Mina clapped her hands wildly and laughed like she would die if she didn't get the air out. "Yes, yes, YES!"
Kaminari felt similar twinges of excitement when Tsu started to type it in. Shinso was standing so close next to him that he could feel the heat radiating off of his arm, and he was all there for it. Neither one of them had made any motion to move apart once the space had been cleared up, and Kaminari didn't feel like he should be the one to change what they had going on there.
And he really hoped that Shinso wouldn't feel the need to either.
"Alright, kero." Kaminari feels the extreme urge to clear his throat, but doesn't want to draw attention to how red he knows his face is. Mina's already been giving him the side-eye all night, and he's afraid of what she's going to do to embarrass him. She already did the work of facilitating their first actual interaction, now she could kindly stay back, thank you. He had already done the hard work of making a long list of pickup lines to seduce Shinso with, and he was just waiting for the right opportunity to use them.
"Okay, okay, okay!" Mina was grinning so wide it seemed as if her cheeks were splitting apart. "There it is, what is it- what?"
Mina's voice dropped down into a disgruntled questioning tone and Shinso leaned in, accidentally brushing his somehow perfect hair right under Kaminari's nose. Seriously, how was it this perfect when he just woke up? There was no mercy in this world, because if there was Shinso wouldn't have the most gorgeous locks this early in the morning. One of these days, Kaminari was going to lean too close and pass out from how soft and silky they were.
"What is it?" Kaminari asked, not wanting to move away from his awkward positioning with Shinso. "What happened?"
"...There's nothing," Shinso said disbelievingly. "There is literally nothing. It's all so heavily redacted that all it says is his... actually, nevermind. It doesn't even say his freaking name."
"Wow," Todoroki breathed, still facing the other direction. Kaminari didn't know what the point of turning away was if he was just going to listen to every word they said, but he never claimed to know Todoroki's mind. He barely knew his own mind. "One day I strive to reach that level of anonymity."
Yup. It was official. Kaminari was never going to understand him.
"There's gotta be something," Uraraka said. "Not even his arrest numbers?"
"No!" Mina wailed in despair. "You'd think after catching the S-class villain to end all S-class villains he would be at least a little known, but nooo! I bet he's one of those people that have the completely anonymous social media accounts so no one can find them."
"I bet he doesn't even have a social media account," Uraraka grumbled.
Shinso finally stepped back, and Kaminari praised whatever deity was out there that he didn't sneeze in his crush's hair. That would be a failure he could never come back from. The embarrassment would haunt him to the end of his days, and there would be no chance that Shinso would ever go out with him, and he would die a sad, lonely bisexual, living voraciously through Mina's wild escapades that he would forever miss out on because he would be too busy crying over-
"It doesn't even have a birth date!" Mina shouted. "This is a tragedy, an utter tragedy!"
Shinso narrowed his eyes, which Kaminari definitely wasn't watching, and asked, "Do you think Izuku-sensei ever faked his own death?"
Uraraka frowns curiously at him. "Weren't you the one that told us he had a special move based on it?"
"No, no, no," Shinso said, shaking his head so loose strands brushed across Kaminari's ears. Am I in heaven or am I in hell? Which one do I want to be in? "I meant, like, do you think he's ever done that one thing where he fakes his death and comes back pretending to be his own son?"
The room was quiet.
"I... maybe?" Iida looked lost. He was so lost that he didn't even comment on how they were theorizing about their teacher's life and how it was disrespectful to do such. Honestly, Kaminari's stood through enough of Iida's lectures that by now he can practically make them for himself in his head without Iida's help.
And if that was Iida's plan this whole time, to get some sort of responsible voice going inside of Kaminari's head, then he couldn't even be mad because that was such a genius plan. Seriously, if he could get Kaminari to get some sort of impulse control, then the man was a god and should have his own group of worshippers that Kaminari would gladly lead.
Right after his fan club dedicated to Shinso's fluffy locks, that is.
"I... we shouldn't ask him that, right?" Kaminari hesitantly asked. "Like, that would probably be rude?"
Uraraka snorted. "You think we would get a straight answer if you did?"
Everyone silently gave her that one.
"I know of a way we could find out," Yaoyorozu offers, with some trepidation. "Ancestry.com is a great source of information. I actually found some of my family members that way."
Tsu was already typing into the computer.
"You're there?"
"Yup, kero"
"Great, then all you need is his first and last name..." Yaoyorozu trailed off. "Does anyone know his family name?"
Kaminari waves his hand dismissively and gives a light laugh. "Of course we do! It's..." He frowns. "It's... shit, does anyone know what he's called?"
"Come on, we've got to have heard it somewhere!" Mina desperately looks around at their classmates for information. "There's no way we've made it this long without at least hearing it! What about those class registries?"
"He's not on there," Iida says, chopping his arms anxiously, "I remember being annoyed that UA didn't have their faculty website up to date so close to the start of the school year."
"So that's it then?" Uraraka asks incredulously after a long pause throughout the room. "We just have no idea what his name is?"
"What whose name is?" Sero asks, strolling into the room while munching on some chips. "Have I met them?"
"We're talking about Izuku-sensei," Mina laments despairingly, "And how we can't find out if he's ever pretended to be his own son because we don't know what his full name is, and even though Izuku isn't an overly common name we're still not going to be able to find him that way!"
Mina's out of breath by the end of her rant.
"Hmm? Oh, it's Midoriya." Sero throws another handful of chips in his mouth, oblivious to the wide-eyed looks everyone's throwing at him.
"...Sero, how in the ever-loving-" Iida shot a warning glare- "world do you know that?"
Sero shrugged nonchalantly. "I think I heard Nezu announce it once on the speakers a while ago. Didn't you guys?"
Heads were shook mutely. Tsu added in the new information to the search bar, and they all watched as the search bar loaded and loaded. In the end, it only came up with five different choices, none of which matched their teacher. Mina and Kirishima grumbled loudly together, discussing what they would do now.
"Is everyone-" Kaminari's spine rocketed up so he was straight, and he bashed his forehead against Shinso in the process, sending them both tumbling down onto the floor.
They landed uncomfortably in a pile, and Kaminari didn't even think before he blurted out, "Do you have a bandaid? I totally just scraped my knees falling for you."
Shinso scrambled away from him with a face as red as Kirishima's hair. "What? No! I mean... are you sorry? Wait! I mean, I'm okay. Wait! I uh..."
Kaminari grinned as Shinso tripped over himself trying to get a full sentence out. Success! It wasn't every day that one of his pick-up lines actually worked, let alone on someone he cared about as much as Shinso. Now he only has to make the rest of them land that well...
"That's not..." Shinso floundered.
"Shinso, are you okay?" the newcomer, also known as Izuku-sensei, asked. "Do I need to call Recovery Girl for you? Is it possible that you have an unknown injury from yesterday that we missed?"
Kaminari gets to watch the absolute masterpiece that is Shinso's face as it burns red and he pushes himself up to a more stable position. "No... I'm forn. Fink. Fine. I'm fine. I'm just... fine."
Kaminari opened his mouth gleefully, but then realized that the line he was about to use was one he had used before. And he couldn't have Shinso think he was a one-trick pony.
"Are you sure?" Izuku-sensei was watching him with concern, but then Kaminari saw his eyes glance between him and Shinso and his shoulders shook a little bit with laughter. Why, Kaminari had no idea, but he stopped questioning Shinso about his wellbeing.
"Izuku-sensei, what are you doing here?" Uraraka asked. "I thought we didn't have any work for school today?"
"No, no, I was just checking up on you to make sure that everyone was okay and didn't have brain damage, and also to speak to Bakugo for a moment."
Everyone froze.
Kaminari's eyes slowly slid over to where Bakugo was sitting on the couch, staring down with an embarrassed flush on his face. Not a single person was staring directly at him. Even Kirishima was studiously avoiding his gaze. Which was strange, because Kirishima would do anything for Bakugo. It was obvious.
"Fine," Bakugo muttered, trudging off to the hallway with their teacher, out of sight.
Kaminari avoided the urge to walk over there and instead turned to Todoroki. "I thought you were supposed to be watching for someone coming?"
Todoroki blinked blankly. "Oh. My bad. I was thinking."
"About what?" Mina draped herself over the back of the couch like a cat would, languidly stretching out.
"I was just thinking that Ms. Joke and Izuku-sensei share quite a few traits. And given how close Ms. Joke and Aizawa-sensei seem to be, that leads me to the conclusion that they're romantically involved. Which means that Izuku-sensei is Shinso's grandfather."
Shinso stares at Todoroki in horror. "NO! No, no, no! Never, that's not what's happening on so many different levels. That will never-"
Todoroki barrels right over Shinso's vehement protests. "Which makes you ask the question, who is Izuku-sensei's lover?"
"Don't say lover," Iida shudders. "Especially not when it's about our teacher."
"Fine- whatever they were to one another. The first thing that this person would have to be is old enough to have been with Izuku-sensei when Ms. Joke was born. They would also had to have been close enough to have a child together. If you put the information and facts together, then there is truly only one possible outcome, and that is that Recovery Girl is Shinso's grandmother."
A quick glance at Shinso confirms he's too horrified to speak.
"I don't know, Todoroki..." Kaminari reluctantly says. "I mean, it sounds okay in theory and everything, but it's not like Recovery Girl and Izuku-sensei have ever done anything to make us think that they'd be together."
Todoroki leans in, more animated than Kaminari had ever seen him. "But they wouldn't let us know! They would hide it, especially from us!"
Mina leans in, just barely managing to hold on to the edge of the couch. "Do say more."
Todoroki beams, or as close to a beam as Kaminari has ever seen him get. "For one, their relationship would be kept out of the public eye because of the PR nightmares. It might have looked fine when Recovery Girl was a young adult, but now she's older and he's... well, he's just not. And obviously she can't look like she's dating a child, so they have to hide their relationship."
Shinso's waving his arms frantically in the air, desperate to get their attention. "NO! No! Stop it! None of that is true! The only true part about that is that Aizawa-sensei is my dad. Ms. Joke likes to make fun of him so she pretends that they have some epic love story or whatever, but it's not true. It is literally cannot be farther from the truth for so many different reasons. Please, please stop making such far-fetched theories."
Todoroki squinted at him. "If you just told me who your other parent was then I wouldn't have to do all of this."
Kaminari stepped back from the debate of why Shinso wouldn't tell them his other parent's name and rested his hand on Kirishima's shoulder, who was still staring blankly in the direction Bakugo and Izuku-sensei had gone. Kaminari could see the slight concerned furrow in his brows, and the way he bit down on his bottom lip.
Wordlessly, he sat down next to him. Mina and Uraraka hadn't quite set their sights on his red-haired friend and Bakugo yet, but Kaminari was sure that as soon as they were done with him and Shinso, Kirishima and Bakugo would be their next targets.
"You good, bro?" Kaminari asked. Kirishima hadn't looked up at him once since he sat down, and he's not entirely sure that his friend knows he's even there.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Just..." He bites his lip. "Do you think Bakugo''s going to be okay?"
"Aw, c'mon... it's not like Izuku-sensei's going to hurt him or anything..."
"No, I mean like..." Kirishima sighed. "I know that Izuku-sensei's not going to beat him up or anything but he's been... off... ever since he got back from the first part of the exam. I dunno... I just think that something's goin' on with him."
Kaminari stayed silent. If it was anyone else, he would have said they were crazy and that Bakugo was acting the same as he always had. But Kirishima had always had some sort of sixth sense for Bakugo. He was the only person that Kaminari had ever seen sling an arm around their volatile classmate and live.
He heard a rumor that a kid from Bakugo's middle schoo had done that. No one had seen them since.
"Maybe..." Kaminari said hesitantly. "I'm sure that Izuku-sensei's taking care of it, though. I wouldn't worry that much."
Kirishima nodded distractedly, but he was still staring fixedly at the same spot.
"Is it Nezu?" Wait... what?!
"What is wrong with you!?!" Shinso screeched. "Todoroki, seriously, what the hell?"
Kaminari watched in horror as Todoroki tapped his chin thoughtfully, not at all perturbed by Shinso's yelling. No, he just barreled right forward with another prediction. "Is it All Might?"
There was a beat of silence. Then:
"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!" Shinso yanked the stands of his hair down over his eyes. "Make it stop! Make it stop!"
"All you have to do is tell me the identity of your other parent, and all of this can stop," Todoroki lightly threatened. Or at least, that's what Kaminari thought he was doing. He was never really sure what his classmate was doing. He could be complimenting Shinso for all he knew.
"Never," Shinso solemnly swore, "as long as I live, will I give in to this blatant blackmail."
Todoroki narrowed his eyes. "That's what you say now, but we'll see how you feel once I move onto my other theories."
Yup, definitely threatening him. Honestly, he's not even surprised at this point. Todoroki was surprisingly dismissive of laws and morals.
Shinso stood his ground. "You can try."
They stared into each other's eyes hostilely, and Kaminari's pretty sure that everyone felt like they were living in a western drama. He almost expected Shinso's fingers to sway slightly around his waist like he was reaching out for a gun. All they needed was deep music and a tumbleweed blowing through and the scene would be complete.
And wasn't it just great that that's the moment Izuku-sensei walked back in with Bakugo? Kirishima jolts slightly to his feet, but rolls back when he realizes what he did. A faint blush stains his cheeks. Shinso and Todoroki don't break their little staring contest until Izuku-sensei asks, "Are the two of you all right? It looks like some sort of stand..." He trails off. "Oh. Well, then, carry on."
He starts to turn, but Mina calls out, "Wait!"
He glances back. "Yes, Mina?"
"I had a question to ask you..." Kaminari, who's out of Izuku-sensei's line of sight, starts to gesture frantically, crossing his arms over one another in a cross. Don't do it, Mina, don't do it...
She ignored him. Of course. "We were just ahh.... playing around with ancestry.com, and as a joke we put your name in there. But we didn't really see anything so we were wondering..." She eyed him expectantly.
Izuku-sensei just smiled pleasantly at her, making her actually ask the question. "Yes?"
"We were wondering if Izuku Midoriya isn't your real name?" They all held their breath as they waited for his response.
"As a matter of fact, it is not," Izuku-sensei said. All eyes were on him as he continued, his eyes drifting to the side like he was watching something they couldn't see. "When quirks first appeared, it wasn't a good thing to have them. For years, many of us hid our identities so we wouldn't be discovered by the government, or anyone else. I had mine changed when I was... hmm... somewhere in my twenties." There was a mysterious gleam in his eyes.
"What was it?" Mina asked eagerly.
Izuku-sensei froze, then laughed it off. "It was so long ago, I couldn't remember if I tried to. Honestly. Plus," His eyes got that far-away quality again. "It's not as if the name I chose meant anything more than the name I was born with. It was just something that was chosen for me."
He stayed silent for a few moments, then laughed again. "Anyway, I should be getting back now. There's a few things the staff needs to talk about before classes start back up again tomorrow. Bakugo, I trust you'll remember what we talked about?"
He looked at the blonde expectantly.
"Yes," Bakugo mumbled. "I'll remember it. And... I'm sorry. For... before."
Izuku-sensei smiled gently at him. "I know. Just make sure to be there on time, all right?"
Bakugo nodded and Izuku-sensei walked out the front door of the dorms.
"Late for what?" Sero asked off-handedly. His fingers stopped tapping at the screen he was holding when he relaized what he said, and all attention was on Bakugo and his answer.
The blonde boy glared down at his legs, angrily scuffing at the floor. "Therapy," he finally muttered.
Kaminari's eyes widened at Kirishima, who met his gaze with shocked eyes of his own. The redhead looked like he was debating the merits of throwing himself over Bakugo in delight. Evidently, the cons outweighed the pros, because all he ended up saying was, "That's great, bro."
He rested his hand lightly on Bakugo's wrist, and Bakugo stared at it but didn't remove the offending appendage. "Whatever."
Kaminari wasn't sure what to say. Good luck? That didn't seem quite right. Obviously, Bakugo could use the therapy, but Kaminari was sure that you weren't supposed to point that out. When his cousin had started going to therapy for her anxiety, his parents made sure to mention that he wasn't to bring it up because it would be rude.
So he stayed silent, and so did everyone else. Eventually, Todoroki, seemingly immune to the affects of the Awkward Silence, chose to say, "Are we still going to try and find out Izuku-sensei's real name now?"
Uraraka raised a brow at him. "Oh, are you participating now?"
Todoroki held up a single finger. "I was only not participating in the use of the hero database before I had my license-"
"Which was dumb," Bakugo not-so-quietly said.
Todoroki didn't acknowledge Bakugo's remark. "So?"
Tsu closed the laptop. "I don't think that we're going to get anywhere with that, kero. Izuku-sensei didn't tell us what his old name was, even thoguh I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't forget, so he obviously doesn't want us to know." She shrugged. "Nothing more we can do about it, kero."
It was quiet for a while longer, until Kaminari couldn't stand the quiet any longer and blurted out. "Are we just going to stand around all day?"
"It's our day off. What else would we do?" Shinso said, though he looked somewhat open to suggestions. Kaminari could tell because instead of his eyebrows dipping down into a scowl, one of them was slightly lifted.
And yeah, Kaminari had been studying his eyebrows. Sue him. They were interesting.
"What about a game," Yaoyorozu offered after a moment. "We might have to have several going though, since there's so many of us."
"Excellent idea, Yaoyorozu!" Iida practically shouted. "It'll be a good bonding exercise for all of us. Does anyone have any ideas?"
"I have jenga in my room," One of Shoji's hand-mouths said. "I could go get it if you guys want."
"Great!" Shoji nodded and made his way up the stairs to fetch it without another word. "Anyone else have any ideas?"
"I have the game of infinite darkness that destroys all bonds," Tokoyami said. "Does anyone wish to play?"
Iida stared at him for a moment. "What game is that now? The name that everyone else calls it," he clarifies.
Tokoyami sighed, seeming disappointed. "It's Monopoly."
"That's perfect! And I have the Settlers of Catan in my room. I will go get it now!"
Kaminari grinned. This sounded like it was going to be a fun day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Five hours later, Kaminari could conclude that this was not a fun day. Half the class was crying on the floor while a small percentage cackled at the other's misfortune. Resources had been gained, promises had been broken, and friendships had been shattered.
Monopoly was brutal.