I looked at all the expectant people; they gossiped, taking pictures, and bothering me even more. Everybody is going to talk about this all weekend.
"I can trust you not to blabber about this, right?" She nodded.
"Promise?"
"I promise."
I let out a shaky breath. I'm about to tell her my biggest secret.
"I found my soulmate."
"..."
—
I kept picking at the dead skin around my fingernails all the way home. I didn't notice until somebody gasped, making me aware of what I was doing. I hid my hands in my pockets.
'Can't make a scene. Can't make a scene, Izuku! You can't lose it here! Just get home! Get home!' I internally screamed.
I could not stop thinking about the posts, Mina, Uraraka, and just everybody. Once All Mights gets wind of this, he'll probably integrate until I slip up or give me longer training sessions because I've ruined the prestige of being his student.
I got home from that whole fiasco. I couldn't even eat. I went to my room, shutting myself in. I took everything off, just trying to think of something else, but nothing was working. I got out of the shower, wrapping the towel around my waist, and I grabbed my phone, looking at all the comments.
They read.
"Midoryia and Uraraka become the Ultimate Power Couple?!?!?🥳"
"🫢Can't believe it our dream couple together finally!!!!"
'Those weren't that bad. I looked around more. The comments were good too. That's great.
That's great.' I thought of scrolling more on the student page.
The comments.
"They don't look right, they're practically the same height, they don't match at all.
"Are we being serious right now that Pick Me 🤮doesn't deserve her?"
"That freckled fuck doesn't deserve our goddess!"
They kept getting worse.
"That bastard wouldn't know the first thing about handling her."
"He's so scrawny he puts us alphas to shame." There were already 300+ comments under this post.
I set my phone down on the dresser, its screen still glowing faintly, and told myself, everything is going to be alright. It's going to be alright!
Stepping out of the bathroom, I crossed the hallway back to my room. The familiar scent of laundry greeted me as I tossed my phone onto the soft pile of blankets on my bed. I rummaged through my drawers, pulling out a comfortable t-shirt and sweatpants, and slipped into them, the fabric calming against my skin. Needing a distraction, I grabbed a stack of homework from my desk and tried to focus on the scribbled notes and textbook pages, letting their structure drown out my swirling thoughts.
I lost myself in the steady, mechanical rhythm of solving equations and writing answers. Every so often, though, my phone chimed with a new notification—a sharp, unwelcome reminder that jarred my nerves and amped up my anxiety tighter each time.
'I just need to ignore it. Ignoring it is best. Just ignore it!'
I forced myself to ignore the buzzing from my phone. As I hunched over my homework, the persistent vibration of my phone gnawed at my coursework. Every buzz sent a jolt through my chest, my heart ratcheting up as I tried to draw my attention back to the rows of equations and scrawled notes. My gaze flitted nervously between my work and the phone—a glowing, shivering presence at the edge of my vision, casting a subtle but unshakeable pressure over my thoughts. My leg bounced restlessly beneath the desk, and I found myself chewing the inside of my cheek, the tension crawling up my spine.
Still, I dug in, forcing myself to keep writing, letting each solved problem build a fragile wall against the noise of my anxiety. Gradually, the buzzes blurred into the background, drowned out by the mechanical sound of pencil on paper. I lost myself for a while in the steady work, the simple, grounding certainty of answers and solutions. Before I realized it, the pages were full—I was done. There was nothing left to distract myself with, and the silence that followed only amplified the phone's insistent rattling.
Now the buzzing sounded louder than ever, rattling around my brain. It was all I could hear, and the empty, quiet room pressed in on me.
'What am I supposed to do?'
Maybe food would help. Right food. I seized on the idea like a lifeline and made my way to the kitchen. The fridge was bleak and empty, its cold light illuminating nothing but a brittle container or two. I rummaged in the pantry and came up with a packet of instant noodles quick, familiar, and mindless. Tearing it open, I dumped the dry block in a bowl, filled it with water, and slid it into the microwave. The machine hummed and whirred, filling the silence as I stared aimlessly around the kitchen. Everything felt hollow and too quiet without Mom bustling around.
My eyes drifted to the microwave timer it read just two minutes, but those seconds stretched on endlessly, thick with anticipation. To break the silence, I snatched up the remote and flicked on the TV. The bright, monotone voice of the weather forecaster filled the room. Perfect. Anything to blunt my thoughts.
A piercing beep from the microwave startled me. I retrieved the bowl, the steam fogging my glasses. At the dining table, I ate slowly, spoonful by careful spoonful, dragging out each bite as long as possible. The rain prediction on the TV was oddly soothing. No going out tomorrow, then that was one less thing to worry about.
The program cut to commercials, jarring and loud. I set down my empty bowl, tossed it in the trash, and started cleaning up, hungry for any distraction that might fill up the heavy space around me.
"I am here!" My heart jumped.
I looked around, not seeing my teacher anywhere, until I looked at the screen. I sighed, turning the channel.
"I am here!" Another All Might commercial, I changed the TV channel again.
"I am—!" It happened again.
"—here!" And again.
"I am here!" And again.
This was a sign. It has to be. He knew what happened. I ran upstairs. I need to look at my phone. I opened my door there was my phone still buzzing loudly.
I grabbed it, opening it. The first thing I see.
"I swear he has to be sleeping with the instructors."
I pressed the comments for this post.
"Woah, where is this coming from?!?"
"Hellooo😱""Are we sure you're talking about the same person here?🤨"
The same person from the beginning stated, "I mean everyone treats him like some flower of the school. I'm not the only one noticing this. He's only in the top 100 in school when comes to capability, academics, and popularity. But the school is already advertising for his career like it's set in stone, he will graduate."
Someone added, " I noticed that they treat with so much favoritism, it's unfair."
"They treat him like some omega if you ask me?" Another added.
'How do they know!'
I scrolled more, and it has gotten worse. The comments were spiraling out of control. I swear I didn't tell anybody. I never told anybody that secret.
How could they know?
Were they stalking me?
I turned to my place, looking through my room. I looked through every nook and cranny five times.
Maybe he's lying?
They couldn't be. Why would they assume something like that?
I paced around the room, trying to come up with a solution.