Something that Izuku just wasn't used to about the Ashido family was their straightforward, light-hearted and friendly attitude towards him. He should have gotten used to it a lot quicker than he was, but he just wasn't quite able to.
With Mina, he'd adapted quickly. Since they were dating one another, and spent such a lot of time together, he'd grown accustomed to the way she was. Her energetic and eccentric ways had been surrounding him for the last few months, so he'd grown accustomed to her personality. If only to save himself from further embarrassment and fluster from her actions.
The thing was, Izuku still was terribly awkward socially. Conditioned to keep his mouth shut and to keep to himself by years of bullying, being surrounded suddenly by all manner of various outgoing and friendly people was something he still struggled with, even after all his time at Yuuei. He could manage it when he was with a group of friends, or on a one-to-one basis, or with Mina…
Her entire family was open and friendly and hyper energetic like her too, though, and excluding Mina herself, there were five of them.
Five people he barley even knew. The only thing he honestly knew about any of them was the fact that they were blood relations to his girlfriend. Frankly, it did add a lot more pressure onto him. No, this wasn't the first time he'd met the family, but this was the first time in quite a while, and now they were convinced, just as much as he was, that the relationship he had with Mina was one that was going to last. And somehow, that made him feel more like he was under more of an obligation to be upstanding.
Frankly, he didn't fully understand why he felt like this. He was aware he was overthinking things, but that wasn't going to stop him from doing so, out of sheer habit if nothing else.
His worries weren't founded in any sense of reality however.
The Ashido family just genuinely liked him.
Opening up the door for Izuku to enter her house, Mina followed shortly after, and shut the door behind her. Kicking her shoes off in the entrance hall, she then hopped up from the lower section, and then called out into the house, throwing her arms into the air like she was making a huge announcement to a huge crowd. "Yo, we're back! I brought Izuku!"
"You mean you got me to bring you both back." Micha, revealing himself to be in the room to the immediate right, collapsed onto a sofa that was just opposite the door, commented.
"Micha, those're just details." Mina slyly stated, glancing towards her collapsed brother. He was just going to take it easy until his girlfriend called that she was ready to go. How she managed to put up with his driving, Mina had absolutely no idea.
Before Micha could get another word in edge-wise towards his younger sister, that Izuku could already tell he had on the tip of his tongue, a voice that was just at the top the stairs, followed by a series of running footsteps pulled his attention upwards. At the top of those stairs, were Mina's younger siblings, Mika and Mara, and in front of them, was Mina's mother, who already had a huge smile of what looked like pride on her face.
Izuku had only recently, on the car ride back in between the yelps and Mina yelling at her brother to calm the holy hell down when it came to his driving, that the oldest Ashido woman's first name was Michiko, and that the family name actually belonged to her side. He'd never actually gotten to know what her name was on his first visit, nor had he exactly interacted with her much, if at all.
Still, she acted as if Izuku was an old family friend that she hadn't seen in a long time. "Midoriya!" She greeted happily, quickly making her way down the steps and pulling her daughter's boyfriend into a warm hug. Within just a second, Izuku knew exactly where Mina got her friendliness and social attitudes from. "It's been a while! Good to see you again!"
"Y-Yes, ma'am!" Izuku responded as quickly and politely as he could, frozen in place, with his hands strapped to his sides. Though in fairness, Michiko's arms had wrapped around him in such a way that her arms had gone around his torso, and kept his arms pinned to the side, so he couldn't move them even if he had wanted to.
"Nice to see you too, Mom." Mina muttered sarcastically, as she did around her family. Izuku had noticed that when surrounded by her blood relatives, the number of her sarcastic responses, and attitude overall, increased exponentially.
It was entertaining to say the least. A lot of the time around them, he just was stood there with a weak smile etched onto his face, trying not to laugh, so he wouldn't come across as rude..
"But you're here all the time." Mika responded from atop the stairs, a joke which made the foul mouthed Mara fold his arms and chuckle at the abuse being hurled towards his older sister. "Midoriya's more interesting than you are."
"Well said!" Micha yelled for all to hear, clapping his hands as he did so.
For her part, Mina was talking the banter very well, a smile on her face as they all made their jokes towards her. "You're all hilarious."
"Damn right we are!" Mara called out.
As the jokes kept going, Michiko had finally let go of the hold she'd had on Izuku, only to be substituted for Mina gently throwing her arms around his neck from behind, so her hands loosely rested by his chest, almost like she was claiming him from the rest of her family. She succeeded in making Izuku go a red shade.
It still was absolutely bizarre to Izuku that Mina was the odd looking one in her family. Everyone else looked totally like regular humans. The genetics involved in such a scenario would be interesting to learn about. Disregarding that though, the similarities between all of the Ashido family were so clear that anyone with even a single working ear could understand their dynamic.
Tuning back into the conversation, he heard Michiko explaining something to his girlfriend. "-and your food should be arriving at about seven."
"You're ordering take out while the rest of us eat poison?!" Micha growled at the pink girl. "You damn traitor."
"I'd prefer it if my boyfriend didn't die, thanks bro."
"I'd prefer it if I didn't die. Face it, Pinky, you need me for chaperone purposes!" The eldest sibling declared dramatically, showing off all of his yellow teeth, and pointing at her like an anime protagonist who had discovered the flaws in the Villain's plans.
"Never again."
Faced with such a flat response, Micha's face dropped, as did his pointing. Still, he maintained a gloating aura about him. "You say that, next week you're gonna want me to drive you two to a movie."
"Nah, no way man, I don't trust you with a car anymore. Well, I never did, but now I know never to take a risk on you again."
"Yeah, speaking of risks." Micha suddenly reached into his left pocket, rummaging around for a second, until he eventually found what he had been searching for.
"Micha, no." Their mother interjected, before her eldest could go through with whatever joke he had planned.
"Oh come on! I had a whole bit planned!" Moaned the Meltdown Quirk user. "I was gonna gonna make the green bastard go red so he'd end up as some weird yellow-orange mess. At least then Pinky there wouldn't be the only one with a weird skin colour."
Mina's family was certainly an amusing one. A tight knit one. A very good spirited one. Izuku wasn't able to deny any of those facts. Once he was able to adjust to their brashness and their overall hyperactivity, he was able to appreciate their carefree attitudes and barely concealed mock contempt for one another.
The environment in which Mina had grown up in, it wasn't at all surprising to see how it had shaped her into the person that she was now. A person with a great sense of humour, but genuine kindness and softness when it mattered.
Even if her family was all absolutely insane, it was obvious that underneath their attempts to humiliate and insult one another, that they did love one another with everything they had. Perhaps that was part of why Mina was such a loving person towards him.
It was still slightly uncomfortable for him, since he barely knew any of them. So far, all he knew about them was that they all just seemed to love making fun of one another. Best that he could tell, Micha in particular just seemed to spend the majority of his time planning on finding ways to mess with his family. Tonight that had seemed to involve him trying to embarrass Mina by teasing Izuku to no end. Thankfully, their mother already sensed his tricks.
There wasn't any doubt that her brother had some sort of sex joke planned. Izuku was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the oldest Ashido had planned on it. But he hadn't been able to actually make the joke.
So thank God for that.
Something that Izuku noticed was that her father wasn't around. She had explained that he was actually away during the following week, at a bachelor's party with some of his lifelong friends abroad in the U.S. It was why she'd chosen to have the sleepover now. Her father was a very relaxed person, almost to a fault, so she knew that he wouldn't have any particular problems with Izuku staying over with her. The issue did, however, rest in the fact that he could be a very intrusive man when he wanted to be, and Mina had no doubt that he'd make up some contrived excuse to check on what the pair of them were doing. It wasn't that he was over-protective over her – He'd probably be more okay with them doing intimate things than anyone else in the house would be. He was just nosy, that was what it came down to.
One of the many reasons why Mina detested the fact that her room didn't have a lock of any sort. Normally she'd resort to moving something heavy behind the door so that her father would have to actually push for it to open – It was better than him just being able to barge in whenever he felt like it. Thankfully, everyone else in the house at least respected her privacy enough to, at the very least, knock before walking into the room, so she didn't need to worry about that tonight.
Along with that, Mina had already planned everything out that night. Not feeling like eating what tasted like lead mixed with salt that was her mother's food, or subjecting Izuku to eating that sort of thing either, she'd ordered a take-out for the pair of them to share, which had arrived not too long – About twenty minutes – after the pair of them arrived at the large household. She'd ordered a pair of large pizza's from a nearby delivery place, a place Izuku hadn't actually been to before. Along with that, she'd already placed some movies on her television onto her watch list, so she could easily find the ones that she wanted to watch with her boyfriend. It didn't surprise Izuku for even the slightest second that she ended up choosing the movie "Alien", in spite of his protests.
Horror films were something that Izuku really… Really… Really hated. He didn't care if it came out last year, thirty years ago, three hundred years ago or it if was some sort of timeless masterpiece. Horror was horror and it absolutely freaked him out… But Mina had already made up her mind.
As it turned out, she could be stubborn when it came to her movies.
Furthermore, she'd managed to convince her brothers to let her borrow the family gaming console, which she'd hooked up to her TV already. How she'd managed to get the gamer Micha to give up one of the household systems was a question Izuku felt left unanswered.
Izuku had to wonder how long she'd been planning this particular night. It felt like she'd wanted to do this sort of thing for a long time, but either hadn't had the courage to ask him to do so, or just wanted to wait for the perfect time to do so. Whatever the reason for it was, she had come to think that the time was right, and here they now were.
Looking over at him with the corner of her eyes, Mina offered a kind smile. "You still look like you're uncomfortable. Actually, I guess flustered knowing you."
A very true fact. Being in Mina's room was still very much an experience to the green haired boy. Even just disregarding the simple fact he was just in a girl's room, never mind that it was his girlfriend's room…
This was the same room he'd had his very first kiss.
Memories of that event had come flooding back into his mind the second he stepped through her door and into her room. She was sat in the exact same spot that she was when she'd leaned over and kissed him for the very first time. She'd placed the take-outs to her right, leaving the only place for Izuku to sit down was in the exact same place he'd been say that evening. If she had done this intentionally or not was something Izuku wasn't too sure of, but it still brought back those memories even more.
They'd kissed plenty of times since. So many times, Izuku honestly didn't know how much they'd kissed anymore. At Mina's initiation, they'd even gone further than just kissing. Some would argue much further than just kissing.
Yet it was here where Izuku felt his heart rate increase and his blush start to form. Not while he was sat in his bedroom, where he'd felt more of Mina than ever before. But here, where they'd shared their first truly intimate moment together. Where he'd become confident in his feelings for her, and he knew she was confident in her feelings for him.
Really, someone could say that their relationship truly began in this very room, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong.
Patting the space next to her, Mina used her free hand to motion that Izuku take the space next to her. "C'mon, quit being all blushy and come sit down!" She didn't demand, nor did she request that he did so. Instead, all she did was make the offer open to him. She just had a way with how she spoke that never made Izuku feel like he had to do something out of either demand, or out of obligation.
Mina only wanted him to do things because he wanted to. That was just the sort of person that she was.
Though it took him a second or two to swallow the nerves he had about being in this particular room again, and knowing just what room it was, he eventually found his steel and made his way over to her bed, and sat himself down next to her. He noted that her bed covers were cameo, the same as her Hero costume, only in different colours. Perhaps she was just a fan of that particular sort of style.
Passing the order that she had bought for him over to him, which Izuku took, Mina then reached for the remote to her TV. She had a huge grin on her face from anticipation – Presumably because she was excited to make Izuku watch one of her favourite movies of all time. "You ready to start this?"
"I… I suppose so…" Resigned the young teenager, realizing that trying to further convince Mina to let them watch anything else was going to be a wasted effort.
Making herself comfortable, Mina rested herself again Izuku's body, placing the back of her head against his chest, and leaning on him that way, so she herself was almost just laying down on the bed. In doing so, Izuku was pushed against the wall, resting his back on it. He went slightly red in the face, but he didn't mind it too much. Honestly, it was actually rather comfortable.
What followed was a two hour, old fashioned movie that had Izuku tense virtually all the way through. The first half an hour or so wasn't too bad, but it still did have him nervous. It was an old film, very old, from before Quirks were even a thing, and that was a surreal experience for him. Everyone in the film was totally Quirkless, which was just… Weird to him. Even though he himself was born Quirkless, he had accepted Quirks as a part of society long, long ago. Seeing so many Quirkless people exist without Quirks as a thing in their society… It was just impossible to think of.
He just considered himself lucky to have eaten his food before the actual 'Alien' itself showed up. To be frank, the actual appearance of the creature itself didn't bother him much, if at all. Some people in society today were far more terrifying in appetence, and besides, dealing with Villains like he had, and as frequently as he had, he wasn't sure if anything's outright appearance could scare him anymore.
Still, he initially had to question why on earth Mina wanted to originally have her Hero name based on… That.
Then he saw the acid blood, and his question was immediately answered.
What did bother Izuku about the film however was the tension that it had. The jump scares, the atmosphere… The alien could have been some sort of cute fluffy mascot from a video games company and he was still convinced he'd have a heart attack when it popped in out of nowhere.
And he wound up putting up with that sort of emotional turmoil for just under two hours, while Mina seemed to be having the time of her life. She'd watched the film so many times that she didn't even seem to be bothered by the horror aspect of it anymore, and she got no end of amusement whenever Izuku jumped in surprise. Every time he jolted after a jump scare, she promptly began to laugh at his actions, teasing him as she did so.
"You're an odd guy, y'know." She commented, looking up at him. "You managed to deal with Stain, but this is freaking you out?"
"Eh heh…" Even Izuku agreed that it was an oddity, so all he could do was awkwardly chuckle and scratch the back of his head.
"Well, whatever." Mina said, resting her head against his chest again. "It's cute."
They watched the rest of the movie in a relative silence, though Izuku did remain tense throughout a lot of it, though Mina resting against him had a calming effect. For the most part. Still didn't help him when the creature on screen was doing its best to terrify him. A trick he used to make himself feel better was that he imagined the creature to just be a human who had a peculiar Quirk. When he thought about it in this way, he found that he was a lot more comfortable with seeing the films antagonist.
Upon the films very ambiguous ending, which Izuku wasn't sure if he was supposed to cheer or be in despair towards, Mina quickly hopped up from him sat opposite him, her legs crossed, her hands together, and a curious grin on her face. "So, what'd'ya think?"
"H-How do you like that sort of stuff?" Izuku questioned, not able to even slight understand the appeal of the horror genre of film. At all. Who paid to be scared out of their mind?!
"I like the adrenaline." Was the simple answer that he got. The thing was, with how he knew Mina to be, hyper energetic, athletic and social… He didn't doubt it. For even a second.
It seemed like exactly the sort of thing she'd watch horror films for.
Again, he found himself unsure if he was supposed to laugh or cry. "You're insane…"
"I'm not taking that from the dude who literally turned his arms into mush back at the Sports Festival."
This time, Izuku did manage to laugh, which Mina quickly joined him in. It wasn't particularly funny, and the both of them knew this. They didn't care though – They were just having fun.
Reaching down from the bed, Mina grabbed hold of one of the controllers, unhooked it from the charger to the system, and then handed it over to Izuku. "Here – You ready to get beat at games?"
"Uh…" Izuku took hold of the – Frankly – Bizarrely shaped console controller. He barley ever played games as it was, arcade games with Mina being basically the only exception. When it came to actual home entertainment systems, he had literally no idea whatsoever what he was doing. He might as well have been holding a a submarine control system for all that he knew about it. "You… I have no idea how to even use this thing?"
"I'll show you. You'll like this game. It's all about Heroes."
Predictably, that caused Izuku's interest to quickly grow. So, Mina spent a while explaining how the controls worked, and the pair of them entered a one versus one match against one another. The characters in the game were Heroes, as some sorts of fighting games usually were. Izuku spent a while debating which character had the best Quirk for the job.
Only to always get beaten into the ground by Mina with ease.
Again and again.
And again.
But the thing was, Izuku never stopped having fun.
A lot of their relationship truly did still confuse him sometimes, and he remained curious as to how things had turned out this way. The way that their habits, interests, and even just their personalities were just so… Contradictory to one another sometimes. But Mina was just…. Absolutely, the best person that he'd ever met. She pushed him out of his comfort zone, while keeping him happy. She made him laugh when he would normally be nervous.
She was just… Frankly, he'd gone over it a million times in his mind, but he just never got bored of it.
Mina was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He loved her so, so much...
Which was why the fear of even telling her… To even risk getting that possible negative reaction… Was absolutely terrifying.
As he thought of these facts, noticing that he was actually managing to beat Mina's character within the game, he felt her head suddenly rest against his shoulder, her apparently having become so tired that she'd just fallen asleep outright while playing the game. He paused for a moment, and checked him phone.
One o'clock in the morning. Time had absolutely blasted past them.
And they were… Almost certainly going to regret it the following morning.
He had to smile though. He wasn't even totally sure how she'd managed to do that. Perhaps she'd exhausted all of the energy she had already, or maybe she was like a timer than just shut down after a certain amount of time. He honestly didn't know, but still, the fact she could just power down like that was… An amusing concept to him.
Deciding to wait a few moments, to make sure that she had properly fallen asleep, he then very slowly, and carefully, moved himself so that he could rest her into her bed, next to him. He had a feeling that she'd just complain of tease him if he didn't do this, and she had outright said that he could… So he just decided that he was going to rest with her that night.
Once he laid next to her, he just watched her sleep, just for a few moments. To put it simply, he found it adorable. She looked so calm and peaceful… This girl, who just seemed to have no end to the amounts of energy that she possessed, being so exhausted that she outright knocked out…. It was cute to him.
Instinctively, he gently leaned forward, and planted a kiss on her forehead. "Night, Mina." He said, gently, before closing his eyes himself, and holding her close to him.
To Izuku, it had been a wonderful night of fun, relaxation, and warmth.
But to Mina, it had been a failure.