Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 27: Friendship

All the confidence that Izuku had felt as he ran out the door with the intention of making a friend had slowly dissipated during his train ride to the hardware store. He didn't even know if Kaminari was working today, and even if he was working, what was Izuku supposed to say to him?

Hey, sorry if this makes me sound like a stalker, but I'm not actually here to buy anything, I just wanted you to be my friend because I'm desperate and lonely. Wanna hang out?

Izuku grimaced. Yeah, that wouldn't be creepy at all. Maybe if he had an excuse to be there...he could use this as an opportunity to update his gear, right? When he'd gone out last night, had his gear all been in good shape? His pipes were fine, he hadn't needed his knife, but it was probably still sharp since he didn't actually use it all that often, and his slingshot was still good. What else did he even need?

Before he could even decide, Izuku was walking through the parking lot of the hardware store. Was it too late to turn around? He shouldn't have told Mom about this, because now there were two people who would be disappointed in him if he chickened out. Could he make up some sort of story? It would probably be a lot of work to maintain a fake friendship, but he was already leading a double life with his vigilantism, so he could do it if he needed to, but then Mom and Eraserhead would be disappointed with him for lying to them. Ugh! What was he supposed to do?

He didn't know if it made it more or less awkward that he didn't even make it into the store before he saw Kaminari. His apron was thrown casually over his shoulder as he walked away from the store, so he must have just gotten off his shift. He was fiddling with his phone as he put some earbuds in, but what caught Izuku's attention was the fact that he had the USB end of a phone charger stuck in his mouth.

"Can you really charge your phone like that?"

Kaminari yelped and lost his footing as he stumbled back, wincing as he fell hard on the asphalt. Izuku ran forward to help him up, panicking even more than he had been the past a few minutes. He really couldn't do anything right, could he?

"I'm so sorry!" Izuku said frantically as he pulled Kaminari to his feet. "I didn't even mean to ask the question out loud, it just came out and I was curious, but I swear I didn't mean to scare you and now you probably think I'm really creepy because I just came out of nowhere and..."

Kaminari cut him off with a laugh, "It's no problem dude, nothing's broken and I wouldn't be trying for the hero course if I couldn't take a few hard knocks." He rubbed his hip where he'd fallen and chuckled awkwardly, "Not that getting startled that easily is really hero-like, but..."

Izuku shrunk in on himself, "Sorry. Again. I mean, for knocking you over."

"Like I said, it's no big deal." Kaminari shrugged. "How ya been? Is your mystery project going well?"

Izuku startled. Kaminari was talking about his vigilantism, even if he didn't actually know that, "Um...I actually haven't been able to work on it in a while." He held up his arm to show Kaminari his cast, "So, uh, yeah, it's kinda at a standstill."

"Oof, dude," Kaminari winced, "broken bones are no fun, but hey, at least you can get all your friends to sign your cast, so that's cool!"

Izuku shrugged sadly. Yeah, he knew that other people had their friends sign their casts, Kacchan had almost the entire grade sign his cast when he'd broken his leg in second grade jumping off the top of the slide before he'd learned how to use his explosions to catch himself. Izuku had signed too because Mom and Auntie Mitsuki had thought it would be cute if his best friend was the first one to sign Kacchan's cast, but when Izuku showed up to school the next day, his signature had been scribbled out with black sharpie and silver explosions had been drawn over it. He'd never tried to sign anyone's cast after that.