222A/N: Izuku is a sweet cinnamon roll of a child, but he's also a 14 year old boy. As such, not great with the whole "considering other people's feelings" things all the time. To everyone that's been yelling at him for being selfish/short-sighted: Nanako agrees and would like to thank you for seeing reason XD
Masumi grabbed a ring of fabric squares and held them up one by one to Nanako's face. When they failed to "pop," she tossed it aside and grabbed another ring.
"Nee-san," Nanako closed one eye to avoid blindness by swatch. "I don't think I need to have a furisode made for my coming of age ceremony. I'm sure we can just rent one and be done with it."
"Don't be silly," her lime green hair fought valiantly against the lemon printed scrunchie that held it back. Despite its color, it was softer than spidersilk and twice as tricky to keep in any hairdo. "You can wear this to the wedding too!"
"Is that appropriate?" She glanced around for help, but the shop workers had decided to leave her to Masumi's tender mercies. They probably smelled the amount of money Masu-nee was ready to drop.
"I'll be the bride, so yes!" She pressed a piece of fabric to Nana's cheek then fished a second square out to compare. "Oh, you're definitely a winter."
"My birthday is in September?" When would this end?!
"Bamboo or pine?" She looked over her shoulder, where a shop worker miraculously appeared and started debating motifs like they were in literature class.
Nanako snuck away to join Kenta at the front of the store. He was making holographic models of characters she'd never seen before, but that wasn't unusual for him.
"That for work?" She plopped down on the seat next to him.
He sent the characters spinning as a group, then one by one. "Launches tonight."
"What's it about?" She batted at the cat-dog-fox looking mascot. It jumped and chased its tail.
Her favorite (and practically only) cousin explained while putting every character through walk cycles, various poses, and jumps. It was impressive, and made all the more impressive because Nana could remember when the best he could do was static wire frame models and flat images that revolved around a single point.
He had just started explaining about some of the bugs the coding team found when Masumi strolled up with a worker, seized Kenta-nii by the shoulder, and started pulling out swatches yet again.
Nanako saluted him and grabbed her cellphone.
"I'll remember this!" He vowed before being led like a lamb to slaughter deeper in the store.
Poor nii-chan. She would remember him fondly.
She sighed in put-upon grief then unlocked her phone and started flipping through apps. There was nothing much considering that it was the middle of the day, but by sunset she knew her friends and classmates would start posting about their night out and sharing clips of themselves getting ready. Haruka, especially, would spam social media if the amount of times she invited Nanako out on mixers was any indication.
Huh, her thumb hovered over the notification, Hitoshi texted her.
She hoped everything was fine. Mom was the nicest person she'd ever met and always offered to help, but Hitorin had... problems asking for that sort of thing, especially from adults. It usually wasn't an issue (she could read him and extrapolate from there in person) but she was in Kyoto visiting Kenta before summer break ended AKA not in person.
There would be no quick solution if he needed something she couldn't text or call about. Not because there weren't people to help him (they had decent neighbors), but because getting him to go to someone that wasn't her would be like trying to coax a feral cat into a carrier for a trip to the vet.
To her mild surprise, he hadn't texted about falling victim to some accident or nearly burning the place down, but rather that her bed had been invaded by "human broccoli."
"... what?" They hadn't gotten any new neighbors, and the ones they did have didn't have that kind of Quirk. She started composing a frantic, paranoid text (was he alright? Was anything broken? Did he call the police?) when a picture loaded on her screen.
Izuku, who was probably coated in sweat if she remembered his training regime right, laid sprawled out atop her bed with her custom order Minato nitotan shoved awkwardly under his neck and some drool leaking out the side of his face.
"My husband!" She gasped and erased her previous text.
The urge to call and scream at Izuku over the phone was strong enough to taste, but this was the first time he'd invaded her apartment since their fight started in late spring. She could let it go this once... well, until she got home at least. Then she was going to grind his face into the floor for daring to abuse poor Minato like that.
"Kids these days have no respect for the classics," she muttered and texted Hitorin to let Izu-kun sleep. He must have been exhausted to crash at her place.
Hitorin: the favoritism is BLATANT
... Hitoshi would also get his face ground into the floor. Who was he to talk about favoritism when he was literally living with her for their entire summer break?! She didn't let just anyone visit her apartment, much less come inside or stay there!
Hitorin: but i might forgive u if u bring back melon stars
If only her quirk worked over the phone, she would be unstoppable.
-[-]-
Despite her personal troubles, Nanako's first year of university was leagues easier than her last year of high school.
She didn't get to see her childhood friends in person except for rare meet ups, but they messaged often and she'd even made new friends. Granted, they mostly talked about coursework and some of them were a little too concerned with getting plastered at every available opportunity, but they were still people she could depend on to hang out between classes or to sit by in lecture.
Speaking of courses, she loved the fact that she could arrange her own schedule now. It was a bit grueling to have back to back classes- she'd have to space them out next term, at least half hour breaks- but her evenings were entirely hers. Staying close to home had helped in that regard, both for saving time on commuting and how familiar she was with the area (hello shortcuts!).
The issue was... she kind of wanted to be busy again?
Maybe not as busy as she used to be (classes AND club AND tutoring AND self-defence was a lot to handle) but more than she was now. She'd graduated all the self-defence programs local to her (the ones that didn't require actual martial arts, anyways) but she didn't want to work at a dojo. She liked plants (and science) so her major was currently botany, but she also wasn't sure if that was what she wanted to do with her life.
Masumi had made a strong argument for physical therapy, but Kenta-nii had made an equally strong point about actual therapy. Her quirk was perfect for it even if it was a bit unstable right now (if she had to go back to quirk counseling she was going to hurt somebody.)
There was always tutoring, of course. She had the most experience with it. Did she want to be a teacher though?
"URGH!" She muffled her face into a throw pillow.
The second half of her issue of wanting to be busy was that she didn't know what she wanted to do. There was a lot open to her and the openness was frightening. What if she chose wrong? What if she chose right?
"Mom," Nanako whined from the couch. "Tell me what to do, please. I promise to listen this time."
"Are you stuck about which cons to visit again?" Inko called from the kitchen over the rustle of paper bags.
"No," she sighed and got up. The groceries weren't going to put themselves away. "I already planned that out over winter break. I meant in life."
"In life?" She frowned and tied the rest of her shoulder-length hair up.
"Should I keep my major? Should I change it? What if I do really, really well and then when I get to a job it turns out I hate it?!" She clasped the bag of plums to her chest. "Or worse... what if I love my job and I get laid off and no one ever hires me again?"
"You're a wonderful, hard-working girl," Mom countered.
Nanako appreciated the gentle lie.
"Anybody would be lucky to have you work for them, but I think you're looking at things a little too permanently, dear," she continued to unbag the food.
"Huh?"
"Well, you don't have to walk only one path- I certainly haven't!" She grinned to set her at ease. "I have a degree for accounting, which I do use a little- especially when things pop up unexpectedly near a deadline- but I'm an office coordinator first and foremost at work. Before that, I did part time work here and there so I could concentrate on raising Izuku."
Oh, right. Mom hadn't had Izu until she was in her late twenties. That was at least a five year gap between graduating and him; five years she hadn't spent at the company she now worked at and four years before that in university.
"I love my son and I wouldn't give him up for the world, of course, but when I was your age I didn't know I was going to be a mother," she patted Nana's arm softly. "I didn't know what company I was going to end up working for, what company I was going to leave and for how long. You don't have to know everything right now. As a matter of fact, I would say it's nearly impossible to even if you had a future sight quirk!"
Nanako melted at the tenderness of her mom's tone, at the unconditional support and love. Her quirk, which had been thrashing with her rising panic, dropped and was replaced with a natural calm that Inko always inspired in her.
"So I would focus on doing what you like well enough for the moment," Mom wrapped her in a hug. "You can always change your mind, okay?"
She hummed and accepted the affection like a plant did sunlight: effortlessly, and turned towards the warmth with open arms.
-[-]-
A pep talk with Mom (and another from Kenta-nii when he crashed at her place for a work trip) had done a lot to set Nanako's head straight. Whacks from both Tomomi and Sayuri about how trying to force her brothers to change their life goals was only going to end with hurt feelings and as much estrangement as she had with her mother had also helped her come to grips with reality.
She wasn't perfect at it, but she stopped nagging them about the danger of becoming a hero. That said, she never lost her reservations and fears about how likely they were to be injured or killed, but there was no reason to rant about it at every opportunity. Hopefully their teachers would pick up the slack and impress upon them how serious heroics was as a career.
Speaking of heroics, it was annoying how Izuku was so gung-ho about training when he resisted basically every attempt she made to get him into self-defence classes with her over the years. Sure, he listened when she taught him how to throw a punch but did he practice? Did he ask Mom to enroll him into a sport or a gym so he could build some muscle? No! Nothing until Skeleton-sensei waltzed in and had him hauling garbage at five in the morning!
Katsuki, on the other hand, had been active all his life and nagged her about improving her cardio at the very least. He had a point (no way was she ever going to face a villain; running away was her best shot) and she kept her fit enough to be able to book it, but no more than that.
Hitoshi took her words to heart when she nervously rambled as they packed his bags to return to his dad's place. He ended up attending the same set of classes she did all those years ago, as late in the school year as it was. She was proud of him nonetheless and promised that they would go all out for his birthday in the summer.
"So late?" He placed his legs on the wall, phone on his chest and a space heater whirring away in the corner. Spring was nearly here but the cold hadn't gone away quite yet. "Y'know, the UA entrance exam is in two weeks."
"Well," Nanako pursed her lips. How to handle this... "There will be even more to celebrate by your birthday, chibi."
Despite being unable to see him, or use her quirk, she could hear the tension leave his body. "I thought I told you to stop calling me that," he complained with an auditory smile.
"You only think you're taller than me now because of your hair," she shot back.
"Do not," he protested.
On they went until she couldn't put off her political science paper for any longer and hope to pass the class. Hitoshi took another shot at her (she wasn't hanging up to stalk her favorite doujin circle!) then hung up. She sighed, locked her phone and let it drop beside her.
"Two weeks, huh?" She turned on her side. "Maybe I should go for that internship after all..."
Her Minato plush had nothing to say to that.
"Right," she rolled out of bed and trudged to her desk. Whatever the future held, she would just have to take it one step at a time- starting with her term paper.
A/N: And that's a wrap!
More than a few readers have pointed out there's a good amount of stuff that hasn't been resolved and they're entirely right- but that's a little bit by design, hehe. This fic was really only supposed to be about Izuku (with little side bits about Katsuki) up to the entrance exam, or about twelve chapters. BUT as you've all seen, it has really grown! The amount of support and encouragement I've received as I wrote has been absolutely wild and that motivated me to take different turns with this story.
I still hit the main points I wanted to (Kacchan is less of a jerk! Inko lets her son run half-wild so she doesn't drive him away! "Villainous" quirks can be good and "good" quirks can be villainous!), but things were added and certain plot points were stretched out to make things flow better. Things grew to the point that it felt clunky/rushed to deal with it all in one fic (Hitoshi's situation, Shota/Kenta/Nana connection) so I just... didn't lol.
I left myself enough space to do a sequel, which I have been playing around with, but I don't have anything concrete right now. I think a look at the canon timeline with Nanako there to spice things up (and by that I mean she'd scream at all the villains while shoving the boys away from danger) would be really fun though! Equally fun would be Nana and Shigaraki accidentally being in the same MMORPG guild for all these years... and missing an IRL meet up because villain stuff... hm... anyways!
All of this to say- THANK YOU! I could not have written this fic without the support of you lovely readers. Every favorite, follow, and review boosted me that much more and helped to make Efficiency what it is today.
Hope you enjoyed and see you around :)