Something Further than the Universe

Chapter II ~ It's Easy to Fall in Love

This fanfic totally blew up on fanfiction.net, and I'm really happy at all the positive reviews I've been getting, so I'm definitely going to be continuing this. I know I mentioned this fic was going to be a slow burn, but it's not gonna be one of those slow burns that'll be 100k words. It will probably hit around 5ok or 60k words, maybe 70k at the most.

Anyway, I hope this chapter is not too boring for you guys. Half of it is just girl talk. It's mostly just a setup for later chapters, though, and next chapter should be a lot better.

~+~

Mina woke up early the next morning, and at first she wasn't sure what time it was. It could've been the middle of the night for all she knew, or at least it seemed that way because the room was still dark. She figured she was wrong, though, when she walked out onto the balcony and saw Izuku running laps, the sun faintly peeking over the horizon.

She watched him for a minute before turning to go back to bed, but she stopped the moment it hit her. An idea. There was no doubt it was a bad idea because she was tired, and her head was never in the right place when she was tired. But it wasn't in the right place when she was awake, either, so she got dressed and headed downstairs anyway.

She waited outside, standing at a corner that was unsuspicious to the untrained eye, and she hoped he'd make another lap before she got antsy.

When she heard his footsteps getting closer, she leaped out from behind the building and grabbed him by the shoulders. She yelled "Midoriya!" so loud he shrieked and lost his balance. It was a girly kind of shriek, too, the kind of shriek boys liked to make fun of.

"A-Ashido! What are you doing?" He was on the ground now, one hand clutching his heart to keep it from jumping out of his chest. He was not expecting that.

Mina kept a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing, because she would be lying if she said she didn't want to make fun of him. He just made it so easy. Especially when he sounded like that, his voice so high he could've been a girl if she didn't know any better. "I can't believe you actually screamed."

He put his hands up in defense. "I-I was surprised. Did you come out here just to surprise me?"

"Yep." Mina didn't like seeing him so helpless, so she offered her hand. She remembered helping him up last night, too.

"How'd you know I was out here?"

"I saw you when I woke up. And I was going to go back to bed, but I decided I'd rather scare you instead."

"Please don't ever do that again. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack."

She narrowed her eyes and said, "I don't think I can promise that," and Izuku knew she wasn't lying.

He noticed her smile get a thousand times brighter, then, and she leaned in a little closer with this happy-go-lucky kind of expression. He started to sweat. He still wasn't used to being so close to a girl.

"Can I jog with you, Midoriya? You're fine with that, right?" Suddenly she wasn't so tired anymore, and the rays of sunlight streaming across the sky gave her motivation to run and get some exercise.

But after her sudden burst of energy began to waver, she realized how close she was to his face. He had a lot more freckles than she could've imagined, and he was still breathing heavy after his run. Her breath caught in her throat. She backed off a little.

"T-that's fine! But why do you want to jog so suddenly?" he asked.

"Because we're friends, right?"

Izuku hadn't really thought of her as a friend until she mentioned it. The first time they really talked was yesterday, less than twelve hours ago, and most of that time was allotted to dancing. But he had a lot of fun hanging out with her, so he decided he was okay with it. "Yeah, I guess so."