🦋Butterflies🦋 ~ ShinKamiBakuDeku

Study Then Date

A/N: alright, back to business!

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Denki stared at the piece of paper in front of him with furrowed brows. He'd been chewing on his pen for so long that it wasn't satisfying anymore, so he tried to dive back into his math homework. Somehow he'd forgotten how much a headache it was. Denki decided to count the library's ceiling tiles instead.

Izuku sat across from him, minding his own business as he flipped through the pages of his journal. Earlier, he lost a sparring match against Tokoyami and he wanted to know why. Maybe it was because he was distracted.

It was something he and the blonde before him had in common.

Izuku sighed and closed his journal. Denki noticed and pretended to bring his attention back to his homework. Just the sight of it made his brain throb. "Do you need some help?" Izuku asked with his usual genuine, caring voice. "That's what I'm here for, after all."

Denki lost all power in his body. He pushed the whole textbook forward and flopped himself over the table, groaning dramatically. "I just... can't do it," he grumbled. "I can't fucking do it. I'm an idiot."

Izuku frowned. He closed the textbook, using Kaminari's scrap paper covered in failed attempts as a bookmark, and gently moved it to the side. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Kaminari. We've been working for a while, so it only makes sense that your brain is a little fried. How about we take a break?"

Denki sat up and covered his face with his hands, muffling his voice as he spoke. Still, Izuku could hear the frustration clear as day. "Midoriya," Denki said with an irritated edge to his voice, "I'm telling you, I can't do it. This assignment is weeks overdue. I'm literally weeks behind. The numbers keep fucking wiggling on the page, and I have no idea what exponents even are. My grandparents were right: I should've dropped out of high school and just became fucking cop or something."

"Cops need a high school diploma, too."

"Then I'll be a hooker."

Izuku frowned. "I'm sure you'd be an amazing hooker, but Kami, you are so much smarter than you give yourself credit for. Math is your only tough subject, right?"

Kaminari shook his head, rubbing the tears out of his eyes and hoping Izuku didn't see them. "It's all of it, dude. I can't read. What kinda seventeen year old can't fucking read? How the hell am I going to be a hero like this? God, I should just..."

Izuku paled. "What?"

Denki froze. He said too much, didn't he? Izuku didn't want to hear about his self-loathing, or those random little voices that squeezed through the cracks in his mind and told him to do bad things to himself.

He hadn't followed through with any of them. Not yet. He just liked to pretend they weren't there. He had homework to do; his mental breakdown wasn't scheduled until tonight when he took a shower (right before his "session" with Katsuki).

But something slipped. Barely anything, just a snippet of a thought. Izuku's mind worked a mile a minute, analyzing every bit of the strange three words. I should just. That phrase could be followed up by anything; considering his tone, Izuku had a pretty good guess.

He didn't like it. Not one bit.

Without thinking, he stood up and sat beside the blonde, ignoring the shocked sounds as he pulled the boy into a hug. Denki just froze at first; he was a clingy person, sure, but this was different. It made him want to cry, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Denki let himself hug him back, tucking his face into Izuku's collarbone. "You're not stupid, Denki," Izuku whispered. His voice wavered as if he was gonna be the one to cry. "You're smart and you're strong and you're so brave..." Izuku pulled back and rubbed his eyes, offering up the sweetest smile that he could manage. "That's why I like you. Because you're amazing. And you're you. I wouldn't want you any other way."