Author: Sevenrenny
. . .
The two were being, as some of the boys liked to say, 'suspiciously chummy'.
The class let it slide, temporarily. It kept going on, to the point of it being a fact the classmates silently agreed on not voicing it out loud. It had started off with the boy just being shy around one of his friends. No big deal. He got over his jitters around her fairly quickly.
Then, it seemed as though the tables had turned. The poor girl had caught the nervous fever, going a tomato-red in the face, usually when his name came up. It lasted for a while, to the point of becoming a common topic to gossip about between selected groups of friends. What has started off as a local myth amongst teenagers had turned into a nicely framed vase the kids could do nothing but admire from afar. Oh, look how cute it was. Like a star at the top of a Christmas tree. It just had to be there. Expected, even.
It was hard not to look when, during gym, the pure squeals and laughs from Ochaco pierced the large training ground, sounding joyous and hearty. While every pair of twos wrestled, scattered about the gym, Izuku and Ochaco's grappling match on the mat had turned playful, with him on his back, hugging her from behind, his slightly larger hand grasping both her wrists together, and his other hand mistakenly or unmistakably around her midsection. Their legs were intertwined in a way that his legs wrapped around hers, caging her in place.
His back pressed the mat as Ochaco struggled to both take this seriously and to get loose, failing at the first but successfully making him lose his focus. He couldn't hold in his own chuckles and started laughing with his face pressing the side of her neck in an attempt to stifle his voice. That didn't make Ochaco's squeals any less attention-grabbing.
"S – Stop! It tickles!" she gasped, wriggling and kicking, moving his legs with her. They toppled to the side. He was full-on laughing, too, gasping and breathing into her hair. Their intertwined legs quivered.
"Deku!"
The practice fight didn't look serious anymore. Everyone had stopped and stared. Mineta's pupils had shrunk. Mina, on the other hand, was living the shipper dream, restraining her own excited squeal. Their teacher, Eraser Head, wasn't impressed. He raised a single brow, giving the two teenagers a few seconds to stop their shenanigans without being told to do so. They never did. And so, he intervened.
"Midoriya, Uraraka, this isn't a playground. Back to training or I'm pulling you out," he threatened.
That snapped them out of their little happy world.
"Yes, sensei!" they both yelped.
Panting, Izuku released his hold on Ochaco and they rolled in opposite directions, their giggles slowly subsiding. They hadn't noticed the attention they'd attracted, standing up and giving the other person a chance to catch their breath before they could go back to their grappling match. Their classmates, noticing the glare of their teacher, went back to their sparring partners.
Minoru, still traumatized, pointed a shaky finger. "What...?"
"Come on, man," Hanta whispered with a hand up to cover his mouth. "Sensei's watchin'."
Meanwhile, Katsuki didn't bother hiding his displeasure. "Disgusting."
...
Truth be told, it was nice to have two people crushing on each other in their class. It added... character, to the whole group. The group was a family, in a way, and what made their friends happy made the rest of them happy. No one asked questions when both Izuku and Ochaco sometimes arrived late to class. One waiting for the other, most assumed. They usually turned up just before the bell; a habit started just at the end of their second year and became more pronounced at the start of their third. Tenya had either gotten tired scolding, or they had given him a well-enough excuse that forced him to reluctantly let them continue on with this disappearing act.
