Izuocha's Love Stories

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT (CHAPTERS 3-4)

CHAPTER THREE

Izuku glanced at the dark windows, his pencil lead tapping lightly on his paper. It was far too quiet in the common area with just him and Iida studying there in silence. Everyone else had already gone upstairs to get ready to go to bed. Usually there'd be a few of his classmates lingering downstairs chatting, watching something, or playing a video game. Although Kaminari had bought a new board game so he supposed they were playing it with him in his room.

He looked back to his work, scribbling the answer to one he'd solved a few minutes ago in his head, his mind elsewhere- namely Ochako, as it had been of late.

After their wilderness survival training, he'd been thinking about her a lot. Well, worrying was more like it. She was as happy and bubbly as always, but often enough Izuku noticed she wore that hiding smile, the one from the mountain, and from the sports festival. Something was bothering her, more now than before. Or maybe he was just seeing it now. He wanted to talk to her about it -whatever it was- and had tried and failed to get her to open up. She just smiled and waved it off to the point where he felt like he was imagining things. But the memory of her weeping with her back to him was too vivid for it to be constructed.

He swallowed nervously. He'd been concerned that he wasn't being a good enough friend to her, one that she could trust. She was his first friend at UA, he pretty much owed her that much. And yet, now that he was trying to be better... she just seemed to pull away more, keeping him at a comfortable arm's-length away.

Izuku's fingers scratched at the eraser shavings on the table, frowning to himself. Maybe if they could have a real conversation sometime, but... she was avoiding that, letting her false smile fall into place and shutting him out. Maybe he wasn't being direct enough? Asking outright was different than trying to segway into it. ' You don't have to worry about me, I'm okay,' he recalled her words from that night on the mountain as she cried.

Am I a bad friend for not noticing until now? His stomach sank at the thought.

With a sigh, he put his mind more fully to the work in front of him.

It was dark when Ochako got back to the dorms, with only minutes left until curfew.

"Welcome back," he said with a genuine smile, despite the swirling feelings inside him.

She returned the smile brightly and he half wondered if he really could tell the difference between her real smiles and fake ones. "Good to be back," she replied.

"Uraraka, you must be more careful. We have less than ten minutes until curfew. Had you been out later, I would've needed to inform our teacher to begin searching for you," Iida said sternly, but they both knew it came from care.

Ochako laughed, scratching the back of her neck. "You're right, sorry 'bout that. I just got caught up talking with my parents. Won't happen again."

She came over and dropped her backpack to the ground, slumping into the chair beside Iida. "Speaking of my parents, I have a favor to ask you guys."

Izuku blinked, exchanging a look with Iida. "Uh, sure. What do you need?"

Ochako sighed, her face turning a tad pinker. "Well, my parents have been curious to meet some of my friends. So I was wondering if you guys would wanna come over to their house for dinner next Sunday? I was thinking of inviting Tsuyu and Todoroki too, to keep it small, ya know?"

"S- sure, that shouldn't be a problem," Izuku replied, feeling nervous for some unknown reason. He'd never met Ochako's parents before, but he'd seen pictures of them in her room. The distinct memory of the sports festival came to him as he'd heard through the door Ochako's side of her conversation with her father. His insides knotted at the reminder.