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"No."
"But—"
"No. No!" Kacchan looks ready to scream again when he closes his mouth, takes a quick look around, yanks Mina a little lower by the ear like they're in a conspiracy and hisses, "No we are not buying those bottles...! Did you forget the age limit and what Aizawa said!? What if we mix them up by accident!?"
Mina deflates with a pout. "Yeah, you're right..."
Eri can't help but feel as though life denied poor Mina something (and that "dipshit" was just barely hanging off the tip of the explosive blond's tongue).
It's about eight hours before New Year's, so almost everyone in 1-A is rushing around the store searching for items to celebrate, with the rest of them back at the dorms already preparing. Aizawa-san, Tenny, Momo, Deku and several others made very specific of what is okay to buy, as well as what is not okay to buy. A lot of it sounded complicated, so Eri simply boiled it down to "don't buy whatever is for adults or is illegal."
Now, here's where the confusion is: the drinks Momo gave her photos for reference (as in, root beer and grape soda, things like that) have them labeled as "non-alcoholic."
There are no non-alcoholic drinks in sight.
Of course, they could just go for regular soda but Mina and some others were very specific about setting some kind of mood; and Eri's a little uneasy about what "root beer" is because, well...beer. ("Kids trying to feel like adults," Aizawa grumbled hours before, shaking his head. "Honestly...")
"Are you lost, little lady?" A policeman with the head of a cat kneels down to meet her eye-to-eye, his name tag reading "Tamakawa Sansa". At some point, while Kacchan was yelling at Mina, Eri had wandered off trying to find a matching item on the list. Thankfully, she didn't go too far, but still. Whoops.
"Um..." Eri decides to show him the photos. Tamakawa might not be a shopkeeper, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know the area better. "I'm trying to find these, but..." She trails off, cheeks flushing under the belief of being so easily confused.
"Oh, those aren't actually here, but you can find them near the snack aisles." He chuckles with a sympathetic smile. "Pretty annoying, huh? But it's actually to keep the customers from picking up the wrong bottle. Trust me, if you went home with one of those—" he points a thumb behind him at the rack of almost black bottles "—you'll be in for a really nasty surprise." He scrunches up his face in disgust. "It tastes just like the way it smells. Yuck!"
It tastes the way it smells? Eri supposes that makes sense, but why would anyone drink anything that tastes bad on purpose? She racks her head while she listens to Tamakawa's directions to the snack aisles—"Root beer is definitely non-alcoholic and safe to drink."—but gives up and figures it's one of those adult things she'll understand when she's older.
She finds her way back to Kacchan and Mina through the crowd, and manages to slip right next to them before either could notice she was gone at all. She does not want to start New Year's with a yelling and/or lecturing session, no sirree.
Kacchan sighs and glances around once more. "Alright, where is that half n' half bastard—"
—and Shou has been summoned. His basket has packs of cylinders in different colors, and while Eri has never seen fireworks before and would love to see them tonight, her alarms are going off like crazy.
At the same time though...the cat came back, because it had nine lives, right?
Whoever said cats had nine lives was obviously lying.
Eri watches the group down below from her balcony, cringing quickly in time with the many jumps being made to avoid the fireworks' sparking wires and the bright red firecrackers that Shou, Denny and Kacchan accidentally set off with their Quirks trying to light them all at once. Shou is the only one absent, having run into the dorm after putting them out with his ice to avoid Aizawa-san's inevitable fury. (Eri doesn't blame him—she would run too.)
Deku's rushing out with a fire extinguisher now, but he's too late, and Kacchan's yelling at him to put it away. Except, Kacchan's (probably unconsciously) making miniature explosions out of his hands, the sparks of which relight the fireworks, which causes Deku to spray white fog all over the place, and hence into Kacchan's face—
Never has Eri seen so much chaos among 1-A in one night. She suddenly feels tired, and she's sure it's not because it's midnight. Maybe they should have skipped the fireworks, after all...
Momo sighs, exasperated. "Sometimes, I worry about the future of our class..."
Tsuyu shrugs, sipping her grape soda. "It can't be helped, kero." A smile graces her face. "Still, it was almost like they were tap-dancing."
The class vice president breaks into a small grin with a giggle. "Yes, I suppose that was rather funny."
Eri watches as Aizawa-san, of course, shows up from the main building to cancel Kacchan's Quirk and berate them all before pulling out a matchbox, muttering, "Hold my drink."
Finally, the little rockets take off to the sky.
Nature's vast and starry ceiling glows even brighter with all sorts of colors exploding here and there. Red, green, blue...and then some of them formed shapes! Some of them stars, others spelling out letters, and a few more of All Might and his signature hair.
Eri turns to Momo. "How do they manage to get them to form shapes?"
"Hm..." Momo purses her lips. "I actually don't know. I just know what they're made of. We'll have to look that up after this."
Suddenly, everyone erupts into cheering, yelling "HAPPY NEW YEARS!" so loud they might as well wake up the entire city.
Eri checks her room's digital clock. It's midnight already?
The high-pitched cheering turns into very low booing as Aizawa-san shoos everyone back into the dorm for bed.
It's around an hour after midnight when Izuku gets a text from All Might, and maybe it's from all the soda he drank during the party, but now the back of his throat feels like he swallowed acid after he checks the message, and consequently chokes on his spit in his amusement.
All Might's just wishing him a Happy New Year, but the photo is of him in a painfully and colorfully bright and hideous tuxedo, raising a glass to to camera like in The Great Gatsby? Who took this? Midnight!?
Knock knock! "Isn't it early to be perishing, mon ami?"
Izuku snatches his water bottle and takes a few sips, trying to get his coughing fit to settle down. "I'm fine...! My throat's just being a jerk!"
He has to show his mom.