Izuocha's Love Stories

36 - WHITE LILIES

By FaireOchako

Sometime in their first year at U.A., Iida Tenya delivered a gift from Ochako to Izuku. Iida said the only reason she didn't give it to him herself was because she had to help Aizawa after class.

Izuku was baffled, to say the least. Giving people flowers certainly wasn't something he thought Ochako would do randomly. But then again, they'd only known each other for a few months and there were things about her that he had yet to learn.

But, on a rare morning where they were able to walk to school together, Ochako picked a small white flower and handed it to him with a smile. Neither said anything, but that didn't make the moment any less memorable. He remembers smiling so widely. Can anyone really blame him? He'd never had friends before and suddenly he does and she gave him a cute little flower.

When the dorm systems were implemented, she would start giving him more. Once she appeared with a mini bouquet of small garden flowers. There was an unspoken agreement between them to not say anything. They'd just trade smiles.

Izuku liked that. He's not good at verbally expressing himself.

But he felt bad about her gifting him something so authentic and so her, without him doing anything in return to show just how grateful he was. Izuku wondered for a while what he could do for her.

See, unlike Bakugo, Izuku isn't particularly talented in anything. Ah, but he is!

That's when he started composing notebooks for her and her only. He documents everything he knew about her and her quirk, everything he enjoyed about being her friend, everything he thought she should know. Every month, she would receive a new one, each with her name scratched onto the front cover and a small flower drawn beside it.

And that became their "thing." She gifted him flowers, he gifted her notebooks. Ochako eventually added little notes with the flowers, which he enjoyed very much. She commented on his abilities as a hero, sometimes scolded him for being reckless, or just drew a picture of something they'd done together that day.

It truly warmed his heart.

When he had to leave U.A. between first and second year... Izuku found out just how important those flowers became to him. He longed for them. He longed to write to her. Izuku longed for those moments that they never spoke about. It kept him grounded, in a way. It always gave him something to look forward to.

Now, when the class went after him and managed to return him to U.A., he'd forgotten. Not because they weren't significant, but because of the stress of everything he was facing. Which meant that white lily found it's way onto his bed... well, he cried. Harder than he ever had. He did nothing to stay quiet, nothing to conceal it. Izuku just cried.

It lifted a weight off his shoulder, though he didn't quite understand for what. Izuku worked with the class and they succeeded in what they had to do to save Japan and the world.

Life seemed... normal-ish. He wrote her a new notebook, filled with everything he'd been feeling since the whole war broke loose. He said he trusted her in different ways than he trusted, say, Bakugo or Todoroki. She was significant in so many ways he didn't know how to describe and that he, truly, was thankful he tripped in front of U.A. that day of the exams.

She responded with a pink flower.

Izuku didn't think much about the flowers and their meanings. In fact, it hadn't even occurred to him to search it up...

Until Iida questioned the small vase with that pink flower. Izuku told him it's just a little something from someone dear to him. Iida asked what it meant. Huh? What does it mean? Yeah. I don't know.

Izuku looked it up. It stands for... an agreement or acceptance? Hmm.

White lily? "My love is pure."

What? What does that mean?

He questioned her in the next notebook, at the very end. She gave him a white rose.

White rose? "I cannot."

Izuku questioned her again. She sent another white rose with a note. "I'm not telling," it said. It seemed... like she was teasing?

Graduation came around. Izuku thanks his mom for being is number one supporter and took the white leather notebook. Ochako meets him at the school entrance, where they first met.

She gave him a wild rose, a white lily, and a red carnation. He gave her a notebook filled with everything personal, nothing about her career or quirk, but what she means to him.

Izuku went back to his childhood home and looked up the meaning of the wild rose and red carnation.

"Pleasure and pain."

"My heart aches for you."

-----

It's years later, after he's achieved his lifelong dream, after she becomes a well known rescue hero and settles in the top ten, that he receives a bouquet. They stopped that little back and forth exchange only because of their conflicting schedules. She had moved quite far, too. Closer to disaster areas with Asui. They spoke every now and then, but not as much as they would like.

So, to say that Izuku was happy and excited to finally receive an arrangement from her is quite an understatement.

White lilies. Red carnations. Red tulips. Yellow pansies. Daisies.

Izuku spent his free time researching the meanings of flowers. So, just looking at them, he knew what she was saying.

He smiles and prepares a larger vase to fit all of the beautiful plants. He removes one of each (that he doesn't already have), cuts the stems, and retrieves a rather large book.

He flips passed all the dried, slightly brown, flat flowers, some of which accompanied by notes or small pictures. Izuku uses another book to gently press the flowers down and slips them into a pocket.

A few days later, Ochako receives a pink leather notebook with a flower cleanly burned into the center and her kanji's right below.

Inside the front cover is a pressed pink flower.

Acceptance.

She smiles like a school girl with a crush, and squeals quietly. Tsuyu questions it.

Ochako beams at her friend and says, "He accepted!"