“You mean kind and beautiful and gentle and caring?” Shouko snorts derisively, and it’s evidently enough to test Momo’s enduring patience. She grabs her shoulders and turns her more fully towards the mirror. “Shouko, please look at yourself, really look at yourself. Try to see what Izumi and I and all your other friends see in you. You’re amazing, and I won’t let you be mean to yourself like that.”
Shouko looks at her reflection but can’t see it, no matter how hard she tries. All she sees is scars and mismatched halves and Endeavor’s masterpiece trying to be someone she’s not. All she sees is unsightly and too long limbs and too little expression and too much baggage. “You’re wrong.”
Momo sighs. “You are one of the smartest people I know, Shouko-chan, but you can be so incredibly dense.” Her grip shifts on her shoulders and turns her around to look at her. “Izumi likes you for who you are, not some idealized version of you you’ve made up in your mind. She is best friends with you, and I promise you that if you ask her out, she’ll say yes. And then when you wear this to the date she’ll be so flustered she’ll barely be able to form a coherent sentence.”
“Izumi never manages a coherent sentence when she’s embarrassed,” Shouko points out, uselessly, but the thought, no matter how ludicrous, makes her heart thump widely in her chest. Part of her wants to believe, wants to think she can be pretty like her sister or beautiful like her mother and be right for Izumi. “Are you sure?”
Momo’s voice is pure, steely conviction. “Yes.”
Izumi has only ever been asked out as a joke.
It had been a sort of rite of passage, for people at her old schools to ask her out and stand her up. When she stopped falling for it they switched tactics to leaving her fake love letters, and when that, too, failed to get a reaction out of her, they just moved on to straight-up bullying again.
She read every single fake letter, pretended for one, happy moment that it was real, and then locked all the heartbreak and shame and embarrassment up in a box inside her chest to never look at again.
Izumi cries at the smallest thing, but she has trained herself to not shed a single tear at fake confessions and date invitations. They didn’t mean anything, she wouldn’t let them mean anything, and when they stopped coming she let out an internal sigh of relief she hadn’t known she’d held back.
“Izumi?” Shouko is looking at her with a slight frown on her face, something almost like shy embarrassment, and she casts a furtive glance at Momo standing a little ways off before focusing back on her. “I was wondering if, uh, I made dinner reservations? And I would… like to take you. As, like, a date?”
Ocean waves drown out all the sounds around her, the noise of the common room and even the sound of her own breathing. Inside her chest a box filled with heartbreak and shame and embarrassment bursts open, and what it releases is rage.
“Are you serious?” Izumi’s voice is foreign to her own ears, and if she paused just a second she’d realize that this was her best friend and there is no way someone as kind as Shouko would pull a prank on her. But she doesn’t think, instead she rages and cries and hurts. “I thought we were friends, and you dare pull something like this? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Shouko’s face crumbles, and she’s never seen her look like this, not ever, and cold like ice washes over her as tears start to pool from her friend’s eyes. “I knew it,” she whispers, a low hiccup barely stifled by a hand hastily clamped over her mouth as she turns away. “This was a horrible idea,” she croaks, running over to Momo and grabbing her wrist to drag her away, but Momo stands her ground.
Instead Momo strides over with something like righteous fury while Shouko goes to hide in the communal bathroom. “What,” Momo grits out between her perfect teeth. “Was that? If you didn’t like her back you could have at least been nice about it! And I know you like her, so why the fuck did you do this?”
And that’s what really shakes Izumi out of her state, because Momo doesn’t swear, doesn’t get angry, is always poised and-
“Oh my god,” Izumi whispers, horrified. “She was serious?”
Momo’s face twists in confusion for a moment before her anger returns. “Yes, of course she was serious, what are you talking about? Do you have any idea how much I had to talk her up to even dare and try to ask you out? I thought you liked her, why did you have to be so cruel?”
“I thought it was a prank,” she croaks, and knows it sounds weak and ridiculous now that she can see past the hurt. “Oh my god, she was serious and I-, I need to apologize.”
“You do,” Momo agrees, voice stern. “And you better make it a good one.”
At first Izumi thinks Shouko hadn’t actually gone into the communal bathroom because she couldn’t hear the telltale sobs and hiccups of someone crying, but then she bends over to look underneath the doors of the stalls and sees Shouko’s nyan cat socks.
(if she wasn’t so distraught she might realize that Shouko had to learn how to cry quietly in a house where any attention at all meant pain)
She knocks at the door of Shouko’s stall, feeling like the biggest asshole in the world. “Shouko-chan? Can we… talk?”
“Why?” Comes the muffled reply, and yes, definitely crying, Izumi knows what a crying voice sounds like. “So you can hurt me more?” There’s a hiccup. “I thought-, even if you didn’t-, I thought you were safe.”
Izumi feels the urge to cry, too, but this isn’t about her right now. “I’m sorry, I-,” she pauses, instinctively wanting to keep back the truth, but Shouko has always been honest with her, and she can do the same. “No one has ever asked me out without it being a prank. I-, I should have known you wouldn’t do that, but I wasn’t thinking.” She leans her head against the door of the stall and sighs. “I’m so sorry for hurting you, I never wanted to do that.”
“I don’t-,” there’s shuffling, and Izumi quickly moves away from the door so she doesn’t fall on her face when Shouko opens it. Her face is blotchy and eyes red, and she hates herself for making her best friend look like that. “I don’t understand why anyone would ask you out as a joke. You’re… you.”
“Exactly,” Izumi says. “I’m just useless, plain old me, and you’re gorgeous. What could you ever see in someone like me?”
Shouko glares, sniffling a little, and she looks a bit like a kitten like that. “You’re amazing.”
Izumi smiles sadly. “I’m sorry,” she hesitates, then decides to be brave and grab her best friend’s hand, looking into her eyes. “I-, I’d really like to go on that date with you, if you still want to.”
The expression that spreads on Shouko’s face is something she’ll cherish forever.
“I’d love to.”
Shouko is waiting for Izumi by the genkan, trying and failing not to feel self-conscious. Momo had loaned her some of her jewelry, the earrings and necklace sparkling in the light the same way the barrette did, and she’d applied just a little bit of mascara and lipgloss to her face. It felt strange to put effort into her appearance like this, but if Izumi ended up liking it-
God, she was pathetic.
“And Icyhot wonders why airhead thought she was a guy,” Bakugou snorts as he walks into the common room from the kitchen, bowl of cereal in his hands. “Like, at least try to look like a fucking girl if you’re gonna ask out the useless nerd.”
She feels her face burn, feeling the same cold urge to hide she had when Yoarashi had first made a comment like that.
“Kacchan,” Izumi’s voice suddenly sounds, almost cheery, and Shouko turns just in time to see her punch Bakugou square in the stomach hard enough to have him double over. “Say something like that again and I’ll aim lower.”
The entire common room is quiet, silence only broken by Bakugou’s wheezing and Iida’s chastising call of “No Quirk use in the dorms!”
“I didn’t use my Quirk,” Izumi says, deadpan, and Shouko had never been more smitten. She turns to her and Shouko watches with some surprise as her eyes widen and a blush spreads over her face so red she almost looks like a strawberry. She’s wearing a dark green peasant dress that reaches just past her knees, and how did she manage to convince her to go on a date with her? Izumi averts her face for a moment, before looking back at her and closing the distance between them with a few, quick strides. “Y-you look-, uh, you look great!”
Her voice is squeaky as she says it, and her face somehow goes even redder. Shouko can relate. “You too,” she mutters, unable to look into Izumi’s eyes. “Wanna, uh…” she clears her throat. “Wanna go?”
They are awkward, at first, and Shouko almost regrets ever asking Izumi out. She likes their easy friendship, would hate to lose it because she couldn’t just be happy with what she had.
But as the night goes on and they move from appetizers to main course to dessert they slowly get their usual flow back, the easy jokes and Izumi’s rambling and Shouko’s occasional clarifying questions, and it’s nice. Izumi looks happy and carefree under the low light of the restaurant, and her laughter is like sunshine.
Even if they didn’t actually start dating after this, she’d treasure their date until the day she died.
She should have known that things are rarely simple for her.
“Shouko?” She stiffens with her glass of water halfway to her lips and turns, her father a looming shadow over their table, for once in regular clothes rather than his hero suit. His eyes flick between her and Izumi, and she wants to hit something. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” she says with more confidence and bravado than she really feels.
He crosses his arms and glares at Izumi before focusing back on her. “I was having a business meeting, not that it matters. What are you doing here, with her of all people?”
Izumi straightens in her seat and smiles up at Endeavor like it was pleasant to meet him here rather than absolutely horrifying. “We’re on a date, actually!” Her green eyes are alight with challenge and Endeavor casts a quick glance around their vicinity.
Oh. No way he would blow a fuse in the middle of a public restaurant. The realization is enough to leech tension from her shoulders.
“... I see,” he grits out. “I suppose… well, enjoy yourselves. We’ll talk another time, Shouko.” Every word he says sounds like it brings him physical pain and Shouko loves every single second of it.
“Sure,” she deadpans, staring at him until he finally turns around and leaves, looking back at Izumi with something like anticipation.
As one, they burst into giggles.
“Oh my god, did you see his face?” Izumi is covering her mouth with both of her hands, not that it helps to stifle her laughter. “I thought he’d burst into flames right here!”
“I can’t believe you dared him like that!”
“I’d do it again,” Izumi snorts. “Just watch me.”
“I’ll pay you to do it.”
Izumi suddenly straightens, and for a hot moment Shouko thinks she said something wrong. “I’ll accept dates as payment.”
Shouko can’t help but gawk at her for a moment, and her silence must be enough to make Izumi think back over what she said, because she buries her face in her hands and lets out a sound like a popped balloon. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I said that!”
God, Shouko is gone for this girl. “Does next Saturday sound good?”
Izumi lets out a high-pitched whine, and Shouko takes it as a yes.