Chapter Text
Chapter I -
In the beginning, Amaterasu created the Universe.
As she gazed into the unfathomable black, its expanse infinite and yet so very young, she sensed it gazing back, a plea in its bottomless vacuum. Amaterasu complied. "Let there be light," she said, and there was light.
Born were the stars, twinkling up above, sewn into the silken fabric of creation, in between the folds of galaxies raw and trembling, behind shrouds of diaphanous nebulae, skirting leaking holes of nothingness. Millions of light years away from each other yet close enough to bask in one another's heat.
Millennia go by.
The stars witness a welcoming planet Earth light up with a glow that makes their core ache with overwhelming longing.
Amaterasu heard the plea in their burning bodies and granted them Her mercy. "Let them fall," she said, and so they did.
One fiery ball zips across the dark blue fabric; in its centre, something strangely akin to a human body starts to take shape as it pierces the atmosphere.
In the dead of night, one lonely star plops quietly into the water. Its ripples emanate a shimmery, yellow glow, almost as if a sun was shackled to underwater currents-
The now lukewarm water sloshes over the edges of the goemonburo as Akko slouches deeper into it. Her glowing hair slithers around her shoulders like seaweed.
Her bright skin looks turvy underwater as if it's simply a reflection of the artificial lights above. And yet it's no trick of the light, this is her own power, the power she cultivated and that has finally bore fruit.
It’s still hard to believe.
She can't help the grin that overtakes her face and submerges her head to squeal loudly.
The door to the bathroom slides open and her uncle strides in, holding a shrieking child in his arms, causing her to hide her naked body deeper into the cauldron.
“Uhm–?!“
"Are you finished?" Could he not see that she was, in fact, not finished? " Ringo needs her bath," he said over his daughter’s screams, gripping her securely even as she kicked and kicked.
"Don' wanna!" The three-year-old cried, big, fat tears rolling down her chubby cheeks. "Don'wannadon'wannadon'wanna-"
Akko felt her eyes soften, holding out her arms for the child to take. "Oh, baby, come here."
He paused before starting to hand the child over, who was practically falling out of his grip towards the girl. "How's the water?"
"Fine. Now hand the munchkin over."
He eyed her, hesitating.
"I said it's fine!" She defended, wiggling her fingers again. Hot temperatures really didn't get to her - after all, in her core resided a star hotter than a thousand furnaces – but most people didn’t share her resistance to fire.
When Ringo's father handed her over, she was still quietly sobbing, making Akko's heart clench. She brought up a hand to wash the tears off her baby's face, leaving a glowing streak where her fingers touched. "There, there. Let's get you out of these clothes and into the warm bath, okay?"
Ringo shook her head weakly, eyes rimmed red. "Akko, I - I don' wanna," she hiccuped, "Take a b-bath."
"I know, baby." Akko started stripping her as she talked, hoping the distraction would keep her from starting the waterworks. She missed the door close. "But we have to wash up all the dirt from playing around, right? Haven't you been playing all day outside? We have to take baths so we can play more the next day. Do you want to play more tomorrow?"
Still hiccuping, the baby nodded, visibly calming down. Blame her uncle for making Ringo cry with his roughness, the bastard.
"Then we have to clean up," she concluded, grinning mischievously. "Besides, we can have fun in here too. How does the water feel?" She cupped a bit of it with one hand before pouring it over a tiny hand. "Good?"
When Ringo nodded again, Akko picked her up and faked dropping the child in a few times, only her tiny feet reaching the water. Forgetting her earlier tantrum, the child shrieked and kicked her legs in glee, splashing water onto Akko's eyes and kicking her in the chin once. The girl blinked, disoriented, before lowering Ringo into the goemonburo. When her head and her adorable little halo were the only things sticking out, the teen booped her nose. "Now who wants a beard?"
"Me! Me! Me!"
Laughing at the enthusiasm, she got to work in washing her cousin's hair and styling her a glorious beard out of the suds.
Lonely, huh?
Gazing at her adorable cousin playing around in the water, she couldn't help but shake her head.
Maybe back then, but not now. Never again.
The bath went relatively well if Akko didn't count the tantrum Ringo made because she didn't want to leave the water, even if her tiny sausage fingers were already pruned up.
Akko dressed her in unicorn pajamas before brushing her thin, pink hair, having to hold her head up. Ringo had dozed off the minute the brush touched her head. Her eyes kept slipping closed as her head lolled around before she startled awake, only to let her head droop moments after.
The girl laid her cousin on the futon, too tired to take her to her parent's room. The hot bath had helped with the soreness but the rusty, gold bruises marking her skin were proof of the beating she had taken.
She put on her pajamas, brushed her hair and prepared her school bag for tomorrow, just going through the motions, not really focused on each task.
Dropping down on the matress, curling around the three-year-old so that her natural body heat could keep the little girl settled for the rest of the night, she felt her body become floaty and weightless, sleep claiming her almost instantaneously.
Akio wakes up at dawn for the meditation ritual. Next to her, there is an empty spot, still warm. After crawling through the blankets, she gets dressed in her brand new uniform and goes downstairs for breakfast.
Most of her cousins are sat at the kitchen table already, muted as the rosy light peeks through the paper divides. Everything the light touches comes to life, and Hoshimori Akio is the perfect example of it.
“Left you some milk in the fridge,” Ryusei says offhandedly, concentrated on the pocket mirror Milk is holding up for him as he perfects his eyeliner. Akio clicks her tongue but retrieves the bowl from the fridge anyway. Ryusei has a very peculiar habit – he eats his chocolate cereals with milk but then he doesn’t drink the chocolate milk that remains at the bottom because he doesn’t like leftover chocolate milk – not regular chocolate milk, but leftover chocolate milk. This means that every morning, Akko has chocolate cereals when she’d rather have muesli or even oatmeal for a change.
As she sits down with the bowl, her dad enters the house with a grin, kissing everyone in the forehead – the crisp scent of dawn still clinging to him like aftershave – before settling down with a cup of herbal tea and some biscuits as he reads the newspaper. He’s followed by her uncle, Inuoka, who nods in greeting before filing out of the kitchen, tail whooshing behind him – Akko has never seen it wag– Can the man even feel excitement?
“Can you not shake the mirror as if you’re on vibrator mode, Milk?” Ryusei raises an eyebrow at her, more intimidating now that the eyeliner brought out the silver of his eyes.
Milk’s only response was to slam the pocket mirror onto the table, cheeks puffed up. “Stop calling me Milk, I’m not milk, I’m a person. Called Miruko!”
“Whatever you say, Milk.”
“Stooooop–“
“It’s true, you know? Sohoshi-dono herself altered your name in the birth certificate.” Karume, their other cousin, added from his spot on the table where he was slicing an apple into a pink, plastic plate for Ringo, who was in the living room watching cartoons, snickering at Milk’s cherry red cheeks and at the metaphorical steam coming out of her ears.
Akko hides a smile as she takes on the role of oldest cousin. She’s the same age as Ryusei but where she knows better, he doesn’t. “Karume, Ryusei, please stop ganging up on Milk–“ The slip up is enough to have Karume roaring with laughter while Milk looks at her with large eyes flashing with betrayal. “I’m so sorry, Milk – dang it, I meant Miruko.”
“Juupita-ji-san, tell them to stop!” She pushes his newspaper down to cast begging eyes on him. He sighs, raising his newspaper again.
“All of you, stop.”
Silence follows his less than passionate command.
"... We're shaking in our socks, dad. Truly," Akko comments dryly.
He straightens out his newspaper, satisfied. "Good."
Someone slides open the door and Sohoshi-dono appears, as white as ever, donned in one of her fur-lined kimono. Sohoshi-dono has been the head priestess of the Hoshimori Cluster for generations. No one knows how old she truly is. Everyone is too afraid to ask.
She’s the one who initiates every cerimony, including the meditation ritual. They all gathered in the patio, hands stretched out to the sky as they perform a number of steps while their fingertips gather energy from the sunlight Amaterasu blessed them with.
Ten minutes later, Kotone stumbles outside of the house, glasses askew as they fall to their knees, take a deep breath and begin playing the koto. Their cheeks are burning gold – they are always late. Ever since Grandma ascended, Kotone has been having problems taking over her responsibilities.
Fingertips buzzing a faint orange, constrasting with the rest of her glowing skin, she feels her fluttery core settle. She will make it through the first day. If Amaterasu-sama thinks she can, who is she to contradict Her?
Akko kisses everyone goodbye, doing so with extra care when she reached Sohoshi-dono, who smiles faintly at the warmth from her forehead and kisses her in return although she, on the other hand, leaves no trace.
“Good luck, darling. I think somewhere up there, Hinata is watching and she is very proud of you,” her grandpa tells her gently, patting her on the cheek with sun-spotted hands.
She smiles at him brightly. “Thanks, Jiji, that’s so nice of you to say.”
“And he isn’t wrong, you know. You’re going far, Akio, you’ll go above and beyond.” Her mother grips her hand one last time before Dad is there to wrap her in his embrace.
“Wow, you’re talking like she’s going off to war. It’s our first day too, why don’t we get this kind of treatment?” Karume complained, Kotone elbowing him softly.
Her dad laughs. “You’ll have your pomp and circumstance when you enter one of the most prestigious schools in the country, little toffee.”
Twins Karume and Kotone had been two balls of sweetness when the Cluster had found them holding each other’s hands behind some bushes. Well, as much as Karume slobbering over his sibling’s hand counted as holding hands. Both had had a bronze tuft of hair and a pair of swirling amber eyes. At the time, their mother had taken one sniff of Karume and had lovingly called him toffee from both his looks and his sickly sweet smell that had drugged everyone in the near vicinity to an early slumber.
She was just three years old when it happened, when her veins clogged with sticky tree sap, her movements growing sluggish and weak as she swayed on her feet like a leaf in the wind. It only took a moment for her mom to bundle her in her arms before Akko fell in a slumber for two days. With how young she was and how weak her immune system had been at the time, it was nothing short of a miracle she had only been asleep for that long. But there were no miracles in how she was raised. Only the will of the Goddess, The One who loops our thread through the needle of fate and fashions us into the desired pattern.
So, when they discovered that the extremely disarming quirk had been Kotone’s all along and not Karume’s, the mishap had been brushed off as “the will of the Two-Faced Goddess” and the nickname had stuck ever since. Amaterasu works in odd, little ways like that – giving little boys names that aren’t theirs to keep. Maybe The Bright One thinks they’ll grow into them. Like one does with a much too big pair of shoes.
“I’ll be off, then,” she winks. “Wish me luck.”
Cycling through Musutafu is exciting. This isn’t like Kyoto where the machiya are full of ghosts and the cobblestone streets whisper of tradition and remembrance and longevity. Musutafu is bright colours and people rushing, always rushing – like a video in hyperspeed, where things are always new and moving and changing every time she blinks–
She misses the comfort of Kyoto. Misses the dark wood of the houses and the bleary yellow from the lanterns stationed outside establishments. One door could lead to a pub, another to an atelier. After some trial and error, she had known that city like the back of her hand. It had been hard to say goodbye to the things she had left a world away but she wouldn’t miss the novelty of Musutafu for the world.
Especially when UA stands in front of her, huge and shimmery and a beacon of hope for whoever has their sights on change, usually leading up to world peace.
And that someone is Akko – among others, of course.
It was hard to pinpoint when exactly Hoshimori Akio had decided to become a pro-hero. An assortment of reasons, no doubt. But a great deal of it must stem from her curiosity about these strange beings that are unlike her in every conceivable way yet just like her – her equals. Back in her hometown, she had wanted to get to know them, growing fond of them in the meantime. Akko helped in the ways that she could and her neighbours had appreciated it, dubbing it as “the makings of a hero”. It seemed only logical to aim for the prefix too.
Famous last words.
How could she become a pro-hero if she couldn’t even find her classroom? Truly, for a school so big, they really ought to have more maps pinned around. Having finally found one, she resumed her journey, taking a moment to observe her surroundings.
The hallways all looked the same, wide, white. Glass windows, floor to ceiling, paneled one side of the hallways, through which you could see the dense greenery that stretched on for kilometers around the main building. That was a relief. Knowing she had nature so close by, someplace she could retreat to whenever she felt too overwhelmed, served to settle her nerves. Akko wondered if there were bodies of water too, shrouded by the gingko trees. There were, of course, others, but those she couldn’t name. Akko’s green thumb was more directed at flowers than trees if she were to be completely honest but she had wanted to learn more. Now is as good a time as any, she guessed.
She faltered in her stride, looking around. “Oh, not again.”
Admiring the view had cost her the correct route. Akko attempted to retrace her steps towards the map, but that proved impossible. When all hope was lost, the girl considering jumping out of the window, class 1-A stood in front of her, door tall and wide to fit any kind of quirk-user.
Akko had no idea how she did that but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
About to walk in, she suddenly realized the weight she’d been dragging along – her bicycle, its handles melting off with her jitters. Quickly letting go of it, she sighed, preparing to begin the long trek towards the entrance where she could lock in her bike.
As she did so, she caught sight of the boy from the Entrance Exam, the one who had called out the school for making a mistake on the informative PowerPoint while also another potential student for “muttering too loud and disrespecting this great institution”. It was both parts hilarious and embarrassing.
The girl assumed he had made it to the Hero Course and followed him.
The boy walked funny, stiffly. Like a robot. His pants were baggier than what she would’ve expected for someone so proper. Perhaps he needed the room for something quirk-related? It wasn’t uncommon. Most mutant-type people had to have their clothes tailored for their specific needs.
In five minutes, they had reached the classroom. He hadn’t gotten lost once, he hadn’t even faltered. There was nothing but self-assurance in his posture. She waited for him to enter and, three minutes after, did the same. He is at the front, back as straight as a board, seemingly unblinking behind his rectangle glasses. Just there. Rigid. Waiting.
“Good morning,” she offers slowly, jumping when his head swivels to meet hers and again when he bows after a moment too long had passed.
“Good morning! I am Iida Tenya–“
“Hoshimori Akio–“
Oh, he wasn’t done. “-a great pleasure to meet my first classmate in this great establishment! I hope we work hard to make a name for ourselves in the hero world and strive to protect and serve all citizens!”
That was one hell of a motivational speech. Suddenly overwhelmed, core shaking, light burst out of her as she blurted out, “Me too, Iida-san- Oh my, I’m so sorry, lost control there-“
However, he curtly waved her off, rubbing his eyes behind the glasses. “It’s quite alright, I should expect nothing else from a UA student!”
Akko appreciated those words more than she could explain.
Words definitely not appreciated were her new homeroom teacher’s when he said they would have to go through a physical evaluation at the risk of expulsion – which wasn’t on the programme, by the way – so that Aizawa-sensei could assess their quirks and deem them or not apt to remain in the Hero Course. The man looked like the type of person she would see around a dumpster fire, eating warm soup out of a tin can. Akio never forgot a face and she hadn’t ever seen that scruffy man on the news. An underground hero, most likely.
Fear had seized her for a small moment as she donned the school-issue tracksuit. Her fingers trembled against the zipper. It was the first day of school and she had been thrown off the deep end and told to swim.
Inu-ji-san had tried something similar once, in a much more literal sense.
He was lucky she had a natural affinity to water, had he thrown any other person into the lake, the bells would have tolled a much graver song. It had been dangerous. The water had been freezing, sollidifying into ice as it rushed down her throat. Lungs heavy, she kicked and kicked and kicked, burning through the cold, battling the density of the still blue like a drunken man fights gravity when it is the only thing keeping him up. But, after what felt like an eternity and, simultaneously, a second away from her limbs giving way to the silent currents, her legs gained rhythm and her arms followed. She kicked towards a trickle of light, the bleeding sun waiting for Her starling to rip through the water’s surface and take her first breath as a five-year-old who could now swim.
Mom had yelled at him for hours without end with wild eyes and foaming mouth as she helped Akko out of her previously cute - now cute and soaking - beach outfit. “You didn’t even bother undressing her down to the swimsuit?! What’s wrong with you, Inuoka, she could have died!”
His only response was “If that’s the will of the Goddess.”
It had been a test. A stupid one. Where the risk far outweighted the gain. And yet, little Akko had felt pride banging on her chest like a drum and she had ran towards her cousins, destroying their sandcastles and sand-dragons with her dancing feet, no end in sight for her bell-like laughter.
It had been a test. And this was no different. She would pass it. Curling her fists and hiding the orange fingertips from view, she looked at the rest of the girls in the locker room. Whether less or more nervous, they were all equals. They all made their way to this school with their own power.
“Good luck to all of us,” she heard herself say, causing the quiet chatter to stop. So many faces staring back at her, and could only assume the invisible girl was too, that she mustered a smile.
She would smile because, to be a hero, first and foremost, you simply have to be a good person.
The evaluation is comprised of eight physical tests. Akko can’t help but feel intimidated, bravery running thin like oxygen in a mountain peak. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to tell him the stars aren’t aligned? That her pet ate her quirk?
She befriended Ashido Mina during the fifty-meter dash.
She had seen her skating by the bellybutton-beam boy, literally sliding through the asphalt, her pink skin leaking a grey substance that made her able to skate through the track. Akko had watched and an idea that would make her dad proud formed in her mind. The differences between their quirks was lost on her for it was the similarities that she could take advantage of. The girl had deleted all adhesion from her shoes with whatever that liquid was. Akko was sure that she could replicate it.
And so she did.
When her turn came around, Akko felt the molten lava in her veins. Felt the heat. Felt the heat so intensely it felt like her skin would peel off and everything around her would burn. There was a promise of ash on her tongue whether she liked it or not – her weakness became a danger to society if she hadn’t mastered control. There was a star inside her. Resilient but fragile, fickle most of all. It was a well you could tap into, but not take too much from. She tapped into that holy power, letting it rise to the surface, enough so that the air around her hung heavy and hot, her glow making it hard for others to see her. A bright smudge. A silly, bright smudge that slid through the ground with burning feet until she crossed the finish line and had to step out of the grave she dug for herself.
4.15 seconds.
The class stares at her, deciding on whether to cheer or laugh. The pink girl from before looks on with unreadable eyes from her place next to two girls, one with earjacks sprouting from each earlobe and the other with a long, spiky ponytail. Aizawa-sensei sighs and tells her to move along when she tries to apologize for ruining the track. A little boy with purple balls for hair leers at her, wolf-whistling. It makes her feel wrong so she looks down at her ruined sneakers – its soles flapping with each step – and bends down to pull them off, the whistling growing louder before cutting off abruptly with a smack.
“Were you trying to copy me?” The pink girl approaches her with arms crossed.
Looking up, Akko fumbles, knowing that it probably looked like she was a copycat – and everybody hated those. “I’m sorry, yeah, our quirks seemed similar and it gave me this idea – it didn’t even turn out that well but –“
She was interrupted by laughter. The oh-my-stars-you-are-so-funny kind of laughter that ripples through your body and makes you hold on tight as you ride it out. The girl, clutching her belly, after another round of loud guffaws, spoke between breaths, “Girl, that was the funniest shit I’ve seen all week. And I’ve seen my mom do her make-up. I’m Mina. You?”
Up close, Mina was even more beautiful. Her skin was bubblegum pink, with an extremely thin sheet of peach fuzz covering it, almost untraceable. Akko found herself hypnotized by a moment as she looked into the other’s eyes. They were almost like the twins’, yellow in color, but big and wide and of a browner shade. The black of her sclera brought out the caramel of her eyes.
Realizing she was staring and thinking about how Mina had one of the most breathtaking pair of eyes ever known to mankind, guilt washed over her like a bucket of ice. “Hoshimori Akio,” she hurried to say, “But everyone calls me Akko.”
“So, Akko, have any other master plans?”
Akko blinked. Once. Twice. Huh.
“I’ll let you know if I do.”
The grip strength was a bit trickier. She could have “powered up” her whole body again, but she wanted to impress the teacher. He hadn’t been wooed by her first display, his unimpressed, blank eyes said as much. In order to do that, she had to concentrate the heat on her dominant hand. It was taxing, akin to willing slime to move where you want it to go while it’s sticking to everything, protesting. She clenched her core and willed it to move, some classmates gaping at how her face flushed golden with effort before she melted the grip machine clean off.
“Does that- does that count as being strong?”
Mina snickered good-naturedly. Aizawa sketched out a tired glare. It seemed like her plan hadn’t been successful.
Clearing the sandbox was easy, although clumsy. All she needed to do was run, hook her burning feet onto the ground and jump, letting the momentum carry her across the sandbox. There was a moment, though, when she felt herself hover over the sandbox, like time was water and she was wading through it. Such a strange sensation had never happened before. Her body was fighting gravity, wanting to rise while the other kept pulling. Then, her balance shifted and she was falling headfirst, performing a roll before coming back up, hair messy. Gravity had won.
“I’m good! I’m good!” She didn’t have to look to see whose laughter it was. “Mina, stop laughing.”
What was that? And why does she keep embarrassing herself?
“Sorry- sorry, you’re just so- freaking- funny-“
The following three tests were unremarkable. There wasn’t much she could do for side steps, sit-ups or the seated toe touch. Akko was fit due to Inu-ji-san’s training regime, and flexibility had been gained after so many years practicing martial arts. After that, the distance run wasn’t much harder to conquer given her natural boost. The irony of being two steps just behind Iida-san once more was not lost on her.
At last, the ball throw had arrived. At the beginning of the exam, she had seen the number one student (whose name escaped her) pitch the ball forward with a huge explosion and a yell for death. While an impressive display, his attitude hadn’t really charmed her. But, well, he wasn’t here to please her, was he?
She had no wish to upstage him or anything like that. In her opinion, it wasn’t even possible. The boy had an incredible amount of stage presence. Akko just wanted to do good and be proud of herself and maybe, just maybe – if it wasn’t too much to ask – convince Aizawa-sensei to acknowledge her.
She glares at the ball, her last adversary, as she thinks on how to get rid of it. Maybe use her hair as a slingshot? No, too many things could go wrong. Mina wouldn’t let her live it down. Aizawa-sensei would expel her on the spot for her stupidity, he’s dying to, she can see it written on his deadpan.
“You can do it, babe! Yeet that sucker!” Mina yells from the sidelines with a lopsided grin.
Cheeks golden, she blurts, “Babe?!”
Mina only winks in return.
Okay. Compartmentalize. ‘Yeet’ the ball first and then overthink about being called ‘babe’.
Looking down at her hand, a smile worms its way onto her face. Her fingertips are still faintly orange. Pulling her arm back, she launches the ball forward like a meteor. The ball climbs, climbs, climbs high into the sky before disappearing with a twinkle. And then it comes crashing down. They watch the ball land.
“Woah…”
706.8 meters.
The class once again roars with excitement, making her grin. They’re so supportive. It’s… nice. Her eyes meet Aizawa-sensei’s but he only harrumphs and calls for the next one. Her face falls.
“We did it! And oh my god, you’re in the top 5, you mad genius. You go, girl!” Mina shrieks quietly in her ear as they congratulate each other. It is with great pleasure that Akko sees her name in fourth place.
“You’re also in the Top 10. Go, us!”
“Yes, queens!”
But then her eyes stray towards the sullen broccoli boy who came in last. It wasn’t fair. He had passed the Entrance Exam. Shouldn’t that be enough? He had proved his worth. What gave Aizawa-sensei the right to take that away from him?
“I feel bad for him,” Mina said, following my gaze to the small boy. “Expelled on his first day…”
Akko was sure to file a complaint somewhere – she was sure this brutal Darwinian survival of the fittest-type teaching left psychological marks on many teenagers. Being expelled on the first day–
It was a “logical ruse”.
Wow.
There are no words to describe the many things she felt as he spoke about “bringing out the best in the students”. To put it short, it was a stupid tactic that only served to put the students on-edge hence making mistakes that they usually wouldn’t do. Not to mention how he spent the whole day judging her with his dead fish eyes. She didn’t care if he was paid to judge her, he could have done it in a nicer way. Akko didn’t like this man one bit.
A prickling sensation bothers the back of her head. A burning stare. She had felt it the second after the ranks had been exposed and while she tried to brush it off, it wouldn’t go away like an itch she just had to scratch. Turning around, her eyes immediately locked onto vermillion ones. The number one student – now third, she guessed? – his name being Bakugou Katsuki, after another peek at the board – was glaring at her, lips pressed together tightly, eyebrows furrowed.
Akko did nothing to antagonize him. The reason why he’s glaring at her, honestly, escapes her. But still she feels every nerve in her body fire up, suddenly earnest to flee that piercing gaze, flee from those cobblestone ghosts that mean to follow her everywhere she goes.
She raises a hand and waves, her smile making him growl like a wild beast. Remembering that icy lake - the beat of her heart like the fluttering wings of a hummingbird, those destroyed sandcastles - makes her remember something else too: Hoshimori Akio has never been a runner.
The girls, this time, are the ones to reach out to her in the locker room. Akko will try her best to memorize their names. Jirou with her droopy eyes, framed by long bottom lashes. Tsuyu and her long and silky black hair that shimmered green in the light. Uraraka had the cutest blush. Yaoyaorozu had the most docile eyes Akko has ever seen.
“Akko-chan, you were really funny out there. Are you a fan of Ms. Joke or something?” Uraraka asked innocently, leading Akko to blush. It wasn’t her plan to come off as a jokester. She had never been good at the whole “elegant” thing. That was Ryusei’s cup of tea.
“Mina, shut it.”
Mina gawked. “I didn’t even say anything!”
Akko has to deal with five cousins at home, each more troublesome than the other. “You didn’t have to.”
They stare at each other a beat too long. When she starts to worry that she may have overstepped, the girl cracks a grin, giggling. “You got me there.”
“Are you, like, besties since middle school? Childhood friends?” Tooru-chan’s sleeves give the faint impression of someone putting two fists to their chin cutely. It matches the invisible girl’s bubbly personality.
Akko waves a hand, laughing. “Oh no, we met today.”
It was actually kind of crazy to think about comfortable she is with Mina. It had been effortless due to Mina’s easygoing attitude and constant stream of conversation. Akko had never met someone like her. Akko had never known many people well enough to say otherwise. In two hours, she was ready to invite Mina home and share their darkest secrets over a cup of tea in a room smoky with incense.
Not one to miss an opportunity, Mina loops her arm through the former’s. “Worry not, Tooru-chan, we’ll be besties in no time!”
“I think your quirk is also really cool, Uraraka. I’d love to partner up sometime, if you’d like. I love anything space-related.”
“Good thing I’m an Alien Queen!”
“I’d love it! We’d make one hell of a team.” Uraraka pumped a fist into the air, sweet, brown eyes gaining a surprising ferocity.
“Hey, don’t ignore me!”
But it seemed like ignoring Mina was the most effective course of action even though her cute pout disagreed.