"So when is this guy getting here?" Shiro asked as me and him played a two-player puzzle game. It was the weekend and after my argument with Ryu, he ended up letting me have the weekend off. I hadn't talked to him since then, he's been locked in his office doing work or something.
"In, like, an hour." I answered, setting the controller aside when we completed the level.
"He's only staying for an hour or two, right?" Shiro questioned as he took the control I had just set down and disconnected it so he could play a different game by himself.
"Yeah, so maybe you can use that time to do some studying yourself." I said.
Shiro rolled his eyes, "Whatever." Then, after a few minutes, he said, "He's the guy who figured out your secret, like, forever ago, right?"
"Yeah." I replied, leaning back into the couch and getting on my phone.
Shiro didn't respond and after a while, I got up and went into my room. I had just over half an hour before Todoroki would get here. I didn't really know what I should be doing to prepare for our little study session so I just stacked all the stuff I would need on my desk so I could take it out to the living room when Todoroki got here and not have to look for everything.
There was a knock at my door and I looked up to see Ryu standing there. I narrowed my eyes and he let out a sigh, "Listen, I don't want to argue with you. I just want to let you know that, after your summer camp thing, I want you to do a concert in Esuha. It's nothing big, but you haven't had any performances lately, and I've been getting some emails from fans. I know the hero thing is important to you know, and I know I've been a bit of a jerk about everything lately-"
"'A bit'?" I interrupted with a sour tone. "That's an understatement."
"Right..." Ryu paused for a minute. He looked a bit ashamed of himself. I guess he finally realized how terrible he's been lately. Before I started school at UA, he wasn't nearly as mean. Sure, he would be annoying occasionally, but it was never this bad. Something must've been stressing him out. Probably the fan emails he mentioned. Thought that doesn't excuse him from being a jerk to me for the past month. "Anyways, I'm going to call your school to make sure you'll be able to do the performance... As long as you want to do it."
"Yeah, I want to." I answered. I was a bit shocked that he asked, usually he'd just sign me up for this kind of stuff and force me to deal with it. It was nice to have a say in this stuff.
"Great. I'll update you about that when I can get a date set." Ryu then hesitated before continuing, "Your friend is coming over soon, right?"
"Yeah. Probably in 20ish minutes." I replied, picking up my phone to check the time.
"Ok. I'll be in my office if you need anything." Ryu went to walk away, but stopped and added, "Try not to let Mai see him. She's been helping me with some stuff, so she's here right now. But you know how she'll get if she sees you with a boy."
I rolled my eyes and laughed, "Yeah, I know."
Ryu flashed me a smile before he walked out of my room and back to his office. I let out a long sigh and fell back on my bed. Wow, I thought, I just had a conversation with Ryu where I didn't want to scream at him. That's new. I sighed again and picked my phone back up. I probably had around 15 minutes before Todoroki got here, so I stood up and walked back into the living room. Shiro was still playing his game when I walked out, but he was on his phone instead of actually playing it.
"I'm going to have to kick you off that in a few minutes." I said as I sat down on the couch next to him.
"Whatever." He muttered, not looking up from his phone.
"What are you doing?" I asked, leaning over his shoulder to look at his phone.
"Asking if any of my friends want to hang out while you're hanging out with your boyfriend." Shiro answered.
I felt my cheeks warm up, "He's not my boyfriend."
"Uh-huh." Shiro mumbled.
"What friends are you even trying to hang out with? I thought you were too anti-social for that." I retorted.
Shiro looked up from his phone and glared at me, "I have plenty of friends."
"Uh-huh." I replied, mimicking what he just did to me.
Shiro rolled his eyes and went back to his phone, "I had a school project about a week ago and ended up becoming friends with the people in my group."
"That's where you were last Tuesday." I said, remembering when Shiro had come home from school late a week ago. "You could've told me."
Shiro just shrugged. I sighed and turned on my phone. "Oh, Todoroki just texted me. He'll be here in a few minutes."
"Great." Shiro said sarcastically. He stood up and turned off his game console, "I'll be in my room."
Shiro disappeared into his room and I leaned back into the couch. I didn't know why, but I felt a bit nervous. Maybe it was because I felt heavily unprepared for this. I had never actually had anyone over to my house since elementary and that was before I moved into this house. And I had been homeschooled for the past few years, so I never really got to invite people over to help me with school stuff.
After just a few more minutes, the doorbell rang. I stood up and immediately went to the door.
"Hey, Todoroki, glad you could make it." I greeted cheerfully. I stepped to the side and let him in.
"Hey." He replied, taking his shoes off and following me inside.
"So... um, what do you wanna do to start?" I asked as I stood behind the couch awkwardly, not really sure what to do. "I could get us some snacks or something."
"I don't really care." Todoroki said. He took off the backpack he had on and set it by the couch before sitting down.
"Ok... Well, then why don't we just start working on stuff." I suggested. He nodded and I continued, "I need to get my stuff from my room. I'll be right back."
When I came back from my room with my school stuff, I sat down next to Todoroki and laid my stuff on the coffee table Ryu or Shiro must've gotten out earlier. We didn't have it out all the time since Shiro would sometimes sit on the floor to play his games, but it was nice to have.
"So what do you need help with?" Todoroki asked after a minute of awkward silence.
I stared down at the books and notebook laid on the table and let out a sigh, "Everything."
* * *
After about an hour of studying, me and Todoroki decided to take a short break and get something to eat. It was around lunchtime, so we were both kind of hungry. Todoroki had followed me into the kitchen, where I stared at our nearly empty fridge.
"I sweat Mai said she went grocery shopping for us a few days ago." I mumbled with a sigh.
And as if on queue, Mai came around the corner and walked into the kitchen, "I went out, but I ended up going to that new restaurant that opened up a few weeks ago. The food there is great!"
"Good for you." I mumbled, closing the fridge. "Do we at least have-"
"You didn't tell me you were inviting a boy over!" Mai interrupted with a cheerful expression. I sighed and mentally prepared myself for what she would say as she circled around a confused looking Todoroki, mumbling to herself.
"Can I help you?" Todoroki asked causing Mai to take a step back.
"I approve!" Mai exclaimed suddenly. She looked at me with a stupid grin, "How dare you not tell me you were going out with a cute boy like this! I thought I'd be the first to know!"
I felt my cheeks flush, "We're not 'going out'! Todoroki's just here to help me study. We're just friends."
"Uh-huh, sure. Well... that's too bad. You two seem like you would be nice together." Mai said with a disapproving head shake.
"Can we talk about this later?" I hissed, feeling incredibly embarrassed.
"Yup! See you later Nori!" Mai cheered, then she walked away.
I nervously glanced up at Todoroki, who was looking at me with a confused expression. Our eyes met and I immediately looked away. Then he asked, "What was that about?"
"Just Mai being Mai." I mumbled. When I glanced up and saw Todoroki's still confused look I added, "Mai is my dance instructor. She always wants me to update her on my... social life at school."
"Oh." Todoroki replied simply. I couldn't tell if he had been flustered by what Mai had said or not, but I didn't really care.
"Anyways, back to finding food. I'm not exactly a good cook. And I don't think we have any instant ramen left." I said, changing the subject back to lunch and looking through our cabinets. "I feel like we always have food, and now we don't all of a sudden... Maybe it's 'cause we always eat out..."
"It's fine. We're just about done anyway. We can finish going over the last few things then I can leave." Todoroki said.
"Oh... Alright." I replied, slightly disappointed that he would be leaving soon. I closed the cabinets and we walked back into the living room.
After about 20 more minutes of studying, Todoroki said good-bye and left. I was actually a lot more disappointed to see him leave than I thought I would be. I was going to see him on Monday at school, so it wasn't a big deal, but I still wish we could've hung out a little longer.
"So, what's the deal with this Todoroki?" I jumped when Mai suddenly came out of nowhere and started talking. "Do you like him?"
"Why do you care?" I mumbled shoving her out of my way to sit down on the couch.
Mai plopped down in the seat next to me, "Because I need to know about all of this kinda stuff. You know I live on it."
"Right." I sighed, "Like I said, we're just friends and he was helping me with studying. Nothing interesting."
"Maybe you have feelings for him but you just don't know what it is." Mai wondered. "That happened to me in high school, too. There was this super cute guy that was a friend of mine and before I knew it, I was falling for him!"
"You fall in love with every good looking guy you see." I retorted, not really wanting to talk about this.
"Not true!" Mai exclaimed, "I'll have you know that I don't start really liking someone till they've proven to me that they're a good person."
"Yeah, whatever." I replied rolling my eyes. Then I stood up and grabbed my stuff off the coffee table. "I'm going to my room. If Ryu doesn't need you for anything maybe you could go buy us some food."
"Yeah, ok, fine. I'll see you later." Mai said, also standing up. She waved to me before walking to the door and leaving.