Midoriya and Ayano walked out of the school in silence. Midoriya was clearly upset about what happened, and Ayano just tinkered with her 'modified joy buzzer.' They passed by where his notebook was thrown.
As he was picking it up from the water, she could hear his angry mumbling. "Idiot! If I really jumped, you'd be charged with bullying me into suicide! Think before you speak!" Ayano's eye slightly twitched.
"Do you not think it's a bit weird to be concerned about a boy who basically just told you to commit suicide?" She asked him in disbelief. Midoriya continued waving the notebook back and forth to try drying it as much as he could.
He responded, "Kacchan is trying to get into U.A. and become a hero. He'd be a great one if he would just stop and think about his actions!" Ayano sighed at him. His admiration of heroes and all things related to heroics knew no bounds.
"So, you really meant what you said before?" She raised an eyebrow at him. He returned her look with a face full of confusion. He had no idea which part she was referring to. She elaborated, "You said you have no intention of competing with Bakugou at U.A. You truly mean that?"
"Of course, I do! I don't want to compete with him, I just want to try the entrance exam and become a hero..." He trailed off.
Ayano shook her head in disappointment and continued walking. "Can someone really become a hero without looking at what's in front of them..." She mumbled. "Aya-chan?" Midoriya asked but the girl chose not to answer.
Midoriya kept looking at the girl, trying to figure out if he should really ask this. He resolved himself and went with it. "Aya-chan, aren't you also concerned about Kacchan?" She answered without hesitation, "Of course. If he keeps up this aggressive attitude, he'll get himself killed in no time. I would lose an excellent specimen, beta tester, and even a future client."
Her last words confirmed the boy's suspicions. She did think that Bakugou could become a hero, so she must have had concerns about him in ways past her own supposedly selfish ones. "I'm right then! You also admire him! And I think you're concerned about him as a friend too, even if you don't consider yourselves friends."
She gave him a deadpan look. "What makes you say that?" Midoriya grew uneasy at her unwavering gaze. "W-Well, when we were kids, you and Kacchan were always close..." He glanced at her and her stare prompted him to explain.
"You were the only girl that Kacchan would even go near!" Ayano scoffed. "I should think that a more apt observation would be that I was the only girl that could even stand him."
Midoriya flinched at her fast dismissal of the notion. "M-Maybe so...But...But you looked like you both enjoyed each other's company!" Ayano stopped walking.
Midoriya continued, "Kacchan would always boast about becoming the number one hero someday and you would always say that your inventions would help him get there. He'd always deny it, saying he didn't need anybody's help, but he never refused to test out any of your homemade weapons..."
He stared into Ayano's eyes. "If anything, you guys always looked so happy, working together to achieve a dream!" There was a sparkle in the boy's eyes, reminiscing about the times that all three of them had been friends – before Bakugou's quirk had manifested and before he gained a twisted superiority complex.
The brown-haired girl only continued to stare at him, giving no other movement to indicate that she acknowledged his insinuations. She could clearly remember the times that he was referring to.
"Wow! Kacchan, you're so good at the monkey bars!" Young Midoriya exclaimed. Young Bakugou smirked and pointed at himself in the chest with his thumb. "Of course, I am! I'm gonna be a hero, so I should at least be able to do that. You can't even go one lap on them!" The boy ridiculed him.
Midoriya looked down in embarrassment and fidgeted with his hands. "I-I'm trying my best! I'll be able to do it someday if I keep trying!"
"Yeah, right!" Bakugou taunted. Ayano, having finally been satisfied with her work, joined the two. She walked past Bakugou and stood in front of Midoriya. She wordlessly held out a pair of weird looking gloves to him.
Wary of the gloves but not wanting to be rude, Midoriya accepted her offer cautiously. He looked at her for confirmation and when she nodded, he put them on. Not knowing what to do next, he gave her a questioning look. "Do the monkey bars." She ordered.
At her prompting, Midoriya carefully climbed the ladder. He began hanging and slowly moved forward rung by rung. His arms usually wore out by the eighth rung, so when he got close to it he closed his eyes tight, trying to put as much effort as he could to hang on.
Obviously unable to amass miracle strength, Midoriya's arms gave out. Yet, he didn't fall. He opened his eyes wide, realizing that he wasn't putting in any effort at all to hang on but was still dangling.
He looked up at his own hands gripping the bar, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. Growing impatient, Ayano called out, "What are you doing? Finish the lap!" Successfully knocking him out of the shock, Midoriya was able to finish the monkey bars for the first time.
When he landed, he held out his hands in front of him and admired the gloves with a smile. Bakugou was certainly less than happy. He growled, "Deku! What did you do!? Were you pulling my leg the whole time, huh?!?" The blond boy charged at him.
Midoriya quickly backed up, raising his arms in defense. "I-I didn't do anything!! I-It was Aya-chan's gloves!" Bakugou roughly grabbed the boy's wrists. "Be careful with those!" Ayano scolded.
"What did you do?" Bakugou asked, although it sounded more like a demand. Getting a glint in her eye, the brown-haired girl was more than happy to explain.
"I made gloves to improve grip! Even if your arms get tired, as long as you are holding onto the bars, these gloves will hold onto them for you!" Both the boys looked at her in confusion, not understanding how gloves could do that.
She continued, "You know how geckos can climb walls and stuff?" They nodded. "I read in a book that they can do that because they have really strong grip! The book said it's because they have a lot of tiny hairs on the pads of their feet!"
Midoriya shivered in disgust at the information. "T-Tiny hairs?!?"
Bakugou looked at her skeptically. "Geckos don't have hair, idiot!"
Ayano looked back at him defiantly. "Yes, they do! The hairs are so small that you can't see them! Anyways, I wanted to make something like that into gloves for humans. I asked my dad where I could get millions of tiny hairs and he got me this stuff called nanofibers! He helped me put them into gloves and now they work just like geckos!"
The green-haired boy looked at the gloves in amazement. "Woooow! Aya-chan you're amazing!" He handed the gloves back to her. Bakugou crossed his arms and looked away. "Hmph! Who needs some stupid gloves anyways! A hero can be great without some dumb gear!"
Ayano frowned at him. "I made these gloves for you, you know!" The blond boy's eyes shot wide open and he gawked at her. "F-For me?!?" He shouted in disbelief.
The girl nodded. "Yeah! You're always trying to beat your record of laps on the monkey bars, saying that the best hero could easily do a thousand or something like that. I think you can become a great hero, so I made these to help you!" She then looked down at the gloves, a very slight hint of sadness on her features.
"W-Well, I already said a great hero could do that by himself..." He looked away to hide the small blush on his cheeks. "But...I guess I could help you...test them out..."
Ayano's head shot up. She gave a toothy smile. "Okay!"
She blinked a few times, recovering from her thoughts. Midoriya stared at her, clearly anticipating a positive response.
Ayano broke eye contact with him and continued walking forward. "If Bakugou wants to continue his goal of becoming the number one hero, then he can. What he aims for is of no concern of mine. I will simply be here if he wants some sort of support item or weapon. I would gladly make these for anybody else, should they request it. Bakugou is no different."
Midoriya's eager posture deflated and he gazed at her back in disappointment. Clearly, he was hoping for a different answer – one, where Ayano would actually express genuine concern for the blond. He decided not to push anything further and just continued walking with her.
Ayano, however, was still thinking about it. It's true, she saw Bakugou as a valuable asset to her goals. Many of her early inspirations and inventions came to fruition because of him and his (un)willingness to test them.
She saw him as more than that, though. Deep down, she knew she wasn't being honest with herself. As a child, Ayano followed Bakugou around because of his deep aspirations – aspirations so strong, they rivaled her own. It gave him a certain type of charisma, one where she wanted to see just how far he could actually go.
This was rare amongst children their age. All children have dreams, but these two had goals. They had incredibly deep desires and great ambitions.
Finding this common ground between them, Ayano took it upon herself to help him achieve his goal while simultaneously achieving her own. She thought that if anybody could succeed, it would be Bakugou with his extreme perseverance, and she would be part of the reason why. It was this kind of feeling that made her want to one day join a support company.
With her technology, she wanted to help people but more importantly, she wanted to help Bakugou.
She wondered just when exactly her and Bakugou's hero/supporter relationship changed to its current, slightly rocky situation.