Izuocha's Love Stories

70 - TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT (CHAPTERS 1-2)

By Kate7h

CHAPTER ONE

THE PROLOGUE

Walking back from the main campus to the dorms had become so second nature to Ochako, she could probably do it with her eyes closed. She tucked a lock of wet hair behind her ear, still feeling damp after swimming with Tsuyu in the pool. Tsuyu had specially permission to use the pool for training outside of school time every other week, and had invited Ochako to come along. Thus the evening doubled as fun and as training.

Ochako had been trying to see if she could be able to float water. But the mechanics of it were tricky. She'd been able to float small portions of it, but 'touching' water was a concept she hadn't thought too much about before. The endeavor had tired her out far more than expected, so she left early and now she walked alone to the dorms in her gym clothes, ready to take a proper shower and curl up in her pajamas.

She blew out a breath, feeling the exertion from the complicated use of her quirk manifesting itself as a headache and mild pressure in her ears made them feel like they needed to pop. She would love to just go to sleep, but there were still class assignments she needed to work on. Spring term finals were also coming up in a few weeks, so she wanted to get a head start on that too. Being ranked 12 or 13 consistently through her first year was not acceptable. After all, she'd already vowed that year two was going to be where she pulled ahead. No more nonsense.

As she walked up to the dorm building, she paused seeing Izuku sitting at a table with Iida and Todoroki through the lit windows.

Speaking of nonsense... she thought at the familiar swarm of butterflies in her stomach.

Ochako knew that she had in small portions distanced herself from Izuku since their first finals at UA, and since Aoyama's words to her then. It wasn't on purpose, from what she was aware of, and it wasn't like she was avoiding him, but still it happened. He'd been getting closer with others in the class, namely Iida and Todoroki, (especially after their run in with the Hero Killer). Because of that, she didn't think he noticed her slight absence all that much, as she'd been getting closer with the girls of the class as well.

Part of her tried not to be too hurt that he didn't notice. She knew what his position was. He hadn't had a lot of friends before high school, and was bullied for much of that time as well. He wasn't used to having friends, so he was surely appreciating the friendships he'd been able to make in their class. It wasn't his fault she'd pulled away from him, that was just how she'd had to cope at times.

Their wilderness survival training had changed all of that.

Now he was almost hyper-aware of her whenever she was around him, since they'd shared their own 'traumatic bonding experience.' He sought her out and brought her into his growing group of close friends, so now both she and Tsuyu, and sometimes Momo too would train, eat, and go outside of campus together with them quite frequently. The image of Izuku knocking on her door with a bright smile and a proposition was starting to be a familiar sight.

She wasn't going to say it was unpleasant, far from it. It was delightful to have so much attention, and to spend so much time with him. It was just distracting, as studying with him meant feeling hyper-aware of their closeness as he jots something down in her notebook to help her understand and she can't help but just look at him, his words about logarithms going straight over her head. And that couldn't be helping her goal to do better academically.

I decided, didn't I? Ochako thought, shaking her head as she gripped the door handle. I'm not going to feel these things anymore. And yet, he was making that quite difficult.