Nemuri continues to mess with him.

Maybe I should see if Nemuri likes it when I turn the tables on her? Izuku found himself wondering as he had to deal with the harsh glares of damn near every male from the two hero classes. That's two days in a row now. After art yesterday, I didn't have one moment of peace from most of the guys! I could feel these same glares on my back all day...

For homeroom, the combined classes of 1-A and 1-B were paired off in groups of four, two from each class. It was something the four student council members, though mostly the two from 1-B, cooked up yesterday right after classes ended and brought to Nemuri and Mr. Kan for approval. Two students from the same class were paired up for the merge, and they would partner with another pair of students from the other class, switching every day which groups were paired up.

Nemuri had paired him with Tsuyu, the frog-like girl happy for that though most wouldn't know it with how reserved she was with her emotions. Not that Izuku was unhappy, he'd actually been expecting something like this from Nemuri. And Tsuyu was sweet, if blunt, and had all the potential to be a great heroine. But it seems that either Nemuri had somehow managed to convince Mr. Kan to let her draw up the pairs in his own class, or the man decided that having pairs of the same sex was better overall, save for Kendo who was paired with Monoma... probably to keep him under control.

Of the seven girls in 1-A, six of them were paired up with another girl, leaving Tsuyu to be paired with him. Kasumi with Uraraka, Jiro teamed up with Mina and Toru paired with Momo. Of the six 1-B girls paired together, Pony was with Kodai, Kinoko was with Reiko and Ibara was paired with Setsuna.

Of course, Tsuyu and he were sitting with Ibara and Setsuna. And the other female pairs were, well, paired up together. Kendo, the orange haired girl paired with Monoma, was sitting across from Kasumi and Uraraka. Kinoko and Reiko with Momo and Toru, and the group of Pony and Kodai paired up with Jiro and Mina.

If she's anymore blatant, I'm going to have the males of our classes trying to gang up on me or something, wondering how I became her favorite student. Izuku made sure to keep himself from expressing his... frustration? No, that wasn't it. Exasperation, now that was more the right emotion he was feeling.

He made sure to keep the exasperation off his face, lest his partners for the class think he was upset with them. That certainly wasn't the case, even if Setsuna was probably going to try and pull another stunt like she did yesterday at lunch. Other than the already doomed to fail attempts at sexual teasing, his fellow verdette was nice enough. And Ibara had done absolutely nothing to earn anything but the utmost civility from him.

"Hey again, Tokage, Shiozaki. How are you today?" Izuku asked, trying to ignore the glares of the males with some difficulty. This was something that he'd actually not grown used to, what with every time he'd been with one of His Girls it'd been behind closed doors. But he'd dealt with being looked at with heavy intent, if precisely the polar opposite of what he was on the receiving end of at this point in time.

"Eh, not too bad, Mr. Prez." Setsuna shrugged, leaning forward onto her hands at their table. "How's about you? Feeling a little hot under the collar from the stares you've been getting since we were paired up?" She looked around, taking note of every student that glared at Izuku. "None of them actually have heat vision or anything, right?"

"Aoyama has his navel laser, but he's not one of the boys glaring at Izuku, Kero." Tsuyu said, blinking. "I'm Tsuyu Asui, but please call me Tsu."

"Setsuna Tokage, Class 1-B vice president. Pleased to meet you." Setsuna grinned at the frog-girl, holding out her hand which Tsuyu shook after staring at the female verdette for a moment. Setsuna seemed to take no offense to the slight hesitation, and instead only grinned even harder.

"My name is Ibara Shiozaki. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." The vine-haired girl nodded at Tsuyu, hands clasped together but laid on the table. "I hope we can strengthen the bonds of brotherhood between our classes."

"And Sisterhood, Ibara. Just look how everyone's paired up! Only Monoma and Midoriya are paired up with girls, and they're each with three girls today!" Setsuna twirled her hand around, grinning wickedly once more. "And Monoma's too much of a peacock with a hate boner for 1-A to care if they hate him, so Izuku gets to deal with the overflow. Aren't you just lucky."

_I think that teasing smirk is Setsuna's default facial expression, like how Kacchan's is an angry scowl. _Izuku wanted to scratch the back of his head, but forcibly kept his hands on the table. "Y-yeah, real lucky. I can already feel everyone plotting my **** already." He tried to joke but found his mind carrying him to dark places.

Mineta's hair spheres suffocating him, for instance. The purple-haired boy looked like he could cry blood at any moment.

"Ah, he's got jokes!" Setsuna acted shocked for a moment before snickering. "Seriously, that's the first one I've heard you make since we got elected to student council."

"I'm not much of a joker kinda guy." Izuku shrugged. "Though I think Batman's alright."

That one got a legitimate chuckle out of the body-splitter. "That's an old school one, Midoriya." She held out a fist, prompting Izuku to bump it. "Seriously, they stopped making those comics fifty years ago, didn't they?"

"Fifty three, yeah." Izuku nodded.

"So you're on the student council with Izuku, Setsuna. But how do you know him, Ibara?" Tsuyu asked, looking at the girl with her always intense stare.

"I only met him yesterday, actually. Setsuna called him over for some reason after he was finished with his lunch." Ibara told the frog girl.

"It was just about the idea that led to this." Setsuna butted in. "Kendo and I were talking about it on the way to lunch when we had the free time. But then he warned us about that crazy art class you guys had yesterday, just in case Ms. Kayama decided that we should do the same thing. It kinda kept me thinking until we met again in the student council room." She eyed Izuku sideways at this, and he could see she struggling to keep from winking.

"Kero." Tsuyu nodded, turning to look at Izuku. "That was nice of you, Izuku. But wasn't part of the training not being prepared at all, to show us how we would react?" She put her finger to her lip, tilting her head slightly in confusion.

"Well, yeah." Izuku couldn't disagree with her. "But it's also our jobs as heroes to know when to share or withhold information from our allies. And I trusted Tokage and Kendo, the orange haired girl sitting next to the blond guy over with Kasumi and Uraraka. So I left the decision to them on who to trust with the information even knowing that it may not have happened to their class. It's just that the rest of the girls in their class were sitting with them." He explained. "Besides, it's obvious from how everyone was after lunch for the rest of the day, all tense and frustrated or embarrassed, that a little help definitely would be good, if only to help prevent emotions running on high causing longer term problems."

The rest of the day had been rough on nearly everyone. Some, like Aoyama and Mina, bounced back easily enough. But most everyone else had been on edge for the rest of the day. Jiro was glaring at Mineta with **** evident, and the way the grape themed boy seemed depressed (Izuku had heard from just listening to him moan about his 'misfortune' of being paired up with who he lamented as the most plain girl in class) even about such a lesson that seemed right up his alley was only more proof.

It was obvious that no one else (Besides Iida) saw more than a bare shoulder before things got to be too much for someone.

"I suppose that's fair." Tsuyu nodded, accepting his offered reason easily. "I have to say though, I still can't get over how Ms. Kayama kissed you in class before using you as a cushion to sit on. That was real hardcore."

Izuku palmed his face as Tsuyu brought up the... preface for the lesson Nemuri had given them. It was something he had left out of his tale for the girls of 1-B, for obvious reasons. While it made a good example in practice, it was really not needed to give the warning to 1-B, nor was necessary in order to give his own thoughts. Besides, unless Nemuri gave the example with one of the girls of 1-B, he doubted she'd actually kiss another UA student besides him.

Setsuna and Ibara had their eyes grow wide, the former with the metaphorical jackpot sound if her disbelieving smile was anything to go by. Shiozaki quickly composed herself, bless the girl, and sat back to wring her hands and bite her tongue if the look on her face that screamed to the world she had decided then was the perfect time to take a brief vow of silence meant anything to him.

"She did what?" Setsuna leaned forward, her head shooting off her shoulders and getting right in Tsuyu's face. "Midoriya never told us that. Details, puh~lease~~~"

Again, Tsuyu was quiet, though she did not recoil from the proximity of the floating head. She blinked once, twice, three times at the girl before her eyes shifted past Setsuna to Izuku. Her inexpressive face and eyes would have been silent to most, but Izuku had had more than his fair share of experience reading body language among the less expressive heroines, or some of the less human looking ones.

She was waiting for him to give her the go ahead, or to stop it before it started.

"It's fine, Tsu." Izuku told his friendly froggy classmate, voice muffled by his own hands. "Just... please keep it down. I really really don't want the guys from 1-B hearing about it. It's bad enough that I swear Mineta is going to try and suffocate me with his quirk if I don't keep an eye on him among other classmates. I don't need to worry about them joining forces to run me out of school or something."

"Kero." Tsu ribbited, nodding slightly at him before she turned her attention back to the still floating head of the vice president of Class B. "Well, it started off when Izuku answered the question Ms. Kayama asked the class..."

From there, Tsuyu gave a quick summary of what happened prior to the lesson proper in Art yesterday. From when Izuku answered the question to the reward the heroine teacher gave him to until he'd been paired up and sent off with Kasumi.

"We were all caught flatfooted, kero." Tsuyu told the girls quietly. "But Izuku handled it really well, I suppose. Even when Ms. Kayama got comfy on his chest, he didn't get hard. Or fall asleep, actually. Apparently he has good lung capacity."

Setsuna's floating head looked between the two 1.A students, her thoughts swirling behind her eyes as she opened her mouth to speak but found herself closing it again as she continued to think. Her body was scratching at her bloodless neck stump, which seemed more like a flat patch of skin rather than a vivisection of her head from her body, thankfully. She turned to drumming her fingers on the table as her head turned in the air, doing a stationary loop.

Shiozaki was still silent, but the blush of her cheeks was evident alongside the tic in her eyelid. Her hands were clasped together so tightly that the normally lightly sun-kissed skin was pale white. She'd bitten her lip, not sure if she should look upon Izuku any longer as she too thought over what had just been told.

Izuku himself worried who would blurt out first, the low din of conversation in the classroom a fragile being. If either of the girls from 1-B shouted, all the attention would be on him once again. He wasn't sure if he could handle that much concentrated attention and Ire again so shortly.

"Alright, serious question time." Setsuna asked as her head twirled closer to him, spinning in the air using her nose as a center point. "Midoriya, are you gay?"

"HRKR!" Izuku choked on the saliva he was in the process of swallowing nervously, pounding his chest.

"T-Tokage!" Ibara finally spoke, whisper-shouting at the girl as her vines whipped out to pull the girls head back and **** it onto her shoulders. A few vines bound themselves across and inside the vice-president's mouth, the thorns pressing lightly into her face and tongue but not drawing blood... yet. "J-just because someone can control themselves, even around a succubus like that harlot teacher, does not mean they are a sodomite!" She defended Izuku as he pounded on his chest in an effort to restart his lungs after he cleared the blocked airways.

"Actually, I've been starting to wonder the same thing." Tsuyu threw her own two cents in, side-eying Izuku once again. "I've never seen him flustered around girls in any situation, though he's always been polite. He's even able to keep his eyes where they should be, as seen during our costume reveals during our first Heroics class. For example, Uraraka's hero costume is skin tight, and she was almost modeling for him though I don't think she realized it. Izuku gave her a once over before launching into ways to improve it for combat, suggesting tools she could have, where to place them, armor and other such things without even mentioning that it hugged her chest. Neither did he leer or comment at Momo's costume nor mine, the former showing as much skin as legally allowed to use her quirk the best she can and myself with a skin-tight frog suit, kero."

Tsuyu, you have betrayed me... Izuku felt a little hollow as Tsuyu spoke. Do I really seem gay if I don't mention how four of the girls in class have clothing so tight their nipples easily show through the fabric or that they have camel-toes? Or focus on the fact the invisible girl, whose hero costume is quite literally just a pair of gloves and shoes, is an exhibitionist that hardly ever wears underwear even when we have someone who is able to look up skirts just by walking around and looking up in class? Jiro and Kasumi are the only two who have somewhat covering clothing, and Kacchan blows hers to shreds a lot of the time!

"I..." He wheezed out. "I'm not gay, really!" He looked each of them in the eye.

This was seriously where his life was going? He was probably the straightest guy on the planet, as many women could attest to!

"You say that, but that still doesn't explain anything." Tsuyu said, leaning closer to him. Her eyes were holding his gaze. "Even when Ms. Midnight, whose entire theme is seduction, can't get a reaction out of you it says a lot."

"You're wrong, Tsu!" Izuku told her, trying to sound calm. But this was so far out of left field he was waiting for the umpire to say it was a homerun from another stadium! "It's just that I've had a job since a year ago that has taught me how to control those urges around women! That's all!"

"A job? That has taught you how to control yourself around women?" Tsuyu tilted her head in confusion. "What kind of job would let you get used to being around women in such a way?"

"A..." Shit what do I say? Izuku wracked his brain, trying to think of absolutely anything that would get his ass out of the fire he'd lit for himself. "Butler cafe?"

Tsuyu gazed deep into his eyes, Izuku trying to keep a sweat from forming. Please buy it! Please buy it!

It was the first thing that popped into his head that would have a lot of female patrons that would possibly even think of hiring a high school student! Why did he have to say anything?

"S-see?" Ibara coughed into her hand, her hair tightening around Setsuna's head before releasing her. "Perfectly normal reason, yes? I'm sure that the types of women to frequent those things are of the sort to find pleasure in teasing young men, and Midoriya simply learned to control himself or die of embarrassment, right?"

"Y-yeah." Izuku rubbed the back of his head, looking down. "I needed a job for some extra cash so I could have the right diet for my UA training regimen, and the Butler Cafe on my way to school was hiring more waiters."

"I suppose that makes sense." Tsuyu nodded, but kept looking at him. "If Butler Cafes are as bad as the stories you hear coming from Maid Cafes, you would either have to get used to being embarrassed around and because of women or quit."

"Exactly. Could you girls please keep that a secret, too?" I think that's my first successful lie ever! Shit, that was really stressful for some reason. I hate lying, but I don't want them to know about what I actually do for as long as I can help it. I really don't want them to think I'm flaunting my position or anything, so it's best if they just don't know about it for as long as possible, right? Hopefully we'll have gotten to know each other by the time graduation rolls around and they're told about my job so they won't overreact.

"Of course, kero." Tsuyu told Izuku. She seemed to have some feelings of relief. Relief that he wasn't gay, or that he wasn't anything else she could have thought of him as, he wasn't quite certain.

"Working to pay your own way is to be lauded, Midoriya." Shiozaki said, nodding at him as her blush faded. "It's certainly obvious that working where you have been has helped you be a better hero, as well as a man." She heaped the praise on him, making him scratch his cheek. "I shall not speak a word of this to anyone."

Setsuna said nothing, but nodded slowly as she looked at him, curious. It was obvious that she didn't fully believe what he said, though in what way he was at a loss. Did she still think he was batting for the other team, or maybe she didn't believe his lie about his job? Great, she's probably going to get curious. I can only hope that if she suspects something, she won't confront me where anyone else can catch us.

However, he didn't let his suspicions about the green haired girl become known to anyone else. "Thanks." He told them, feeling relief regardless of Setsuna's perception of him and his lying lair lies, hoping that course of discussion would drift away quickly. He looked up at the clock, noting that they had little more than half the time for homeroom remaining.