Don't Be Late

Chapter 1- Focus

"To: Angel Face," Ochaco started to read out loud.

Wait a minute.

"'Angel Face' ?!" sputtered Uraraka in utter bewilderment.

"Doesn't Bakugo-kun call you that, kero?" asked Tsuyu, her straight black hair tucked into a messy ponytail. "Yes, but I didn't expect him to address me like that in my note... and he made it so obvious, too..." Uraraka trailed off.

Today's assignment in class had been to write each other anonymous notes critiquing their battle abilities, with the intent of gathering constructive criticism from their peers for the next week's training sessions in USJ. It forced them all to analyze their classmates' strengths and weakness, and more importantly, gave them rudimentary, short-term goals to focus on. They were supposed to be anonymous, because- how did Aizawa-sensei put it- "I don't want you spending your time worrying about the implications of your classmates' notes. You'll be assigned a random pair, because I don't trust you to pick. The point of this exercise is to gather feedback, not a free-for-all in which you trade personal opinions with each other. That's why you aren't going to put your names on there, and don't even think about writing something unrelated. I assure you that if anyone does- he'd narrowed his eyes at them- they'll have to deal with me personally."

Ochaco shuddered as she recalled Aizawa-sensei's frightening aura emanating the room earlier that day.

"And don't even think about writing something rude or thoughtless- I'm looking at you, Bakugo and Kirishima-" she remembered Bakugo had replied with a dismissive "Tch" and reclined his head back as if he didn't have a care in the world. He'd kicked his legs up on the seat in front of him- which coincidentally, belonged to a highly affronted Iida, which had made Aizawa-sensei so irritated that he gave Bakugo his signature death stare for thirty seconds before Bakugo finally gave up on their standoff and sat down like a normal person. A small smile graced her lips as she sat remembering the day's events.

She realized that Bakugo was probably the only person who was confident enough - or maybe careless - to pay no heed to their teacher's warning. But why would he go through the trouble of risking house arrest just to address her-

"Keep reading, Uraraka!" prompted Mina, leaning her head forward.

"Oh- right! Sorry, girls!" Uraraka replied bashfully, unconsciously raising her four fingers to her neck as she realized she'd momentarily gotten lost in her thoughts. The chattery group were all seated in the common area, with Tsuyu on her left, Hagakure and Momo on the couch directly opposite theirs, Jirou in an armchair diagonal from her right, and Mina resting (somewhat) beside her. They'd decided to debrief the notes with each other, because really, who wouldn't want to find out who said what to who? She resumed reading the note, being careful to keep her pinkies in the air.

"Your quirk is strong."

"Ehhh? Bakugo-kun complimented you?" remarked Mina in awe. She had flopped backwards onto the couch, her head now upside-down and parallel to Ochaco's. "He almost never compliments anyone, except for maybe All Might... but I don't really know if that counts..." She lifted her arms absentmindedly and outstretched her palms, wiggling each of her fingers.

"He might have felt obligated to, since it was an official assignment and all," Momo suggested thoughtfully, nestling her head in between her thumb and her index finger.

"Well, he never complimented me, he just criticized me! You all just heard it for yourselves!" Jiro chimed in angrily, brandishing her letter around, which she'd read right before Ochaco's. "And he wasn't nice about it either, but I guess that's typical of him," she admitted.