Quickly slipping her feet into a pair of flat sandals, Kendo hurried out the door to catch up to (L/N) who was already down the front steps. She followed him in silence as he stepped off the brick path. The cool grass tickled her toes and the tops of her feet, and still he kept walking, away from the light of the streetlamps until she could barely make out his figure in the clouded night.

He came to a stop at the tree line that marked the edge of the plot of land and separated the 1B and 1A dormitories and rested his left hand against the bark of the nearest maple. Shuffling her feet, Kendo eagerly waited for (L/N) to say something, but he remained silent, and she knew better than to prompt him before he was ready. A gust of wind whistled through the branches. It caught (L/N)'s hakama and Kendo's ponytail so they danced in the wind and carried away several browning leaves from their branches, whisking them off into the night.

"It was raining the first night we met." His voice was so soft she might have mistaken it for the wind. "I don't know why I remember that. It's not a very important detail. But it always was the little things." Reaching toward the nearest branch, he plucked an orange leaf from the limb and rolled the stem through his fingers. "The things I missed the most." He cupped the leaf in his palm so the wind wouldn't take it, lightly tracing his middle finger along the veins. "Was I a good friend, Kendo?"

She nodded. "You were my best friend."

"You were my best friend, too." He whispered. "I'm sorry I never told you. Do you think... do you think it would have changed anything? If I had told you sooner?"

"I... I don't..." Hugging herself to shield herself from the cold, she tried to say she didn't know, but she couldn't speak, and her unfinished sentence delivered a different meaning.

"I didn't think so." He smiled sadly. "It's okay. It's not like it really matters either way. What happened, happened. There is no point dwelling on it. At least, that's what I told you. Back at the Sports Festival. But the truth is," he turned around to face her, "it's all I ever think about."

Kendo quivered as the air around grew colder. "I'm sorry." It was a pathetic thing to say, she knew, but what else was there. "I'm so sorry. And I know there's no forgiving what I did. I know you're just here to take out your anger, so go ahead and do it." She dropped her arms, as if to expose herself to his wrath. "I deserve whatever you have to say to me."

(L/N) dropped his gaze and turned his attention to the leaf. Holding it between his thumbs and the knuckles of his forefinger, he laughed wistfully. "I'm not angry at you." He said fondly. "I'm not angry that you left me. People leave. People always leave." (L/N)'s left hand enveloped the maple leaf and the brittle plant crumbled in his fist. "But no one's ever left me feeling quite so... small." His fist opened and the fragments dropped from his hand and were lost, scattered in the wind.

"I was damaged long before you met me." He said, rubbing his fingers against his palm to free the last clinging vestiges of the now crumbled leaf. "That much is obvious. But I was fine... being damaged. I was fine being hated, being alone. I didn't care what anyone thought about me. And then I met you. And you were kind." (L/N) paused and inhaled deeply, almost as if he were breathing in the memory. "And for a second... I thought... that this must be what it feels like. And I was so... desperate... to hold onto that feeling." He said with a trembling voice. "So desperate not to lose you that I gave you everything, hoping that it would be enough to keep you. Hoping that it would be worth something to you."

His voice almost broke. Clenching his fists, he held them to his forehead, as if, in that moment, the only thing keeping him from breaking was him physically holding himself together. His breathing steadied and she heard him sniff. "But I wasn't even worth a goodbye."

As he lowered his hands a ghost of white light escaped from behind his blindfold, briefly illuminating his features before it disappeared. In that time, she saw how wet his face was, and for a moment she thought he had been crying. But then, in the silence left behind by his words, she heard the rain. It had been raining for a while now, she realized, and she wondered how she hadn't felt it.

Then, for the first time, she noticed the warm glow that chased off the darkness. (L/N) stood outside the light's edge, his clothing soaked through as the rain poured down his hair and fell from his shoulders. The grass no longer pointed towards the heavens, weighed down by the heavy downpour. But within the light the ground was still dry. With a broken heart, Kendo looked up, and through her tears she saw the shimmer of his hardened light as the water trickled down and away, falling off the umbrella he shielded her with.

"I never needed someone to see me." He bowed his head and the water dripped from his hair and down the back of his neck. "I knew what I was. But you were the one that taught me, what I was... would never be enough."

"No." Kendo breathed. "No, that's not true!" She cried. "I was... I was just scared, and... and confused. I didn't understand what I was feeling. And then, when they told me I would be leaving, I just... I didn't know how to say goodbye. So I didn't."

There was a minute of silence in which the only sound was the rain. And then he spoke.

"Then say it now."

"...what?"

"What you didn't know how to say back then. Say it now."

"Don't." She begged and shook her head. "D-Don't make me do that. Please." 

"You have to." (L/N) told her. "I need you to."

Kendo's jaw trembled as she tried to speak, but she hadn't the air to breathe. It was as if her lungs had collapsed. And still he stood there, expressionless, as if he had still been waiting for her all this time. Biting her lip, she held her eyes tightly shut and looked away, hating herself for still not being brave enough to even look at him. She held her breath.

"Goodbye... (F/N)."

"Goodbye, Itsuka."

She fell to her knees at the sound of her name, knowing it would be the last time she would ever hear him say it. And now it was her turn. Her turn to be left to cry alone in the dark.

But then she felt something cold and wet. A finger gently lifted her chin. Opening her eyes, she saw him kneeling in front of her.

"Hello." He said. "My name's (L/N). What's your name?"

[My Hero Academia]

Yaoyorozu flipped her pillow to the cold side and fell back into her mattress with an aggravated sigh. Closing her eyes, she tried to will herself to sleep, but it was hopeless. Rolling onto her other side, she reached out for her phone on her nightstand, noticing with distress how she had been awake so long her eyes had adjusted to the dark.

It was almost one thirty in the morning, meaning she'd been tossing and turning for over an hour. Even if she fell asleep now, there were only five hours left before her alarm would go off, and she'd barely slept at all the night before. The thought filled her with anxiety, and for a moment she wondered if this was what it was like to have insomnia. Really though, she felt she would be alright the next day even with just five hours of sleep, so long as she knew he would be there.

He was gone before she'd woken up that morning, he and her other classmates who were part of the hero work study program. But the others had all returned to the dormitory by ten. Uraraka said the last they'd seen him; he was headed off somewhere with The Watcher, and immediately she'd begun to worry he had been injured on an assignment. A fear that only worsened as the hours dragged by and he still hadn't returned.

At eleven, she used the dormitory phone to call a very irritated Mr. Aizawa. By the sound of his voice, she had clearly woken him. He told her that (L/N) had been held back by The Watcher, but only by thirty or so minutes, and that he should return within the hour. She stayed in the common area long after everyone else had gone to sleep, refusing to go to bed until she saw him. But midnight came and went, and he was still gone.

It wasn't until half past midnight, when Iida came down for a glass of water and insisted she retire for the evening, did she finally relent. But still her mind raced. Even though Aizawa had assured her (L/N) wasn't injured, all it did was replace one fearful thought with another. The thought that perhaps she had scared him off. 

Flipping onto her back, Yaoyorozu grabbed one of her pillows and held it over her face. How could she have been so stupid? What did she think was going to happen? That (L/N) would confess his love for her and kiss her back and that they would live happily ever after? She was more logical than that. At least, she thought she was. She'd never succumbed to such bursts of emotion with any of her past boyfriends, if they could even be called that. She could count on one hand the number of relationships she'd had in the past, and none lasted more than a few weeks. She supposed, though, that perhaps that was the reason she'd behaved so irrationally.

All her life she'd been known as the pretty rich girl. That was the person people were friends with. That was the person the boys had wanted to date. When she came to UA, she became known affectionately as Yaomomo. Vice President of Class 1A and the brightest student in their grade. But (L/N) had never made her feel like she was any of those things. When she was with him, she wasn't just another pretty face. She wasn't the heir to the Yaoyorozu fortune or the straight A student or the leader people looked up to. To him, she was just Momo. To him, that's all she ever needed to be. It was in the comfort of that knowledge her eyes grew heavy. But just as she was about to finally fall asleep, she woke again with a start at the sound of two soft knocks on her bedroom door.

Sliding out from under the covers, Yaoyorozu opened the door to her room a crack to see who was bothering her at so late an hour. Her heart leapt at the sight of (L/N) standing there, and she quickly opened the door the rest of the way.

"H-Hi."

"(F/N)." She whispered happily. "What are you..." She stopped midsentence as she noticed the state he was in. Still in his hero costume, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and he was dripping water onto the floor.

"I know it's late, but... can we talk?"

"O-Of course." Momo said.

She poked her head out the door as (L/N) stepped inside, looking up and down the hall to make sure no one was watching. Closing the door behind her, she stumbled backwards as a heavy weight pressed into her body. She shivered at the sudden cold and felt water drip onto her right shoulder as his wet hair pressed into the side of her neck. She felt the thin silk of her nightgown start to unpleasantly cling to her skin as (L/N)'s sopping wet hero costume dampened her clothes. But despite how uncomfortable it all was, she smiled. Leaning into him, Momo heard him exhale heavily and felt him fall more into her as she brought her arms up to gently hold his back.

"Shh, shh, it's okay." She soothed. "Here, let's sit down."

Still supporting his weight, she lowered them onto the edge of her bed. Pushing her feet up, she moved over to the middle of her bed, keeping hold of his hand to encourage him to follow. Sitting next to her, she wrapped her arms around him again and he sank into her, resting his head on her collarbone.

"I know it probably doesn't mean anything anymore," he said hoarsely, "but I'm sorry... for running the other day."

"It's okay." Momo said, running her fingers through his hair. "It's my fault, really. I rushed things, and I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

(F/N) inhaled deeply, reassured by the smell of her shampoo and her constant warmth. "It wasn't that." He said sleepily. "It's just, when you told me you love me..."

Momo blushed furiously at the memory. "I'm so sorry." She closed her eyes and shook her head in embarrassment. "I don't know what I was thinking. It was stupid of me, and I..."

"No, I just... don't know what that means."

Momo opened her eyes and looked down at him with sad eyes. "What?"

"I don't... know... what that means."

With that he was asleep. But his words continued to echo in Momo's ears, and in those words she realized just how far they still had to go.