AMATEURS [Tenya Iida x OC]

Chapter 18 - The One at the Festival

[photo by _tamakid on twitter; found via pinterest]

-

"What's a school festival?"

Utensils froze in midair, jaws dropped, eyes widened. Peri's friends stared in awe at their exchange student friend as they ate lunch.

Mr. Aizawa had just brought up the school festival during class earlier, and Peri had been stewing about it. To her, a festival meant, like, a circus? But then all she could picture was Bakugo on a tightrope in a unitard, and made herself laugh.

"You don't have school festivals in France?" Ochaco asked, the first of their friends to thaw.

Peri shook her head. "Not at my school, at least." She pushed her rice around her bowl, and flushed. "Is that weird?"

"Every school does a festival here," Midoriya explained, "Even in elementary school, sometimes!"

Humming, Peri considered this new information while she ate.

The furrow in her brow worried Tenya. "We're just all accustomed to it," he said, patting her knee, "Don't worry, you can still participate, even if you've never done it. We'll help you if there's something you don't understand."

She placed a light hand on his and squeezed back. "Yeah. Okay."

-

Late one night, the class decided on their festival event.

A concert.

Peri had been elected, alongside Jiro, to perform vocals. A handful of classmates made up the band: Bakugo on drums, Momo on keyboard, Tokoyami and Kaminari on guitar, and Jiro and Peri would back everyone up with more guitar and a tambourine, respectively. The rest of the class was either dancing or working on visual effects.

Everyone got busy practicing their parts, learning their instruments, and ensuring that the performance would go off without a hitch. Jiro found time between teaching Kaminari the guitar and teaching the rest of the band the music to practice vocals with Peri, but it wasn't for very long.

The stress increased the closer it got to the festival - and to the end of the term - but Tenya actually didn't mind. He preferred school stress over hero stress any day. But the thing he didn't like was missing Peri, or only seeing her when she was stressed out of her mind. Tenya knew the performance was terrifying her, that she'd only said yes to be a team player and make her classmates happy.

So he left her treats: ice cream on her bedside table, coffee on her desk in the morning, pastries whenever he thought she looked like she needed one. He strategically left one of his sweatshirts behind in her room after a late-night cuddle session so she could wear it to concert practice the next day, not realizing that the sight of her in it would make his brain cease functioning.

"Iida! Focus!" Mina shouted, "We don't have time for you to stare at Peri's butt!"

Quiet giggles erupted throughout the class, and Tenya's cheeks flushed lava-hot as he muttered apologies to his peers.

Peri spun and stifled a giggle at the outburst, her grin unbridled as she winked at her boyfriend from across the practice space. She turned back toward Jiro and pulled her long blonde curls up into a ponytail, knowing that it would drive Tenya crazy.

Not even a little bit sorry.

-

"Are you nervous?"

"You're making me more nervous by asking me that, love." Peri ran a lint roller over Tenya's dance costume, stage fright prematurely fluttering in her gut. "Are you nervous?"