It started small—a passing glance in the common room, a soft laugh carried from across the dorm kitchen. Izuku hadn’t thought much of it when he and Ochaco started spending more time together. Group missions, late-night training sessions, coffee runs—they shared an easy camaraderie, a rhythm. Everyone else began to notice too. Teasing smiles. Nudges. Jokes about how cute they were.

And for a while, he didn’t mind. Until he noticed you weren’t around anymore.

At first, he told himself you were just busy. Then he saw the way you’d turn away when he entered a room. How you’d avoid eye contact, skip lunch, pretend not to hear when he called out your name. The laughter that used to linger between you, easy and sweet, had vanished like breath on glass.

It unnerved him more than any villain ever had.

He tried to shake it off, but the weight sat heavy on his chest. He caught glimpses of you walking with your head down, headphones in, hands clenched in your sleeves like you were holding yourself together. You used to smile so easily around him. Now, you barely looked at him.

It wasn’t until he overheard Mina whispering, “They're probably just giving Izuku and Ochaco space, y’know? Everyone thinks these two are endgame,” that the pieces clicked.

That’s what you thought. That’s why you left. The realization hit him like a punch to the gut.

You thought he liked Ochaco. He laughed, then—bitter and quiet. If only you knew.

He started seeking you out after that in ways you couldn’t avoid. Sitting across from you in class even if it meant switching seats. Waiting just outside your dorm building under the guise of taking a call. Walking behind you after school, close enough that his presence lingered but not enough to scare you off. He didn’t know how to say what was clawing at his throat.

So he said it the only way he knew how—through the way his fingers brushed yours when he handed you a notebook. Through the way he’d show up with your favorite drink even when you hadn’t asked. Through the way his eyes followed you in a room, full of longing, like he was memorizing you all over again.

One night, he found you on the balcony alone and away from the others. You started to move—he saw it in the way your shoulders tensed, the way you curled inward—but he stepped forward before you could slip away again.

“I never liked her,” he remarked suddenly to make you stop in your tracks. The words were soft but firm, like he’d been holding them in for too long. “Not the way everyone thinks. Not the way I—” He stopped himself, his chest rising and falling in a shaky breath.

“It’s always been you,” he didn’t ask you to stay, didn’t reach for your hand. He just stood there, vulnerability raw in his eyes, waiting. Hopeful. Terrified.

Because even a boy as brave as Izuku knew that sometimes, the scariest battles weren’t fought on the field—but in the quiet, aching spaces between hearts.

And in that silence, with the wind tugging gently at his curls and the stars overhead like witnesses, he hoped.

Hoped you’d hear him. Hoped you’d stay.