When I'm With Them, I'm Free

Chapter Twenty-Three: Is This Love?

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Laughing jumped around the room like the walls were able to reflect the giggles, shooting them around the dorm like a bullet.

Happiness seemed to be a drug, at that moment. All of your classmates seemed to be high off of life, their head tilting back and swinging forward and a good, hearty laugh bursting from their sore stomachs. If you had been a stranger watching within, you could only assume they were drunk.

Their eyes were glossed over in some sort of sheen layer of emotion that you hadn't seen since the excitement of a new high school wore off. Their smiles were too wide to be anything but abnormal, forcing tight lines into their burning cheeks. Closeness was akin to normalcy and hiding your true self—concealing your laughter even if it was obnoxious, keeping obvious secrets, and lying about stupid, unimportant things—was next to murder as you all sat in on the green couches and the hard wooden floor.

Ashido would bump her shoulders with Kaminari, who never started too far. Sometimes she would even waggle her eyebrows at him like he was supposed to understand what that meant. Yaoyorozu wouldn't cover her mouth with her fingers as he let out a gentle laugh. Instead, she would allow snorts to sneak past her loud giggles. Kirishima would smack the floor with his hand as he laughed, every joke following with his silent laughter and the sound of rhythmic smacks against the ground.

Bakugou would let out small exhales of a chuckle, a small smile creeping on his face as his arms were folded against his chest in the corner he sat. Though, the ash-blond would always neutralize his face a moment later, knowing no one paid enough attention to him to see.

Sero and Uraraka would slap hands over their mouths, muffling their belly-laughs. Sometimes their eyes would blow wide, and Uraraka would use another hand to wrap around her stomach because she had been laughing too much and it began to hurt. Kouda would squeak out small giggles, and Shoji would be silent, though you could always see the way his eyes were happily squinted.

Tokoyami would make sounds equivalent to a curt, approving exhale, while Jirou tilted her head back and allowed every one of her giggles to fall from her lips. No one could see Hagakure, but you could hear her high-pitched crackles in between everyone else's. Ojiro and Sato were fairly quiet like you expected, and Midoriya had laughs that sounded so lively and yet so tired. Though you weren't surprised at that fact. His slow recovery was taking a mental and physical toll.

Iida was the loudest out of everyone, surprisingly. He had to wipe his cheeks from the tears that had begun springing in his eyes. Aoyama would say short phrases in French after he allowed a second of laughter to consume him. Asui would uncontrollably ribbit when she laughed, and Mineta would nearly fall off his chair too many times for it to be plausible. Shoto would smile big, his eyes always glancing in your direction to see your own reaction to whatever joke was being laughed at.

If getting drunk off fruit juice, sugary sodas, and milk was possible, then maybe you all were intoxicated.

For the first two hours of the sleepover, embarrassing stories were told, and stupid jokes fell from the mouths of slap-happy teenagers. But as time progressed and the moon was bright in the navy, cloudless sky, the mood of the room changed. It wasn't as carefree and energetic as it had been, and ideas on what to do next were thrown across the room. Some of them were terrible and would probably end in Aizawa coming to their dorm with a large frown and hail to end whatever you all had been doing. Others were okay but still weren't good enough for the lingering laughter that still stung your eyes cheerfully.

That, at least, was until Ashido got the idea of telling secrets anonymously.

She was sitting on the couch when the idea became a lightbulb in her mind. She sat up quickly, standing in the middle of the oddly-shaped circle you and your classmates seemed to form in the common room. Ashido announced her idea with a growing smile, stating that it would not only be fun but would be a chance for people to get things off their chest without anyone knowing who it was.