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Denki was a terrible student in almost every single core subject. Maybe just a terrible student in general, as even his hero training day grades were only average. School as a whole never meshed well with Denki, with his very short attention span and terrible sleep schedule. Not to mention he had zero interest in all of the material except his hero studies work and creative courses, and in those courses he just always turned his homework in late or did the minimum.
But, in the past, instead of trying to counteract it, he chose to embrace that part of him. That was until U.A.
When he scraped by the entrance exam on a mediocre written score and a destructive enough quirk to score a decent number of points, Denki already felt behind. His classmates seemed so beyond him by the end of the first semester, or maybe it was all of the time he spent with Bakugou and Momo outside of classes that made him think that. Although, the embarrassing midterm exam loss against the principal proved that he needed to change something yet again.
After a year of school in the most famous hero course in the country, Denki had too many people to let down if he started to slack again. Himself for one, but also the friends he’d protect with his life, teachers he would never admit to wanting to impress, and especially the handful of crushes he really wanted to finally look his way.
So this week’s science unit had Kaminari feeling like a God among men. For once, he could actually finish his assignments without studying like he used to; he has to do his homework, but he could technically do them with no materials required.
After all, electricity was his element. Electricity, magnetism, charges, Denki knew it all because he would be in much bigger trouble than short circuiting if he didn’t know a single thing about some of what his own quirk produced. He had a feeling Mina, Hanta, and Eijirou were going to abandon Bakugo’s study rants this week in favor of the charming, non homicidal yellow-blonde of the group instead.
“I really need your help!”
It was only five words. Five. But those specific five words together were ones Kaminari Denki never thought he would actually hear.
Because what Kaminari saw coming even less was the resident sunshine boy Midoriya Izuku stopping him in the common area on a Friday afternoon to ask for help.
Midoriya, who sat in the top three of their class in everything . Midoriya, who has a quirk that could develop into something to rival even All Might’s one day. Midoriya, who seemed to have regular run ins with every top hero in existence.
Confident, inspiring, beautiful Midoriya, who was currently the center of Denki’s thoughts and who was so incredibly out of his league. Of course he’d fall for one of the most capable heroes in training in the entire program, practically everyone was in love with Midoriya one way or another. His feelings just so happened to not be platonic in the slightest.
Crushes were so hard -
“I-if it isn’t any trouble at all, I mean!” The blonde didn’t realize he was staring at Midoriya until his friend reached up to scratch the back of his head under Denki’s gaze and raise his other hand in front of himself defensively.
“I’m sorry, I’m just… you, uh… you want my help?” Kaminari manages to get out, running a hand through his own hair in disbelief and disrupting the natural static in his signature look. He knew Midoriya had to miss a chunk of class this week for some undisclosed reason that actually wasn’t Bakugou related, so naturally he would be afraid of falling behind.
“Of course!” Those bright green eyes seem to shine a little more when Izuku replies. “You’re like our resident expert!”
The kindness and sincerity, it worked its way into Denki’s heart and squeezed it a little. He could feel himself starting to get nervous in front of his classmate and biggest crush.
So he did what he does best when he usually starts to get nervous: start talking .
“But. Isn't there someone else you’d rather ask, like I dunno, everyone else in our class? Iida’s super smart and Ochako keeps up on her assignments. And Shinsou makes fun of me with electric puns constantly so he has to know something,” Kaminari winces once he stops himself, realizing how real to his own thoughts he actually sounded. Of course there are so many options that aren’t him that made more sense. He couldn’t begin to count on two hands the amount of people in the second year hero course Midoriya could and should ask before him.
‘Out of his league’ after all. So what if it was his quirk, it didn’t change that Denki was still just himself under it all.
“But none of them deal with electricity every day like you do! You’ll know better than anyone else!” Either Izuku didn’t notice Denki derail or he was trying to keep him afloat.
Whatever it was, it was working.
“I guess that’s true,” he murmurs, still a little uncertain. Almost shy, but Kaminari was never going to admit that he could ever be shy . It just felt too good to be true, Midoriya Izuku asking him for help. Asking him, Kaminari Denki, the class fool, to spend time with him, the Midoriya Izuku.
If he wasn’t already a bad student, having to explain science to one of his biggest recent crushes a school thing would only go over poorly.
“But, I’m not that good at explaining anything. My notes aren’t helpful either since they don’t exist. And you probably know as much as I do about my quirk anyway,” he shrugs a little.
“Well,” Midoriya starts, fumbling with his hands nervously. He looks down at his feet before he continues.
“When I first heard about the lessons for this week, I was hoping that some of my notes on your quirk I took during our first training exercise could help, since I didn’t really know much about you until you actually got to use your quirk! You know, since it’s close to mid range and it’s hard to do really anything to a ball with your electricity so I had to take your notes later on. But I don’t remember if I only wrote about how you specifically use your quirk.”
Midoriya’s usual babbling dies out into a small, defeated sound and the greenette buries his face in his hands.
“And I... I can't find where I put your quirk notes and I’m doing some extra work outs so I can’t sit down with my usual study group! I can’t get left behind so I thought I’d get expert intel.”
Denki blinks slowly.
He knew what it felt like to be Sero all of a sudden.
“I’m… sorry, I’m still kind of processing everything. Wowie, is this how I sound to everyone?”
Instead of looking offended, Izuku looks up from his hands to grin cheekily back at him. Denki feels himself blush a little under the rather smug look on his pretty face.
“Maybe a little bit, but I haven’t noticed too badly though.”
Oh no, he’s too cute. And just the perfect little bit of snarky and sweet, how unfair.
“But uh, lost it huh,” Denki quickly changes the subject, pulling on his shirt collar a bit. Midoriya staring him down like that, smiling soft, it wasn’t helping his big crush at all. “How do you lose a page in a notebook if you don’t rip it out?”
Midoriya purses his lips out in a thoughtful pout, his cheeks reddening a little, and Denki has to hold back the fond smile threatening to spill over.
“I’m trying to figure that out myself. I remember starting your page right after I wrote something on Mina’s, but it’s just... missing! Like it vanished! It’s almost like, I thought to write something down and imagined I did! I might have to rewrite that page too right away..”
Izuku stops mumbling for a second, his cheeks starting to pinken deeper like he realized he said something he shouldn’t have.
“Oh, b-but that’s only if you have even more free time! Or I can just do it in class again the next time we have training, whatever you want to do, no pressure!”
The cute stuttering, the excuse to spend even more time with Midoriya? Denki would be a fool to even think of resisting. He’s not sure he’s ever seen the class sunshine this jittery before either. The tone of his voice also implied that Izuku wanted to spend some quality time with him. Who cares if it was some quirk analysis or homework party, the cutest boy in the entirety of the second year hero course wanted to see him .
Although he couldn’t help but wonder what exactly could have distracted Izuku, the only person Denki knew that actually used the stowaway notebooks he brought everywhere, so much that he could have just forgot to write quirk related notes on him.
“Huh. Well,” Kaminari drawls, trying to play it cool before shooting Izuku a pair of finger guns. His ultimate natural response. “I’m free now if you wanna get started on some of that work tonight.”
“Oh!” Izuku lit up with a wide smile. This cute boy and everything that made him so unbelievably bright was going to be the death of Denki. To think this light wanted to spend one on one time with him of all people.
“I promise I’ll try to talk slow, but I can’t say I won’t distract you from notetaking too much ,” Denki adds with a grin. Light flirting he could always get away with; he spent so much time going over the top that even his crushes just assumed he was just flirty.
“Yes yes, thank you so much! We could get a lot done, I might just kiss you!”
Midoriya gushes, then realizes what he blurts out a second before Kaminari processes it.
Kiss him?
The pair of them stare at each other as their cheeks both turn bright red.
“Oh, um, I-I-I mean that’s only i-if you’re-,” Midoriya sputters before Kaminari quickly puts his hands over his friend’s mouth before he can keep talking.
Did Midoriya seriously read him that easily? No, it had to be a slip of the tongue or some overly excited response cliche like out of a movie, that’s what this had to be.
“J-just meet me at my dorm in like ten minutes, then we can kiss, ok?”
He instantly snaps his mouth shut.
Dammit dammit dammit.
Denki wasn’t sure he could get any redder, quickly pulling his hands off of Izuku’s face.
“U-uh, shoot, you know what I meant, Mido!-“
“O-only if you really want to, I won’t impose anything on you, Kaminari! I-I’ve liked you for quite a while now and I didn’t mean for you to find out like this, so uhh, let’s talk later! See you in ten? Yeah, ok, bye!”
Denki didn’t have a chance to get another word in as Izuku strung everything he said together in a single breath and turned his bright red face around to quickly head upstairs. He watches Midoriya’s back quickly retreat in pure disbelief, unsure if what happened truly happened.
Liked him? Would kiss him?
A bubbling laughter slowly starts in his chest. He moves a hand to run through his hair and shakes his head as the airy feeling only grows before he turns in to be ready for Midoriya to stop by momentarily.
Maybe he should try to study more if this was going to be the end result. Or he’d just have to 'accidentally' lose Izuku’s notes next time.