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Ochako’s irritated. Shouto can tell, because her eye is twitching and her short brows are scrunched up together. Her cheeks are puffed to the maximum, so that Shouto is reminded of the squirrel they saw together in the park that morning. She’s started calling him ‘Todoroki-kun’ instead of Shouto, too. And when they held hands a little bit on the way to the train, Shouto swore she was close to touching him with all five fingers.
On any other day, Shouto would be worried, but this all means that his plan is going well.
“I can’t believe you, Todoroki-kun,” Ochako grumbles. “I saved up to treat you in that restaurant, you know! I can’t believe you tried to sneak paying for us again!”
He shrugs. “You didn’t have to. But sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“You would too, and you know it!”
Yes he would, over and over. She tried to be sneaky, but Asui confirmed that she skipped a few lunches last week without telling anyone why. He would rather not see her starve just so she could buy him zarusoba in a fancier place than usual.
He doesn’t say it out loud though. Best not risk pushing her temper. She could actually make him float to the ceiling right now. It’d be troublesome to carry out his surprise if he were stuck in zero-gravity inside the train. Instead he tells her, “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“Okay,” Ochako says, the crease in her brow relaxing a bit. “But promise it’s not something crazy?”
Shouto, suddenly feeling cornered, only settles for a slow blink. Ochako looks at him with apprehension, then gapes at him further when he gestures for them to stand up and to go towards the doors, even though they’re five stops away from the UA campus.
“Todoroki-kun? What’s this?”
She’s apprehensive. That’s to be expected. It’s almost curfew at the dorms, and it’s Valentine’s day. It’s usually the girls doing something for the guys. Shouto wanted to do something though, and he didn’t want to wait until White Day to make her happy.
Anyway, Shouto didn’t want to go home yet. He’d rather spend more time with Ochako than to face the pile of chocolates and letters waiting for him at the dorms (and the impending reprimands from Iida because they’ve already started blocking everyone’s way.) With any luck, Bakugou would have taken care of all that with his quirk like he did last year. So he focuses on his own mission, leading the flustered Ochako out the train, down the street, and into a place she knew very well.
“The Planetarium?” Ochako squeaks. “But it’s closed!”
True enough, from where they stood outside, they can hear the announcer telling everyone that they had five minutes before the doors closed to the public. But Shouto ignores that, and instead gestures for Ochako to follow him.
She stammers something behind him about trespassing and how it’s unbecoming of hero-course students to do crimes just to be romantic, but she cuts herself off when Shouto shows the staff his ID. When they consequently let them in and to have fun until midnight, Ochako stares at Shouto, bug-eyed.
“You promised me you won’t do something crazy.”
He blinks innocently. “This isn’t crazy.”
“I say renting the entire planetarium for a Valentine’s Date is crazy!”
Is that so? His first idea of taking her to an actual space station was the one defined by Midoriya to be crazy, apart from not being that feasible. He was assured that this one was relatively acceptable compared to his other ideas.
Well, the feasibility of his ideas aside, the most important thing is Ochako. “So you’re not enjoying yourself?”
Her cheeks are still puffed, but her eyes are shining when she looks around at the lit-up displays. “I didn’t say that.”
Well, that’s a relief. Truth be told, he was 50-50 until now if she’d like this, or if she’d call him out for going overboard again.
“Anyway, I guess we should enjoy ourselves,” she says. “I mean… you went through all the trouble… and it’s been a while since I’ve been here--”
It’s clear that she’s keeping herself from going all-out touching all the interactive displays, though. Shouto has to keep himself from chuckling at how very endearing she looked.
“So what do you say, Shouto? Shall we?”
And of course she turns right around, bright smile on her face, ready to go as if she weren’t mad at him just now for renting out the planetarium. He can’t blame her--he knew this was one of her favorite places in the world.
Anyway, it’s a good sign that she’s calling him Shouto again. He smiles, takes her hand, and lets her lead the way.
She takes them around the exhibits, spending a lot of time in the parts she knew by heart and telling Shouto everything about them. He’s impressed by how much she knew about black holes and conspiracy theories about aliens. He isn’t as learned about space, but he thinks he could be interested by how passionate she was about it.
At the very least, it’s a treat to see her speaking so animatedly about something she really liked. Almost as nice as just being close to her, with her holding onto his arm as if it were the most natural thing on earth.
Some time later, they reach the amphitheatre with a giant hologram projector in the middle. By the way she squeals “come on!” with a skip in her step, he figures this is her favorite part.
“This is my favorite part,” she confirms excitedly, as she presses the buttons on the projector. He doesn’t get the chance to ask her if it’s okay to do that when they’re engulfed in utter darkness after a loud click.
He lets out a small flame on his left hand out of surprise. “Uraraka, is this…”
She giggles, touching his arm and quietly urging him to put the flame out. “Trust me. We’re in for a treat!”
And just like that, the sky explodes above them with pinpricks of light.
He’s rendered speechless as the stars glow, the sky panning in different directions, showing them how the galaxies are formed, the darkness and the light expanding all around them.
It starts to feel like they’re in outer space. Shouto doesn’t realize how breathless he was, as if he were in the vacuum of it, until he feels her touch at his hand.
With the scant, brilliant light of the Milky Way above them, he sees the pretty glow of her brown eyes. “You okay?” she asks softly.
He returns her smile. “Of course. I’m with you.”
She giggles, muttering something about him being an utter cheeseball. “Hey. You know, Shouto, we’re alone here, so we might as well take advantage.”
His brain goes haywire for a second wondering about what she meant, before going completely blank when her pinky goes down and he feels gravity leave him.
“Ah,” he says, as he floats off the floor and into space.
She giggles. “It’s more authentic now, don’t you think?”
“It is,” he says, spinning in the air in his best effort to face her. “But I’m not interested in floating in the vastness of space without you. Come here.”
“So clingy,” she teases, before activating her quirk on herself and floating up in the air to meet him.
It’s a vision seeing her rise from the ground, all bright-eyed and pink-cheeked with her brown hair and the pretty pink dress billowing around her as she spins and laughs on the way to where he floated with bated breath. With the stars glowing around them, it’s easy to imagine her as a fairy, or a goddess who has descended from a nearby moon just for him.
Just for him.
He can’t help himself. He’s helpless against her gravity as she dances in the sky. As the universe continues to expand around them, in this small space within the vastness that they call their own, he takes her in his arms and kisses her.
A lot of poets have described kisses to be magical. Like things exploding, the universe conspiring, romantic things that Shouto doesn’t understand very well. He’s never been one for metaphors; he always took things too literally, a fact that he’s been openly criticized for.
This, though. This must be what they meant. Beyond the weightlessness of his body, his soul feels light. They’re spinning in the air, far from being grounded or secure as he always has, but he doesn’t care, because everything feels right. They always do whenever she’s around, when she’s in his arms, when he feels her breathing next to him.
She summarizes it when they break the kiss and looks up at him in awe. “Wow,” she whispers.
Right. Wow.
“I’m sorry for being impulsive,” he murmurs, kissing her on the mouth again. “But I can’t help it. You’re too cute.” And again. “Too pretty.” And again. “Too breathtaking.”
She giggles throughout the lavish attention he gives her. “Too… out of this world?” she adds with a mischievous smile.
Yes, that works.
“You’re so cheesy, I can’t believe it,” she squeals, as they keep spinning in the air. And then she looks up at him and kisses him again, just as another supernova above him, and within him.
“I think you’re out of this world, too,” she whispers softly. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Shouto!”
She smiles, and for that brief moment, Shouto truly believed that the entire universe revolved around her. He smiles again, feeling his soul lost in antigravity.