It was Friday night, the third Friday of the month. As per tradition, the girls of class 1A assembled for a sleepover. The monthly sleepovers had started as a combination “team-building assignment” and a plot to murder Mineta. (Which isn’t very good teamwork, Momo had protested, but nonetheless had participated wholeheartedly.) This week, Tsu was hosting- she’d worked out an entire rotating schedule for whose room they’d sleep in each month.
Kyoka had a sinking feeling in her stomach as she walked down the hall to Tsu’s room. She’d really enjoyed becoming closer friends with her classmates, but certain circumstances had put her friendship with them at risk.
There had been a slip up last week- really, it was her own fault. She should've thought before she spoke. She had a habit of calling her friends “babe.” Completely platonically, of course. And she wasn’t the only one. But she was the first one to shout it down the hallway to Mina, believing no one was around.
Unfortunately, Denki was there. “‘Babe’? That’s pretty gay,” he said dryly. It was clearly a joke, and not badly intentioned.
“Yeah? And so what if I am?” Kyoka snapped back.
Denki did not look to be the slightest bit surprised. “Oh, like actually, for real? Yeah, that makes sense actually.” He kept talking before Kyoka had a chance to interrogate him about what he meant by that. “So, you guys are together?” he asked, gesturing back and forth between Kyoka and Mina, who had come over by then, having heard the whole conversation.
“No!” they answered in unison; Kyoka sharply and defensively, Mina patronizingly, as though it should've been obvious.
“We’re just friends,” Mina continued. “And I’m not into girls anyway. Or guys. Pretty much everyone.”
Thinking back on it, Kyoka knew that encounter could have gone a lot worse. They’d been lucky that it was Denki there, and that he’d been cool and normal about his friends spontaneously coming out to him (with the exception of a joke about how a third of the class’s girls were now ‘off the market’), but now she had to do damage control. Mina had taken the sudden revelation that Kyoka was a lesbian in stride, readily admitting that she’d ‘suspected’ for a while. But Kyoka knew she had to tell the rest of the girls; she didn’t want to make them uncomfortable by referring to them as ‘babe’ casually, and she didn’t want them to think she’d been looking at them in the changing rooms, or taking advantage of how they were casually affectionate. She wasn’t sure how accepting everyone at UA was- before Mina and Denki, the only person she’d come out to was Momo, who tried to reassure her that things would be alright as Kyoka privately relayed the story, cursing herself for speaking so impulsively.
She went with a classic move: sending several extensive paragraphs in the girls’ group chat a few hours ago and turning her phone off. She should have done it sooner; she should have given them time to read it and respond instead of waiting until the last minute. But she had not. And now she was walking into a sleepover that she was possibly uninvited to. She tried to reassure herself; if nothing else, she knew she had Mina and Momo on her side.
She walked into Tsu’s room and four pairs of eyes turned to look at her (and presumably Toru as well, but there was really no way of knowing.) They’d all been having a conversation, but now the room went silent.
“Hey hey! We saved you a spot,” Mina said, gesturing to an empty patch of carpet. Tentatively, she joined the group.
“Oh hi, we were just talking about you,” Tsu began, seemingly unaware that it was perhaps the most anxiety-inducing phrasing possible. “And we wanted you to know that we all completely support you.”
“We’re your friends,” Ochaco added, “and who you like isn't ever gonna change that.”
Kyoka let out a sigh of relief that she’d been very aware she was holding. “Thank you. You guys, that seriously means so much to me,” she said, scanning the room to confirm everyone was in agreement with what Tsu and Ochaco had said. “Honestly, I thought this was going to go so much worse.”
“Gasp! Shock!” Mina narrated in mock offense. “What kind of people do you think we are?”
“We care about you,” Momo said gently. “We were never going to kick you out.” She placed her hand on top of Kyoka’s behind her back, where the others wouldn’t see. For a second, Kyoka’s heart stopped as she looked up at Momo in surprise, hoping she wasn’t blushing as much as she suspected.
“It's not like there aren’t other queer people in our class,” Momo added, also blushing as everyone turned to listen to her. “Like Mina, for instance!” she explained hastily, trying to justify a statement that didn’t need justifying.
“What did you…think was going to happen?” Ochaco asked tentatively.
Kyoka made herself stop staring at Momo’s eyes, which were beautiful- “Uh, worst case scenario, you guys call me a slur and throw rocks at me,” she responded dramatically.
“And best case?” Momo asked.
Kyoka hesitated for a second, caught in her thoughts. There was no way she could answer that honestly, not in front of everyone. Not in front of Momo.
“Orgy,” she answered definitively.
The room erupted into laughter so loud that Katsuki banged on the door, yelling “What’s so fucking funny?”, not waiting around for an answer. They quieted down, caught their breath. It didn’t feel real- but it was. She wouldn’t have to feel like she was lying to anyone anymore. She had a room full of friends who supported her. Including Momo, whose hand was still on hers.
She was safe here.
The room reached a contented silence.
…
Ochaco was the first to speak again. “I have a question.”
“Shoot,” Kyoka replied.
“So…on a scale of 1 to 10, how gay is it to have…dreams about girls?”
“I’m not sure it works like a scale, Ochaco,” Momo said. “But I think having those sorts of dreams about women is pretty gay.”
Mina, bemused, added herself to the conversation. “What do you mean by ‘those sorts of dreams’?”
There was a chorus of groans and knowing laughter. Ochaco, blushing intensely, looked like she was about to float herself up onto the ceiling to hide.
Kyoka grinned. “Momo, you’re our class rep, sounds like your responsibility. Why don’t you tell her?”
“I, um, well…Mina. Sometimes, people have dreams about-”
“Sex dreams. She means sex dreams,” Toru interjected helpfully.
“No!” Ochaco said, her intonation rising with doubt. “I mean, not always.”
Mina grinned, now enjoying the drama. “Not always? …Okay. So do you want to tell us who you’re not always having sex dreams about?” she asked playfully.
“For the love of god, please stop saying ‘sex dreams’ so loudly!” Kyoka pleaded.
Ochaco spoke, having somewhat regained her composure and recovered from her embarrassment.
“It’s no one in this room! If that’s what you were worried about. You guys don’t know her well. And it’s not important. And it’s not real.”
…
Mina loudly broke the hesitant silence. “You guys are fucking weird!”
“Mina!” Momo hissed, in a display of appropriate volume level.
She got the hint. “I mean, I knew sex dreams were a thing,” Mina said, somewhat quieter. “But I thought it was, like…only horny teenage boys having them.”
“Mina,” Kyoka said, putting her hand on the girl’s shoulder in mock support. “I regret to inform you that it’s horny teenage girls too.”
That got a laugh out of everyone. “I mean, I knew I was the odd one out, not being attracted to anyone,” Mina continued, “but I didn’t realize sex and romance were actually this important to allo people.”
“Mina, have you been on planet Earth?” Toru teased.
Mina ignored her. “Now I’m like, damn, some of you guys are actually discovering things about yourselves and struggling with your sexuality…” She smirked. “Couldn’t be me, I guess. Good luck, though!”
“I’m not struggling with my sexuality. I’m very good at it, actually,” Kyoka said, grateful that she could even make those kinds of jokes around her friends. “But yeah, Ochaco, that sounds pretty gay.”
“...So it's not like an everyone thing? You guys…don't…” Ochaco trailed off, looking around the room for someone to assure her yes, all straight girls think girls are hot too. “Um. Okay. Great. I’ll…think on that. And we can all just pretend this conversation didn’t happen?” she asked, hopefully.
“The whole thing, or just the sex dreams part, kero?” Tsu asked innocently.
“...the sex dreams part,” Ochaco replied, as composed as possible.
“Yeah. Totally,” Kyoka reassured her. “But for the record…that's not something you need to be embarrassed about.” She took Ochaco’s hand and gave it a brief squeeze of reassurance. “The sex dreams part or otherwise.”
“Yeah, we’re kind of the only people we can talk to about this stuff,” Tsu mused quietly.
“...Is ‘this stuff’ code for ‘sex dreams’?” Uraraka asked, finally joining in on the joke.
“Ohh my god. You guys,” Momo said, exasperated.” “I…yes. This should be a safe space for us to talk about serious things in private. “But please.” She lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Stop saying ‘sex dreams’ so loudly.”
Mina gasped, loudly, pointing at Momo. “We got her to say it! We got THE Momo Yaoyorozu to say the words ‘sex dreams’!”
“What did I just ask-”
“So, has everyone said it now?” Kyoka asked, standing up to do a headcount. “Toru said it first. And then it was Mina..?”
“I said ‘sex dreams’ a bunch of times. You don’t even have to ask if I said ‘sex dreams’, because I certainly-”
Tsu cut Mina off. “I know I said it, kero.”
Ochaco raised her hand sheepishly. “I said it too.”
“And so did I. Which means, Momo, as the last person to say the magic words,” Kyoka said, “That makes YOU our lucky winner! Everybody clap!”
“Hold on, when did we even decide it was a game?” Momo asked. “What do I win?”
“About 20 seconds ago. And your reward…” Kyoka paused. “You get to put up with all of us.”
“That's kind of a crappy reward,” Toru remarked, the others nodding in agreement.
“No. I’m glad to take it,” Momo said, smiling up at Kyoka. “I’m happy to put up with you any day.”
Kyoka smiled back and took a seat next to her friend. “Or maybe more?” she hoped. For now, she was just grateful to be right here, right now, with all of her friends who she now knew supported her.