Remember those hitches Sanyu explicitly wished didn't occur?
They were occurring.
He arrived at U.A pretty early that morning. He even considered sleeping over in the dorm room that was supposed to be his but in the end he decided it'd be better to wind down at home with Captain and Bunny so he didn't panic or freeze up on stage.
Speaking of them, Captain was still back home with his uncles, who were coming later. Bunny, well she was out on loan today. After they ran into Monoma and saw Eri's pretty violent flinch and how the panic lingered around her for a little while after they decided it would be better if they had another pair of eyes looking out for her.
Perhaps a dog who was training to help someone with PTSD?
So Bunny had been dropped off at the hospital with Mirio and Eri and would be arriving when they did.
But back to the hitches.
The first had been much earlier, when he was getting ready. Those clown outfits they were supposed to wear...just no. Most of the class had point blank refused to wear them. Instead they had made more of the orange t-shirts with U.A's logo on them and decided to just let everyone style them however they wanted. Mina had insisted they at least try to watch and had mandated some form of blue denim.
So Sanyu had just put the shirt on with a pair of jeans and called it a day.
He must have forgotten he lived with Tao, who's best form of rebellion from his position as a political tool had been dying his hair more often than a middle aged woman who refused to acknowledge she was going grey and Keigo, who wore eyeliner daily on top of the natural markings from his quirk.
They had made him tuck his t-shirt in, put on a black belt so it cinched at his waist and put some dark eyeliner on him to top it off.
Sanyu had initially panicked when he saw himself. What if someone said something? What if they harassed him? He wasn't out to his class! Now, his uncle insisted it was perfectly normal and accepted here, but Sanyu was still worried.
So Keigo had calmed him down and told him that if he could take a bullet he could take a weird look. Sanyu wasn't sure he could but he didn't rub it off before coming to school, so that was progress.
Hitch number 2, if hitch was even a word, was that Midoriya was nowhere to be seen with now only 15 minutes to showtime.
And hitch number 3 was occurring right this minute.
"I can't do this." Jiro said, groaning into Yaoyorozu's side. "How did I let you guys talk me into this?".
"You'll be fine Jiro." Uraraka assured her, "You've got an excellent voice! Everyone's gonna love your performance.".
"I can't even sing a note!" The girl shot back, her voice tearful. "My voice is so shaky. Its gonna sound awful.".
"Don't worry." Iida said simply, "Success is guaranteed for us after all that practice!".
It went on like that for several minutes, until they only had 10 left. Everyone just kept telling Jiro there was no way they could fail and she just got closer and closer to crying.
Finally, Sanyu decided to step in.
"Would you feel better if I went first?".
Okay, not his finest moment. Emotional maturity was hard. But this was just like that thing with Eri. If she saw someone else do it first she wouldn't feel so scared.
Jiro looked up at him with puffy eyes. Her eyeliner was running a bit and Sanyu wished he had Keigo's abilities with makeup so he could fix it for her. She probably spent a long time on it. "You'd do what first?" She asked slowly, her voice still shaky and wet with oncoming tears.
"That might actually work!".
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"Is it gonna start soon?" Eri asked softly. Mirio smiled.
"Hold your horses kiddo. I'm sure it'll start up any second now." He said, hoisting the girl into his arms. Bunny poked Eri's leg with her nose, checking in on her in the large crowd to which Eri responded by petting her.
"Soft." Eri mumbled. Mirio felt like his heart was going to explode from cuteness.
Suddenly the lights dimmed. Eri gasped and Bunny poked her again, trying to remind her of where she was. It worked and soon the stage lights turned on.
"Let's get this shit going!" A voice shouted. Mirio covered Eri's ears as best he could. "We're gonna murder you U.A extras with our sound!".
There was an explosion and the stage burst to life. Music and dancers with all sorts of lights filled the gym. "Look there's Midoriya!" Mirio said, pointing to where the boy had taken his starting dance position.
The lights focused in on the center of the stage. "Thank you for coming to see us today!" A voice called out.
But it wasn't the purple haired girl standing in the center, it was...Oyama?
"What am I to be? What is my calling? Gave up giving up I'm ready to go~" He sang out. Mirio was immediately blown away. Oyama hadn't said a thing about singing onstage, or being able to sing at all. His voice was surprisingly clear and even.
Unsurprisingly though, the spotlight suited him. With the dog tags hanging from his neck and his hair half in a bun, half down he looked like a real rock star. It definitely helped that he was literally glowing and sending a few sparkles from the microphone every once and a while.
The girl soon picked up the lyrics, with Oyama backing her on the last three or so words of each phrase as a sub-vocalist.
"Well I'll be." Mirio mumbled to himself. Eri watched the stage with stars in her eyes and the excitement in the room was palpable.
The room filled with a disco ball like light and every person's breath hitched as they watched it flash around the room like magic.
"Hero too, strength doesn't make a hero~" It seemed the girl had let Oyama sing that part of the chorus on his own. She smiled at him widely and he tried his best to return it but couldn't quite manage a smile in front of such a massive crowd.
Then Eri looked up at the stage as the climax of the song neared and it was like the crowd of darkness over her was removed. She looked up at the stage as sparkles fell from the sky and absolutely beamed.
Mirio felt himself tear up at the sight. 'Can you see this?' He thought to himself, 'Oyama, Midoriya, Sir, everyone who fought so hard,'.
'She smiled!'.
"Hey! Over here!" Mirio called out. "Good work you guys! That show was amazing. I didn't know you had a voice like that, Oyama.".
Midoriya and Sanyu both turned around at the sound of Mirio's voice.
"It was crazy!" Eri said, holding her hands in excited fists. "At first it was dark and kind of scary. Then the lights turned on and everyone was jumping with the dance and then Deku, you went away for a bit. And the guy started flying in the air! That's when it started to get cold and I saw birds and a girl next to me said 'wah' so I said 'wah' too!".
Midoriya wiped her eyes and smiled. "That's wonderful. I'm glad you had such a good time." The boy said, his voice so earnest it hurt. Eri's face dropped for a moment when she saw Midoriya wipe away the tears in his eyes but it lit right up again when she looked at Sanyu.
"Ah! You're smiling!" She said, her expression happy again. Sanyu made a strange noise, like he always did when he stifled a laugh.
Mirio turned slowly so he could see Sanyu's face, interested to see what made Eri's mood pick up again so quickly-
Oh.
Oh no.
He was beautiful.
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April Fools! 🎊
I'm just kidding! This is all very real and very canon for this fanfic!
I had an idea but I realized right before I posted it that it would be a little mean. You'll find out what it was when I've already done the mean thing and its too late (this does not necessarily only apply to this fic)
I finally decided on a pairing last night and came up with the perfect way to end this chapter. I just realized I liked Mirio and Sanyu's interactions so much and there was a lot going on there already. Hell, Sanyu's already taken a bullet for the guy 😅
I think Mirio's definitely the type of person that is most attracted to someone's smile. And I also think he was the perfect choice for Sanyu's pairing.
I loved each and every option that made the final four and I promise that aspects of those relationships are gonna make it into the fic (mostly the Sanyu and Bakugou interaction that basically goes 'people said I should feel sorry for hurting you and shit' to which Sanyu responds 'okay. people said I shouldn't feel sorry for hurting you and shit').
Don't expect a quick burn (because honestly we're nearly 45 chapters in and Sanyu's still working on everything in a realistic and healthy way. I'm not gonna throw a romance in and just magically fix it) but rest assured that there'll be some fun scenes😉 !
(Also sorry if my own feelings about the outfits the dancers wore during the cultural festival bled through too much, those things were hideous. Same with the cheesy song lyrics. They're okay, they're just a bit too on theme for my taste, you know?)
Stay Tuned For Part 2!