Three weeks had passed since the entrance exam.
Three weeks of absolutely nothing.
No letters. No phone calls. No ominous men in black suits showing up to tell him he'd accidentally destroyed government property worth more than his apartment building. Just... silence.
Izuku hated silence.
He was sprawled across the living room couch like a cat that had given up on life, one arm dangling off the edge while his other hand held his phone above his face. Sunlight poured through the window and painted warm stripes across his black t-shirt. A half-empty bag of wasabi chips rested on his stomach, rising and falling with each breath.
The perfect image of a young man with absolutely zero responsibilities.
Which was, of course, a complete lie.
His phone screen displayed the latest hero news. Some second-rate agency in Osaka had taken down a villain with a Quirk that turned his hair into spaghetti. Riveting stuff. The comments section was full of people arguing about whether pasta-based Quirks should be classified as Emitter or Transformation types.
This is what I have to look forward to, Izuku thought, scrolling past a particularly heated debate about linguine versus fettuccine. Years of battling pasta villains and explaining to journalists why I punched a man made of marinara sauce.
Can't wait.
His phone vibrated.
Izuku's thumb paused mid-scroll. An incoming video call notification had appeared at the top of his screen. The contact photo was a sparkly ghost sticker surrounded by pink hearts and star emojis. The name read: "Toru (The Invisible Menace)."
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He answered.
The screen filled with a bedroom that looked like a bomb had gone off inside a fashion magazine. Hero posters covered every inch of wall space, overlapping each other in a chaotic collage of muscular men and attractive women in skin-tight costumes. A mountain of plushies dominated one corner. Fashion magazines and makeup products competed for territory on a desk that had clearly never seen organizational tools in its life. A Kuromi plushie sat prominently on a pillow, staring at the camera with dead, judgmental eyes.
No girl was visible.
Of course.
"MIDORIYA-KUN!"
The voice came through at approximately eight hundred decibels. Izuku's eardrum filed a formal complaint.
"I'M FREAKING OUT! I'M TOTALLY FREAKING OUT!"
The floating uniform in the corner of the frame, which Izuku assumed was Toru, began pacing back and forth. A pink cardigan and white shorts moved through the air like a very fashionable ghost having a breakdown.
"What if I failed?! The written exam was a DISASTER! I guessed on like half the math problems! What if they grade on a curve and everyone else is just better at math than me?! What if my combat points weren't enough?! What if that girl I helped at the end didn't count for anything and the judges were like 'wow, this invisible idiot just wasted thirty seconds she could have spent hunting robots'?!"
Izuku popped a chip into his mouth.
Crunched.
"THEY'RE GOING TO SEND ME A REJECTION LETTER AND I'LL HAVE TO GO TO SOME REGULAR HIGH SCHOOL WHERE NOBODY CARES ABOUT QUIRKS AND I'LL SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WORKING IN AN OFFICE AND—"
"Breathe."
The single word cut through her spiral like a knife through butter.
Toru's floating clothes stopped moving.
"You saved someone." Izuku shifted on the couch, propping his phone against a pillow so he could use both hands for the chips. "That's what heroes do. U.A. isn't stupid enough to fail someone for acting like an actual hero during a hero exam."
"But—"
"Your Quirk is too valuable. Permanent invisibility with light refraction abilities? That's the kind of thing hero agencies dream about. They'd be idiots to pass you up."
The clothes in the frame seemed to sag with relief. Then perk up again.
"You really think so?"
"I know so." Izuku smiled at the camera, letting some of his natural confidence leak through. "You're in, Hagakure. Trust me."
A sound that might have been a sniffle came through the speaker.
"You're... really good at this, you know? The whole calming-people-down thing. It's like your actual Quirk."
"My Quirk is being devastatingly handsome. The calming thing is just a bonus."
"OH MY GOD, you're impossible!"
But she was laughing now. The clothes in the frame bounced slightly with each giggle.
Izuku hauled himself off the couch, keeping his phone balanced in one hand while the bag of chips dangled from the other.
His stomach had started making noises that suggested the wasabi chips were not, in fact, a sufficient meal. He wandered toward the kitchen with the lazy stride of someone who had nowhere to be and nothing to do.
The refrigerator door opened with a soft click.
Let's see... leftover rice, some pickled vegetables, half a container of—
SMACK.
A wooden spoon connected with the back of his head.
Izuku didn't flinch. Ten years of training under Hano had made him immune to surprise attacks from behind. He simply turned around, raising one eyebrow at the woman standing behind him.
Inko Midoriya wore her favorite yellow apron over a soft cream sweater. Her green hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and she held her wooden spoon like a scepter of domestic authority. Despite being a full head shorter than her son, she somehow managed to loom.
"Izuku."
"Mother."
"What have I told you about snacking before lunch?"
"That it's a perfectly reasonable activity for a growing boy who needs to maintain his impressive physique?"
The wooden spoon rose threateningly.
"I'm on the phone," Izuku said, gesturing with the device. "High-stress situation. Emotional support calories are medically necessary."
Inko's eyes narrowed. Then she spotted the phone screen.
Her entire demeanor shifted.
The stern mother disappeared. In her place stood a woman who had clearly remembered that her son had been talking to multiple girls over the past few weeks, and that grandchildren were, theoretically, a possibility somewhere in the distant future.
She leaned closer, mouth forming exaggerated shapes that Izuku could read even without sound.
"Jiro? Or Toru?"
Izuku rolled his eyes so hard he thought they might get stuck.
"Toru," he mouthed back.
Inko's face lit up like someone had flipped a switch. Before Izuku could stop her, she had grabbed his wrist and turned the phone so she was now in frame.
"Hello, Toru-chan!"
"MRS. MIDORIYA!"
Toru's voice shot up another octave. The floating clothes on the other end of the call snapped to attention, hands clasped together in a pose that somehow conveyed intense politeness despite the lack of a visible body.
"It's so lovely to finally meet you! Izuku has told me so much about you!"
I have told you literally nothing.