For a moment, there was peace and Class 1A huddled in for a large group hug, almost toppling over themselves quite a few times as they all tried their very best to hug every single person their could. It was warm, and while it wasn't the most comfortable position, it was the best thing that Kaminari had felt in a while.
Unspoken emotions lingered in the air as someone sighed out in relief from the big tangle of arms and legs and hearts. In the corner of his eye, he could just barely see Aizawa-sensei smiling contentedly, leaned against the wall of the classroom. Around his torso, Bakugo was surprisingly quiet, tightening his hold on him. The blonde felt another wave of warmth encircle him.
Here, he was safe. He was protected.
Most of all, he was warm.
He couldn't remember the last time he had been so warm.
At first, it had been his family. The sweet, small smile of his mother, the hearty laugh of his father, and the big, adorable pouty grin his sister had always sported.
Then it had been the LoV. Shigaraki's complete cluelessness to what lip balm was, Dabi's resigned, sarcastic voice as he tried to explain why he needed said lip balm, Toga's endearing giggles, Kurogiri's silent presence, Twice's antics, and all the rest of their stupid little spouts.
He felt a twitch of guilt.
With this, he had blown half their plans to dust.
But then again, did that matter to him anymore? He was now on the hero's side...
The truth was, it did. It mattered to him because they had been like a second family. He knew they wouldn't hold a grudge against him, they couldn't. But he had to leave this behind him. As much as he didn't know what was right or wrong, he couldn't shake off that childish desire to save people.
The word 'villain' didn't quite feel right for him anymore, especially here, in the embrace of.... of his heroes. And, more importantly, his friends.
Bakugo's loud growls even as he handed him a water bottle, Kirishima's loud, uplifting yells, Mina's cheerful personality, Sero's fond laugh, Jiro's quiet sympathy, Todoroki's silent support, Midoriya's happy smiles, Uraraka's bubbly personality, all of their affection had been a breath of fresh air.
All the times he had spent with his friends, even ones like Todoroki.
One would think that they wouldn't be close, with how different their personalities were. At first, he had been wary of him and avoided for a while, seeing how he could easily throw a wrench in his plan. Still, it had been nice to see him start to open up with Midoriya's help. It had reminded him a bit of him and Tobio back in the old days.
So one day, when the stoic boy had come up to him and offered to help him study with such a hopeful expression on his face, Midoriya biting his nails nervously from behind the corner, he hadn't been able to find it within himself to say no.
It had turned out to be so much fun, and he had learned much more about the other teen than he had previously thought he would know. He knew his favorite things, his strange little jokes, and he absolutely lived for his small smiles.
It was always a calming, content atmosphere he was welcomed into when he held those quiet study sessions.
Uraraka had also surprised him when she had first invited him to spar with her. He had been searching for a partner to go to the gym with; Kirishima and Bakugo were too hard core for his 'personality', and Mina and Sero tended to go the flexibility and acrobatic route, which he knew he was already familiar with. Seeing that both of them wished to improve their martial arts, he had agreed to her proposal easily.
At first, it had been hard to fall into a good rhythm with each other, a little unsteady and unsure of each other's tactics and skill.
Kaminari had been happy to find, once he got more used to it, that she was pretty close to his skill level, and though he downplayed his abilities a little, he found himself genuinely pushing himself to win. He could tell that the other was giving it her all too. She was just as determined as he was, which she had found a little surprising from him, but gotten used to; after all, he 'wanted' to be a hero too.
Now they always went to the gym together, and Kaminari knew that it would feel strange to go with any other partner.
On a similar topic, he also had to work on his speed and stamina, and when he had mentioned that to Uraraka on a particularly tiring afternoon, she had cheerfully mentioned that she knew someone who could easily help with just that.
He hadn't been very surprised when she had set him up with Iida, and Iida had not been impressed, yelling something about "it is not very kind to lie to me and drag me out here, Uraraka-kun!"
Still the glasses wearing boy had agreed to help him out, training him with a lot of sharp hand gestures to boot.
It was always nice to see that out of all the things that were happening, some things would never change.
He had also been rather surprised when Iida had opened up to him about his worries about his brother after the Stain incident, especially with the thing he had said about Stain that he had let slip. Still, he had tried to help him calm down, reassuring him that he was a great hero, and that his rush of rage was completely normal.
(And it wasn't because he cared about him, nope. And he hadn't been surprised either, when he noticed that he was indeed getting much faster. Not at all.)
There was Jiro's familiarity with music, much like his, and both found themselves side by side, listening to music together under watchful gaze of the sakura tree on their grounds. They would share bands, songs, and weird music nerd facts or jokes, laughing together while nobody else understood. They would sometimes meet in Jiro's room and he would spend hours running his fascinated gaze on all the different instruments, both of them giggling at his failures when she would teach him the guitar.
He had always felt a sense of pride when he managed to bring out one of those large, loud, laughs of hers.
He and Hagakure occasionally had movie nights together full of laughter, sharing their strange sense of humor through romantic comedy sprees. Either of them would point out such a cliche move or saying and then they would break out into giggles. They would both complain about how boring the movie was, and it was, but their commentaries always sent them away with aching stomachs and tears in their eyes from laughter.
He had never bothered to learn how to swim; with his electricity, that wouldn't turn out very well, after all. When Tsuyu had learned of this, she had been horrified. She had pretty much dragged him to the school swimming pool, only stopping to earn permission from a baffled Aizawa. When he had finally mastered all the strokes, he found that he much liked swimming; it was an enjoyable sport.
He and Tsuyu went swimming together every other weekend. It was a calm and comfortable atmosphere; all his troubles washed away in the tranquil waters.
He often accompanied Koda to the pet store, squealing over the animals as the other calmly chose out more pet food that he needed to stock up on. The taller teen had been surprised that the blonde actually knew how to sign, getting rather adorably excited about the fact.
Kaminari had to say, playing with Koda's bunny and chatting silently with said boy was always something he took time out of his schedule for.
One particular afternoon, when he had been lured out by the delicious scent of cookies was also quite memorable. The whole class had stood there laughing as they watched Midoriya and Bakugo fight over the last cookie. How that even started, nobody knew. In the end, they had all trudged back up, and Kaminari had started after them. Looking over his shoulder, though, he noticed Sato cleaning up the mess all by himself. Despite his reluctance to get close to his classmates, (which he was failing drastically at already) he turned to help the other student.
Sato seemed rather happy, smiling a little as the shorter teen started to help him put away the plates and dishes. They'd had so much fun that day, and neither of them remembered who had thrown the first handful of cookie dough.
It had been a pain to clean up the hurricane left behind the food fight, and he had nearly been scared out of his wits when Aizawa-sensei had walked into the kitchen, but there had been a smile on his face when he had fallen asleep that night.
Judging from his appearance, he seemed to be foreign, with his blonde hair and hazel-honey eyes. One would normally assume he was from France or America, and seeing as Aoyama was from France himself, he had originally assumed that Kaminari was French as well.
Truth be told, Kaminari himself wasn't sure about his nationality, his parents having both died before he was even old enough to process that. But then again, nobody knew that.
When Aoyama had first come confessing to him about his homesickness, groaning about how he missed all the pastry delights and all of the looming differences between Japan and his home country, Kaminari had not known what to do. Aoyama had apologized profusely when he had found out that he was not actually from France, and, therefore, had no idea what he was talking about.
Still, when Kaminari had spotted the dejected look on the other's face, he had hastily commented that they could still talk about it.
(And he totally had NOT read a bunch of books about what France was like and purposefully gone to French pastry shops in Japan to do that. Nope. Totally not.)
Regardless of his nationality, he had always had a soft spot for older English books, finding a somewhat interesting vibe come from them. Books from authors like Shakespeare, Hemingway, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky left him shaking from their style of writing; how they wove their words into soundless stories and how they broached these serious, headache-inducing topics no other authors were brave nor skilled enough to even attempt....
When his classmates had first found out about his boundless love of ancient literature, they had been surprised. It clashed with his personality so much, and they couldn't even fathom the prospect of him reading thick volumes of abstruse poems like The Odyssey.
When Shoji had found this out about him, he had knocked on his door later on, and begged him to allow him to borrow some of his books. As it turns out, despite his minimalist demeanor, the taller teen was very much invested in the genre, but he didn't have the right materials to buy the books for himself.
As he had helped Shoji through the books, discussing about what the author might have meant and completely confusing the hell out of a bunch of students as they did so, finding newer books that they both enjoyed, recommending more books and exploring the boundaries of their interests......
Let's just say that whenever he read books from now on, he would always have the thought to talk to Shoji about it, wanting to know the other's input or simply just to fanboy together.
As much as he loved literature, though, he couldn't deny that he loved video games just as much, maybe even more than the smooth caress of the old paperback books.
He had been, just like usual, playing games in what they now called the "Lounge" after Iida had gone on a long and excessive "naming of the dorms". All of his normal gaming buddies, aka the Bakusquad had decided to abandon him to his own devices today, all busy with separate things to do.
So he was alone, gaming to his heart's desire and beating all the levels with the skill of someone who had been playing for all of his life.
He had heard somebody walk up behind him, and to his surprise, he never heard them walk away again like normal, and, now curious, he turned around after the game had ended and saw the last person he would ever expect to watch him game staring at him.
Yaoyorozu looked like she had just taken a bath, a hair towel around her shoulders, forgoing her normal ponytail for straight hair. She was gazing at the game up on the TV curiously, as if she had never seen the likes of it ever before.
"Ummmm, Kaminari-kun, what is this?" She had asked, quirking her head to the side. Kaminari had felt incredibly offended. How could she not know the wonders of beautiful, untainted gaming?
He had been quick to teach her everything that he knew, and to his utter surprise, she had fallen into the void of gaming quickly, rather adorably determined to "get up to his admirable level of skill", as she had put it.
It was rather refreshing to see, and now they both held quiet gaming sprees together on uneventful weekends.
Due to his quirk (and his rather disturbing nightmares that he denies at all costs) he finds himself unable to sleep on most days, and on the rare days that he even manages to fall asleep, he jolts awake not many hours later, and can't force his brain to fall asleep again.
On one particular day, he had started to get hungry and decided to head to the kitchen to find himself a bowl of chocolate cereal to chug down while the drowned himself in the thoughts that came to his head at 3am.
When he had gotten there, he had seen a blurry shadow through the dark of someone already there. Confused, he had called out, quietly of course, it was 3 hours past midnight after all. The figure had straightened and looked at him, just as confused as he was, and in the faint light of the moon outside, he had just been able to make out the silvery outline of Tokoyami holding the very bowl of cereal he had been hoping to get himself.
He had shrugged a little, and he had headed into the kitchen, coming out with another bowl, plopping onto a couch where the bird-like boy had already been seated, and they had sat in a comfortable silence, knowing that they weren't the only ones forced to endure the horror that was insomnia.
On the days that they were unable to sleep (which was most days) they spent their time together, eating away at the supply of cereal and pondering their thoughts in the presence of the other.
On a particular sleepy evening when everybody had been tired and strung out from their almost torture-like training from Aizawa, he had come down stairs, expecting an empty Lounge. To his surprise, he had found Midoriya writing furiously in his notebook, muttering to himself rapidly.
He'd blinked tiredly, but felt a spark of curiosity at what exactly he was always writing away in that book. He'd leaned over the couch and peered over his shoulder, and immediately, he'd felt a wave of disbelief crash over him.
He'd been writing about him; all his tactics, drawbacks, speed, strength analogies, his development, and even possible ways he could get better.
Of course, they weren't true, per say, as this had been just his fake persona he'd been writing about, but it was so spot on; he hadn't even known that he could store his electricity in small reserves in his body! He could actually do that?!
There had also been something written about how his body could be shaped differently than normal human being to handle all of the electricity running through his veins, but he didn't stray too far from the normal bone structure so that he could stay "human", and that was why he turned so "stupid" after going over his watt limit, or felt pain after an electricity overload.
That had been so interesting, that he couldn't help but snatch the notebook right out of the green head's hands, and take a closer look at it himself. He'd heard a small yelp come from the teen who had been writing, surprise and embarrassment running over his face, but at the moment he hadn't cared, completely immersed in all of Midoriya's notes.
It had been like reading an intensively well written description of himself and his abilities. He'd had everything from his speed, stamina, battle strategy, cooperativeness, and technique, to his favorite foods, possible nationalities, studying skills, best subjects, anything you name, he'd had it written down about him.
Midoriya had been quick to grab the notebook back, but from then on, he would casually whisper something or other that he had noticed about his classmates (hey, he was really observant! Maybe not that smart, but he had people smarts from living on the streets) to the other teen. At first, Midoriya had been surprised or embarrassed that he hadn't noticed that about his other classmates, but he quickly accepted the help, and commonly would show Kaminari his notebooks, and they would have a long discussion about their classmates abilities, or specific questions that had about them.
(He totally didn't enjoy those sessions, they were just a waste of his time. He was just attending them because he wanted to find out his classmates' abilities more so that he could use it against them, no he wasn't really curious! Not at all!)
It had been one of his bad days again when his past memories had been catching up to him again, dragging him back under the surface. Still, he had tried his best to stay in character, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to laugh like he usually did. Sometimes he asked himself why he'd chosen that personality.
He'd thought he had been doing a good job, but after class Aizawa had pulled him over. His tired eyes had narrowed, something akin to worry sparking in them. He'd taken a sip of his bitter black coffee, and calmly waited for him to mention what had been bothering him.
He'd tried to play it off, but Aizawa had just looked at him plainly and said:
"Smile for me."
He'd tried to, he really had, but it had come out looking more like a grimace after all the smiles he had forced all day. Aizawa had quirked his head and replied with a simple:
"See."
It was just a word, just a simple word, and he'd made up a bullshit excuse about not being able to study and falling behind everybody else and how he'd never become a hero, but after Aizawa's warm embrace, he'd felt so much better.
Apparently, Present Mic had learned of his spiraling depression rant from Aizawa, and now worried, had approached him after class, loud demeanor toned down for the serious conversation.
He had assured the teacher that he was fine now and he no longer felt that way, but the other blonde had been able to see through his facade easily. He'd switched into english and asked him.
"You think you're stupid, yet you can understand every single syllable I'm saying right now, am I right?"
He'd blinked, surprised at the sudden change in language, but accepted it nonchalantly. He was fluent in English after all. How else would he read those books? He could read the translated version, but it was completely different. The meaning that the author wanted to convey would be muddled in the exchange of language.
"Uh, yeah."
He'd replied cautiously, a little confused where the conversation was going. Mic had smiled at him, looking rather proud.
"I know for a fact that you get straight A's in English, Art, and Music, and you get straight B's in Science."
He'd been speechless. He'd noticed that? Of course, he was downplaying his abilities a little for what most people called the "main subjects" but he'd always been pretty bad at those, with the little education he'd gotten. Still, he'd always been the more 'art' type of person, lacking in the calculus area, but striving in the art categories. Science was always fun, the biology specifically. It was interesting learning about how the world worked around him.
"See," Green eyes flashed at him. "You're smart, just not in the area most people look at first to determine intelligence. The school system deems you stupid because you don't fit with it, but it's fine, because math, history, and all that isn't everything."
When he'd gotten to his dorm, he'd felt much better about himself.
Then there was the Bakusquad.
When he'd first gotten into the hero course, he'd had no intention of actually getting dragged into a group of tight knit friends, just opting to be that one guy that was friends with everybody but not best friends with anybody.
He'd gotten his wish for the former, but ultimately failed at the latter.
Those impromptu meetings in Bakugo's dorm, their game nights, their pranks, their training together, all the times that they'd broken down in front of each other and admitted their faults and worries.
Somehow, they had all wriggled their way into his heart before he'd even realized it, even Bakugo of all people with all of his anger and explosion, but with his soft care that he would completely deny.
Kirishima, with his genuine care and love, his 'try my best' with everything demeanor, his support from behind, always knowing that he would have your back, no matter what.
Mina, with her cheerful yells and support, always somehow knowing when someone was down, easily finding that crack in their seams and stitching it right back up with a few well placed words.
Sero, with his wide smile and his cheery eyes, always up for a jokes and knowing exactly when to add in a laugh, when to stop, when to be there for moral support.
He had come to care for all of them, more than anybody else before; it was different from his family.
Their relationship was strange and shaky, and yet they knew that they could never be torn apart. Their bonds had grown too deep for that; they had endured so much together that they were inseparable; he couldn't even imagine a world that they didn't exist anymore.
Yes, he snuggled deeper into the embrace of his classmates, content at last.
This was where he belonged.
Someone sniffled from within the pile, obviously swarmed with the same wave of memories he had just been assaulted with. He clung tighter, gripping onto every limb of head he could catch.
The grin on his face felt so wide that it was starting to hurt his cheeks, yet he found himself unwilling to wipe it off of his face.
Everything was wrapped in a warm silence, the whole class stuck in their own world, caring not about the time that was sure to be passing outside.
Everything was perfect, for just this one second.
Then the shrieking yell of an alarm pierced the air, and chaos reigned upon the school.