Chapter Text
"I AM HERE! I AM HERE!"
Izuku was startled from his notes by his phone going off. You see, people never called Midoriya Izuku. He was a Quirkless teenager with no friends, and his mother had her own personalised ringtone, so he knew immediately that this was a person he didn't know.
He hesitated for a moment before answering. He had, of course, heard all the stranger danger talk ever since he was old enough to go somewhere or do something without parental supervision. But Izuku was tired. He had nearly died twice today, and had to rewrite his notes all over again. There was no one besides his mother who would talk to him. Surely nothing would happen from him just answering a phone call?
"Hello?"
"Ito-san?" A hoarse voice asked. Izuku blinked. Yup, this person had the wrong number.
"Who is this?" Izuku asked. There was no point in blocking the number, maybe he knew who the caller was looking for. There was a grumbling sigh from the other send of the line. "You were contacted about Sensei's funds last week and were supposed to get back to him about the emailed files."
Izuku blinked. They... thought he was an accountant? That shouldn't be too hard to help with! "Oh, yes, I know now. I'm afraid that I didn't get the email, and that is why I didn't contact you sooner." There was another rough sigh. "Of course. Dumbass NPCs always messing up Sensei's plans. I'll send it again."
"There's no need!" Izuku insisted, ditching his Quirk anaylsis and getting up from his bed to grab an empty notebook. A rare commodity in the Midoriya household. "Do you have the files open in front of you?"
There was shuffling, and what sound like a keyboard. "I do now."
Izuku clinked his pen, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder as he arranged his notebook on his lap. "Alright, can you tell me what the layout of the file is? Is it grids with names and numbers, or just a list?" "A grid." "Okay, is the grid titled?" "Uh..."
More clicking. "Yeah, it's says 'revised budget'. What's that?" Izuku nodded to himself, starting to line the page in a grid format. "A budget is planned income - which is the money you get - and planned expenditure - which is the money you spend - over a period of time for a household or business. Governments use them as well to figure you where to allocate funds. The revised part means it has already been modified before. Are you following?" "Yeah, I get it. So it's like planning out a quest and it's requirements in advance?" Hm, the mysterious caller seemed to enjoy using video game terminology. Izuku stashed that away for later.
"Kinda. It's more similar to planning a run in a roguelike. You can make assumptions, but in the end things won't always go as planned."
"Huh. That makes sense." "Glad you think so. Now, can you tell me how many months are listed?"
"Months?" This was going to take a while, wasn't it.
"Well, budgets are typically drawn out for months at a time. Are there months listed at the top of the grid?" "From May to August." Izuku made a face. That was a lot more than he'd thought.
"Alright, let's take this one step at a time. Can you tell me what sources of income are listed for the month of May?"
After many hours over the phone, and several pens sacrificed to redo all his previous accounts, Izuku managed to sufficiently revise Shigaraki-san's sensei's (for that was the man's name, Izuku eventually learned, when another person had entired the room to ask about their progress. Their name was Kurogiri) budget to hopefully account for unexpected expenses without leaving them in debt.
"That Garaki-sensei you mentioned may have to put a pin in his research over June to accommodate your sensei's equipment being shipped in, but I think you'll be able to make it work," Izuku explained, scribbling away in his notebook, the kanji barely legible by this point.
Shigaraki-san snorted, the sound all staticy over the phone. "He won't be happy about that." He didn't sound all that concerned, only mildy... amused?
"Well, he'll just have to put up with it if he wants to still be funded come August." Izuku retorted, only slightly joking. It was true; whoever this Garaki-sensei was was allocated most of the budget. Izuku had needed to trim away at the man's spendings to allow for Kurogiri's bar equipment to make it in on time.
"...Thanks for helping out, Player 2. I'll make sure Sensei pays you what you're owed."
Wait, what-?
But before Izuku could question anything about any of that, Shigaraki-san hung up.
...
After a moment's hesitation, he saved the number under 'Random Guy', just in case.
You can imagine his surprise when, not even a day later, his mother barged into his room asking about a cheque of ¥166,600 she received for 'exemplary services provided'.