Yamada's substitute had taken one look at the chaos—Bakugo threatening to commit a felony over a stolen pencil, Kaminari trying to balance a textbook on his head, Ashido standing on a desk to reach the thermostat—and apparently decided that survival was the only learning objective that mattered.

Now, forty minutes into a "lesson" that had become an extended free period, desks had been shoved together into uneven clusters. Phones were out. Conversations overlapped from every corner of the room. Someone had started a game of cards in the back.

And Mina Ashido had decided that everyone's hair needed to be fucked with.

Kaminari wasn't paying attention.

He was mid-sentence, roasting Sero about something that probably wasn't even funny, when his eyes happened to wander in your direction.

He looked away.

Then he looked back.

Hold the fuck on.

He'd known you for years. You were his homie. One of the bros. The person who stole his chargers and ate off his plate without asking. He knew you were attractive in the same distant, irrelevant way he knew Bakugo had anger issues—it was simply a fact that had never mattered before.

Apparently all Mina needed to do was put your fucking hair up for his eighteen-year-old brain to suddenly reconsider several years of friendship.

His eyes lingered as Mina adjusted one of the pigtails, watching your bangs fall around your face while you laughed with the girls. Something inconvenient clicked into place.

Oh.

You were hot.

Like, actually fucking hot.

Well, congratulations, Pikachu. Took you three years, but your eyes finally work.

Denki watched her tilt your chin toward the light, watched you laugh at something Jirou said, watched your lips trying not to move while Mina worked on your face—

He looked back at Sero with a quiet, deeply resigned sigh.

He absolutely looked back at you.