"Hey Midoriya?"

"Jirou?"

"… nevermind."

The first time Jirou Kyouka ever acknowledged Midoriya Izuku was during the Battle Trial, their first ever lesson with All Might.

That was not the first time she had noticed him, of course not, nearly everyone had been there when Iida called the poor boy out for his muttering, back before the entrance exam began. She'd laughed as well, at the time, thinking nothing of it. Now though, seeing him fighting so desperately, she'd regretted that deeply. Midoriya wasn't someone to laugh at.

Facing down that Bakugou, who basically amounted to a living stick of dynamite, had to be terrifying. Doing so without using a Quirk to protect yourself completely ridiculous. But that was what Midoriya did, and that was how he first made his mark upon her.

His own Quirk, it was one of the strangest of them all, despite its apparent simplicity. The power it gave was unreal, Midoriya could hit harder than anyone else in their class, maybe all of them combined at full force. Yet the power hit him too, and he destroyed himself every time he used it. What sort of life do you live with a Quirk like that? Apparently the same as anyone else with their heart set upon heroism. He was here, after all.

The class took to him pretty readily after that. A lot of the more forward ones were quick to introduce themselves, to make sure he knew their names. The full story of the entrance exam, how he'd taken down that giant robot, was circling as well now, and Midoriya had rapidly gained popularity amongst his peers. Jirou watched as he attempted to deal with that.

For having the power to destroy a giant robot with a single punch, there were some real oddities about him. For starters he was the jumpiest person Jirou had ever seen before. No-one else amongst them reacted so strongly to simply being spoken to, went almost rigid when they realised someone was addressing them. It was wholly Midoriya who seemed to be so full of fear that even having someone approach him put him on guard. Something about realising that annoyed her.

That changed, over time, as the twenty grew closer through the experiences they shared. He spoke to others a lot more now, was far more comfortable when someone approached him. Sometimes he still reacted a little over-the-top, but it was a lot less often. Things were getting better for him.

Even around Bakugou he was less a stammering mess. By all appearances, life had improved greatly for Midoriya since entering U.A. That was good. But even still…

The sound of washing dishes filled up the kitchen, duty of cleaning changing for the students residing in Heights Alliance each and every day. With twenty of them living within the same building, maintenance of communal spaces had been assigned as their duty, ensuring they practised responsibility in everything they did. Today Midoriya Izuku and Jirou Kyouka had the task of cleaning after dinner. They worked with mostly quiet focus, and things got done. They were an effective team.

As the work wound down, however, Jirou exhaled loudly, attempted the conversation one more time. Hearing her, Midoriya turned to listen, and for a moment she thought how calm he was compared to before. This was better.

"Have you… spoken with Kirishima lately?"

The question was an odd one, she could see consideration cross Midoriya's face almost immediately. That alone meant he hadn't, he would have just nodded immediately then thought about it otherwise. That he was just thinking quietly, he was trying to figure out what was on her mind.

Heh, good luck.

When he did respond, it was almost long enough that it took Jirou a moment to realise what he was saying. He really did go deep into his own world of thought, huh? The soft utterance of "no" still caught her attention enough, had her turn her head to hear what he'd continue into. To enable him to surprise her as much as he did.

"Did," he seemed to be struggling with the word, struggling with the thought on his mind. She raised an eyebrow and waited. "Did you need advice on something?"

Huh?

Midoriya was incredibly easy to read the general emotions of, in an instant Jirou could see cautiousness, concern and confusion: the usual triplet of expressions he had on. Mixed in were some others that took a little more effort to parse, a slightly deeper amount of thought to him. He was clearly deeply focused on having been asked the question, and it took all of Jirou's ability to figure out just what he meant.

When she did, naturally the response was to nearly double-over in laughter.

"Pffthahahahah oh my god Midoriya," his concerned expression of 'Jirou?' did nothing to stop her, nearly toppling over now as more laughter vented. It was rare for someone to successfully set her off, but when Jirou was entertained enough she tended to laugh without being able to stop. It wasn't exactly a bad habit, but it could be a little embarrassing. She didn't really mind right now though. Eventually she managed to calm herself enough to speak again. Wow, Midoriya hadn't ever set her off like that before. Good on him. What a jokester.

"I can't believe," she had to wipe tears of mirth from her eyes, finally standing back up, "you thought I was asking for advice on Kirishima. Seriously. Kirishima. Come on."

"I-I'm not good at these kinds of things!" Midoriya was quick to stammer and try to excuse himself, to back away from the clear misunderstanding. Jirou didn't give that chance at all.

"So knowing that you thought I was asking you?" There was an incredulity to her now, a genuine surprise that Midoriya had assumed she'd come to him for relationship advice. To her surprise, a small amount of resoluteness went on to appear on his face. What was he thinking now?

"W-Well, there aren't a lot of options, maybe having someone to just talk to helps?" Hearing him answer back was surprising enough, but the response was still strange. Jirou frowned.

"What do you mean, of course there are, I could go to…" she paused, then frowned further. No, not them. Raising up a hand, she began to tap fingers and lower them as she counted through their class. Desperation grew upon her face as she neared the end of the count. Oh my god.

"Oh my god Kirishima is the only one who'd be good at advice."

"Mhm," Midoriya nodded sagely as Jirou practically stumbled out of the kitchen, crouched down in front of a wall. Mutters of 'oh my god' emerged from her as she attempted to parse this horrifying realisation, the general understanding that no-one else in their entire class possessed the ability to read the mood and understand people as well as the hot-headed fists-first self-proclaimed manly-man of Class 1-A. This was impossible. It couldn't be.

When Midoriya finished the last of the dishes, stepped outside to check how Jirou was holding up with that earth-shattering discovery, it was to find a number of the other students lined up alongside her, each equally in shock at the knowledge. He smiled slightly and reached forward, tapped the shoulder of the red-headed youth closest to him. Kirishima turned around and gave a cheeky smile.

"Everyone else was doing it, it looked like fun."

It was times like these, Jirou thought as a few of the others attempted to smother a laughing Kirishima with some cushions, that things were good. They'd all come so far, they'd all improved so much. Things were better.

Things were better, but…

"Why the hell," she'd slammed the book she'd been reading shut, caught the attention of some of the others who'd been studying in the same room, "was Midoriya such a mess at the start of the year?" Most of the others looked at her in confusion, trying to figure out the reasoning behind this statement. Kirishima though, he just sighed and closed the book he'd been working through himself. He was surprisingly good at understanding the thoughts of others.

"Jirou…" there was an almost tiredness to his voice that told her he'd been dealing with that same internal debate, probably moreso for the amount of time he spent around Bakugou. That wasn't good enough for her though. She wasn't satisfied.

"No, it's shit," there was an astounding amount of venom to her voice, surprising even her. Had she been bottling up how much this grated on her for so long? "And you know it."

"Yeah," he turned his head, not able to meet her gaze. She felt no pity or regret. "It's awful."

Bakugou was loud, crude, and more abrasive than sandpaper. His hyper-competitiveness had pretty quickly pushed him to the fringes of their class socially, and he'd seemed perfectly happy with that arrangement. Honestly, if he'd come from a different background where he'd never associated with Midoriya to begin with, Jirou wouldn't have a single problem just overall ignoring him. But thinking about that poor kid, who wanted to be a hero with all his heart and spent far too much time caring for everyone around him, thinking about him and the way he used to jump the moment someone so much as looked at him, thinking about all of that was really setting her off. She hated it.

"It doesn't matter that things've improved," she wasn't letting it drop either, kept a steely gaze on Kirishima. The others were slowly piecing together the topic, thanks to Kirishima's involvement, and were keeping a close watch on the pair. This was a conversation that had been rattling in a few minds so far. "It can't just be allowed to fade away quietly. That's not right. For either of them."

"Neither of them are going to do anything about it though," Kirishima finally did look at her, though there was no competitiveness to his face or voice, just far too much contemplation. "And you can't just force the topic on either of them, that won't do anything helpful."

Jirou exhaled in annoyance. He wasn't wrong, had obviously come to that conclusion a long time ago, but even still... even still! "It sucks and its stupid," she grumbled, giving up entirely on the book she'd been holding and letting it drop on the table. "You know that Bakugou thought he was Quirkless up until Aizawa's first test, you know things had to be even worse before that. Before they came here."

A twitch on Kirishima's brow told Jirou that he did, in fact, understand exactly that. If she'd spent the past few months with the thought percolating in the back of her mind, building momentum to this outburst of annoyance at the thought of what had been between those two, then for Kirishima it must have been a constant pressure directly on him. He was Bakugou's closest friend in their class, and also a friend to Midoriya. That couldn't be anything less than incredibly stressful for someone who felt as strongly about things as Kirishima, who wore his heart so openly on his sleeve. Even still, Jirou had difficulty feeling sympathy. Not while this was finally venting from her.

"Are they just going to ignore it?" The others were staying quiet, watching her and Kirishima but adding nothing. They understood the topic now, knew how bad it could be, and perhaps had even wrestled with it before themselves. It just wasn't something you came out and said, wasn't something to just throw into conversation. A real mood-killer.

Jirou really wasn't in the mood to avoid such, at this point.

"They can't," she continued, not losing pace. "We can't go through the next three years with that just being left on their shoulders. We can't all graduate at the end of this and that still be a thing unaddressed. It can't possibly be right to just leave it be."

"I know." He really did, she could see and hear it in everything he was saying and doing right now. Even then though, it just wasn't enough. She wasn't happy. And she knew Kirishima could see it right on her face.

"Just inelegantly dumping it on one of them isn't going to help, right?" He had her with that one, he was right. Bakugou would just flip his lid and Midoriya wouldn't even want to hear about it, would just wave it off. Neither of them would face the topic.

"But is either going to change enough to get around to it?"

"That's not up to us."

Jirou growled. Kirishima wasn't wrong there, they'd be intruding if they even said anything. They were intruding right now having this conversation. But it was still so frustrating. It shouldn't be like this. She shouldn't have this running around in her head, making itself known whenever she let her thoughts wander. No-one should.

"Look," Kirishima was sighing, brow furrowed, "I'll say something." That had Jirou pause, had her actually backtrack all the way to asking him if that was actually okay. He shook his head. "Just give it some time, okay? They're both still changing. We all are."

There wasn't anything else to say, she sighed and leaned back in her chair. Yeah, things were still changing for all of them. Hopefully for the better. She nodded to Kirishima and he visibly relaxed. Some of the others made noises of encouragement to him. One gave a calm nod to her appreciating the topic being raised. She gave a half-nod half-shrug back and reached forward, grabbing the book she'd been studying. Back to it.

The first time Jirou Kyouka ever acknowledged Midoriya Izuku, it was with the realisation that he was fighting with everything he had to become a hero. Even without realising it, he'd become a little symbol of their class, a little motivator to never give up or stop trying their best. In the few short months since those days, Jirou had already motivated herself more than once by remembering Midoriya's fight with Bakugou. Never give up, right?

The next time she passed him by, she gave him a nod of greeting and received a friendly smile in return. Way different from the first time she'd ever spoken to him, where he'd snapped to attention immediately. This was better.

Even then, when she turned back in her direction, her face was set. But it still wasn't good enough.