Chapter Text
Midoriya was in his room, trying to study when he heard an argument starting in Mineta's room. Not trying to be one that snoops on other people's business, Midoriya tried to ignore it, until the people were basically yelling.
"I'm done being friends with you, Mineta. I've given you too many chances to redeem yourself. You keep going too far with your jokes. My actual friends don't want me to hang around because I'm associated with you. Women are not objects to possess, they are people. They are not there for you to have. I have told you so many times to stop. Do you not see how disgusting your actions are? How disgusting you are being? The girls are afraid that you might actually do something to them and so am I. So even if you go beyond all expectations and actually become a decent person we will never be friends anymore." The voice sounded so distraught and horrified as they spoke.
"Go ahead and leave then! I don't even want to be friends with you! Maybe I can actually have some fun when you aren't around. You always try to boss me around telling me I shouldn't talk like that, I shouldn't act like that. You know what? I know for a fact I will have more fun. Well? Leave already. I don't want to look at you anymore than I have to." Mineta's voice was full of hate.
Midoriya had hurried to his door as the voices stopped talking. He opened it to see Kaminari step out of Mineta's room with tears in his eyes. Kaminari slammed the door and started walking with his eyes facing the floor. "Kaminari? Are you okay?" Midoriya had never seen the resident lighting bolt so upset.
Startled, Kaminari looked toward Midoriya and shook his head as the tears trailed down his face. Midoriya rushed to hug him, Kaminari felt limp in his arms. "Do you want to go into my room? You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. I just don't think you should be by yourself right now." Kaminari shrugged and let Midoriya pull him into his room.
Sitting down on Midoriya's bed, Kaminari curled up and let out a sob. "Midoriya, am I a bad person? I stayed friends with him so long. I gave him so many chances and he just didn't care. How can I be a good hero if I stayed friends with him? He was so disgusting and I just didn't want to confront it for the longest time. Jirou and Mina probably don't even want to be friends with me anymore. I don't blame them, I mean, I didn't stop the perverted jokes, who knows what he does when I'm not around to at least calm it down. How can I be a good person when I was friends with such a garbage human being?" Kaminari's tears kept coming as he broke himself down.
"Kaminari you are not a bad person. I've seen you asking Mineta to stop or to calm down the things he says. So you can't say you didn't try. You were trying to get Mineta to realize what he was saying and doing was wrong. Mineta just doesn't care. Sero has wrapped Mineta up head to toe before and he still goes back to what he was doing. Kaminari, you can still be a good hero. Just because you were friends with Mineta for a long time doesn't mean you won't be. You realized he wasn't a good person to be friends with and you confronted him." Midoriya had sat down next to Kaminari and wrapped one arm around him. Midoriya rubbed Kaminari's arm in a soothing way as he tried to think up something they could do.
"Um, do you want to look at your pages in my notebook? I was just thinking it might take your mind off of the situation. If you don't want to it's okay, they can be a bit creepy for some people that's why I don't really show them to anyone. It's just I can't really think of anything else other than homework and you are already stressed. I don't think you want to be more stressed. Well I guess if you don't want to look at the notebook then we could find something to read-" Midoriya started to mumble softer, getting more and more embarrassed. Kaminari wasn't giving any indication of what he wanted to do so maybe he wanted to leave but that didn't seem like a good idea.
"Midoriya dude," his thoughts and mumbles came to a stop, "I would love to see your notebook. You keep it so well hidden when you write in it no one really knows what is actually in it. Well we know it probably has something to do with quirks but no one has seen how detailed it is. Maybe it could help me with my quirk." Kaminari smiled at Midoriya which caused Midoriya to smile back.
Walking over to his bookcase, Midoriya pulled out a notebook that was labeled "Classmate seat no. 7". Handing it over to Kaminari, Midoriya sat down next to him.
"You have a notebook just for me?" Midoriya looked sheepish.
"Well your quirk is one of the few I want to deeply analyze. From how you found out your quirk to how it affects your body. Your quirk is so versatile. If you have enough control you can restart someone's heart. If your flashlight runs out of batteries you should theoretically be able to power it. Your quirk is so amazing!" Midoriya's eyes sparkled as he explained.
Kaminari didn't know how to react. He always thought his quirk could only be used to charge phones and electrocute villains while taking himself out. Unlike what most people believe Kaminari did have decent control over his quirk, he had to or he would shock everyone he ever touched. No one really liked his quirk, they all said it was great for hero use but if he wanted to practice he was told no because it was too dangerous. He had to practice in secret. At four years old he gained a quirk but lost the feel of hugs, the feel of another person being able to touch him. It took years to stop the electricity from coursing through his body. By the time he was eight years old he had finally done it. He had control over the quirk with no mistakes, but the damage it had caused was too much.
The distance, the quirk had put Kaminari and his parents, was too much. If Kaminari tried to go in for a hug his mom would back away and look at him like he was crazy for trying. If he tried with his dad, he would glare at him in a way that caused Kaminari to wilt and go to his room.
In elementary school the kids would avoid him, out of safety mostly. He was still learning how to control his quirk.
In middle school no one would avoid his hugs but by the way he felt them tense, he knew they weren't really welcome so he stopped trying.
In UA he took a chance and to his surprise no one worried whether or not they would get shocked. It may not have been anything special to them but it met Kaminari's whole world.
Kaminari didn't like his quirk too much because of what it had done to him and his family. That may have been why he didn't think of the different ways he could use it. But right now someone else had looked at his quirk and instead of backing away Midoriya embraced it.
"Midoriya has anyone told you, what you do is amazing?" Midoriya sputtered and turned red.
"What? Well after the sports festival a lot of people told me my fight was Todoroki was pretty amazing."
"No, that's not what I mean even though the fight was cool, pun intended. What I mean is these notes. I've had my quirk for almost my whole life and I have never thought about my quirk in this way. The closest I got to using my quirk a different way was when I figured out I could charge phones. All I thought I could do and all I was told I could do was shock people. I haven't even seen what you have written and it's already changing the way I think about my quirk. I'll say it again, dude you are amazing." Midoriya's face turned even a darker red than before. He seemed to be frozen. Not wanting to break the green ball of sunshine more, Kaminari opened the notebook and started reading.