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“Studying is hard,” he whines, tipping his head back and resting it on Mina’s thigh as she sits on the bed above him. She laughs and runs her fingers through his hair in a gesture of affection not quite romantic but definitely not platonic.
“I know,” she acknowledges, leaning forward until the edges of her fluffy pink hair tickle his forehead and he can breathe in the oh-so-familiar scent of… something. He doesn’t know what it is, sue him- but it’s sharp and sweet and bold, and very, very Mina.
“Nooooo,” he complains further, balancing the textbook he was previously reading on his thighs and reaching up to rest his hands on Mina’s cheeks, laughing slightly as he squishes them slightly, bringing a pout to her face. “You don’t understand my paaaaain.”
“Pretty sure I do, actually. I don’t wanna be here any more than you do.” She leans forward even more until her forehead is against his and her hair is completely in his eyes. While he tries to bat away the cotton candy-esque curls from his eyes, she sighs and he can feel her hot breath tickling his scalp. “This is what happens when we don’t get Momo in on this… none of us can do anything.”
“S’just the two of us,” he counters. “Anyways, do you wanna… like… do something?”
“Something as in?”
“Go out and get food, I guess. Dunno. I don’t feel like I can focus right now, y’know?”
“You can’t focus ever, Denki. Still, you have the right idea… I could go for some ice cream right now.”
“Works for me,” he says, already getting up and chucking his pencil onto the desk. Mina laughs, a great sound, and hops off his bed to follow him.
They go to a nearby park and buy two ice creams from a roadside vendor before retiring to a bench to eat them comfortably. Denki takes a long lick of his chocolate ice cream and sighs with bliss, sinking low into the wooden seat before scrambling back up to devour more of it. Mina takes the quicker approach, it seems, biting her strawberry ice cream and raising a hand to her mouth every now and then with a wince.
“Just lick it,” he pleads with her after the fifth pained expression. “Or at least wait.”
“What are you, an ice cream expert?” she grumbles playfully, reducing her bites to small nibbles around the top of the ice cream.
“Only one who’s learned the hard way about a lot of things.” WIth that, he tosses the rest of his cone into his mouth and bites down with a satisfying crunch, and Mina laughs and continues eating hers.
It’s nice, honestly. The sun’s dipping lower toward the horizon, and Kaminari yawns and uses the opportunity to slide an arm over her shoulder, to which she responds by gently slapping him on the shoulder and laughing at his usage of cliches- but she leans into his touch anyways and thats good enough for him.
Mina moves over until she can rest on his shoulder, and reaches up to swipe her thumb across the corner of his mouth.
“Ice cream,” she clarifies, but Kaminari doesn’t hear her- he’s too focused on the feeling of her- and he’s left wondering the question that he near always does, when they’re together in moments like this.
WIth a sigh, he looks out over the lake in front of them and watches the sun slide below the trees and paint the sky blue and purple and pink- not the color of her hair, but lovely just the same)- and gets enough courage to look at her.
“Mina?”
“Hmm?” Her ice cream is long gone by now, and her eyes are distracting in the best way, but he takes a deep breath and continues.
“What are we?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… are we lovers? friends? Not that I’m complaining- anything works for me-“ He’s flustered. She laughs and winds her free hand through his.
“We’re us, right? You’re my best friend, and you’re also more than that, because you’re the person I come to for ice cream when I’m feeling sad, or phone calls when I’m feeling lonely, and, and,” Her rambling comes to a halt, and she looks awkwardly down at the ground, face flushing a beautiful color- to which he responds by using the arm over her shoulder to give her a one-armed hug.
“I think ‘us’ works for me,” he agrees sagely, “It doesn’t have to be all complicated. I’m not very good at complicated either.”
“I don’t think both of us are very good at complicated,” she says with a giggle. “But… ‘us’ still includes kisses, right? Because those are nice. Really nice.” He beams and leans over to kiss her on the lips, and she hums delightedly in response, and he decides thats the kind of sound he wants to hear more often.
“Glad we’re us,” he says as he draws back and holds her close.
“Glad we’re us,” she repeats. “Glad we’re us.”