Archive of Our Own

Shouta was cooking and trying to peek at his phone’s timer when it was obscured by an incoming call.

Though “trying not to set his kitchen on fire” was probably a more accurate description for his current way of spending time. And his timer being obscured was definitely not helping.

The caller ID was Oboro’s, so Shouta swiftly declined the call and got back to his sizzling pan.

Given that tenacity was one of Oboro’s (many, many) qualities, his phone promptly rang again. And a third and a fourth time after Shouta just as promptly declined the calls. Then he switched to messages, the notifications chiming loudly in the kitchen despite the noises of the stove.

Glancing at the content of his pan and deeming is pretty much unsalvageable, Shouta sighed, turned down the heat of the stove plate and, without even looking at the text messages Oboro had sent, shot him a quick, simple “what”.

In response, a request for a video call from Oboro popped up on his display. Shouta accepted.

“Shouta, I need your help!” Oboro’s whine immediately reached his ears. His friend was staring at his phone’s camera with puppy dog eyes that maybe would have still worked on Shouta a year ago.

But now he was proud to say that he was inured to them. In most of the cases, anyway.

“Yeah?” Shouta asked impassively, lifting an eyebrow. “And I need to eat.”

Oboro’s face instantly brightened, his attention distracted. “Oh, that behind you is your kitchen cabinet, right? Are you cooking?” He put on a mock-threatening tone of voice, “A healthy diet is important, otherwise you know what’ll await you in school tomorrow, young man. Anyway, what are you making? Show me?”

Considering that his supposed meal wasn’t recognisable anymore, Shouta was not inclined to show anything. He mentally apologised for wasting food, turned his stove off entirely and moved to the kitchen table where he sat down.

“Nothing,” he said. “I hadn’t decided yet.” And, resigning himself to his fate, he added, “So, what did you call me for?”

Oboro’s expression switched to his puppy dog eyes again as he remembered the purpose of his call. “Please, please, please, Shouta, you have to help me, please! Please, it’s horrible, and I already did everything I could think of on my own but it didn’t help, and I thought long about it but I absolutely need your help, please, Shouta, I beg you—“

“What is it?” Shouta asked with another sigh, massaging his temple. Oboro rambling like this in a request typically meant ‘nothing serious happened but I’m about to drag you into my shenanigans and you can do nothing to stop it’.

The pout on Oboro’s face really shouldn’t register in Shouta’s head as ‘cute’, but it unfortunately did.

“I was kicked out of the chat for Hizashi’s birthday party!”

“How?”

Shouta resisted the urge to bury his face in his hand. He hoped the deadpan expression he directed at his phone was enough to show Oboro how unimpressed by this announcement he was. Before Oboro could explain, he continued, “No, seriously, how can you be kicked out of a group you yourself created? Don’t you have special creator-rights or something like that?”

Shouta didn’t know much about the message app’s functions, but from his group chat with Oboro and Hizashi, he at least knew that there was an ‘admin’ role.

“Well, adding people into a chat usually has to be okayed by the admin,” Oboro explained, looking a bit sheepish, “so to get everyone into the chat faster, I gave everyone the admin role, so everyone could do the approving and I wouldn’t have to go through all those messages.”

His eyebrows probably couldn’t raise up any further, but that didn’t mean Shouta didn’t try. Yep, that sounded like one of the half-baked ideas Oboro had from time to time. “And what did you do to be kicked out?” he inquired.

“We were debating whether to set up another party as a diversion for the surprise party and I suggested we do karaoke!” Oboro’s pout was back in full force. “And I was vetoed by everyone and then Ricchan kicked me out for the suggestion!”

“Do I have to say that I’m surprised? Because I don’t want to be lying if I can help it.”

“So mean, Shouta!” Shouta considered whether he had accidentally created any toxic fumes with his cooking attempt that he had subsequently inhaled, because Oboro was looking more and more like a sulky, bratty child and yet he still found it adorable.

“Well, it’s probably a good thing if Nakamura has taken over the reins. You do kind of suck at planning, in regards to absolutely anything, and she’s not our class president for nothing.”

“I know that.” This time it was Oboro who sighed, though he did up the dramatics a bit. “And I trust her and know what she plans will probably be for the best. But I need to know what’s going on in the chat! I can’t be uninformed, Shouta, I have to stay in the loop. It’s Hizashi’s party after all. But no matter how much I beg them, they won’t let me in again!”

“They will let you in again eventually,” Shouta disagreed. “Do you think I kept count of how many times you and Hizashi came whining to me that you were kicked out of the class group chat? Sorry, but that number is too high to remember by now. And even if Nakamura should take care of the planning from now on, she won’t make any decisions you’re absolutely against.”

He didn’t know why he even tried to provide logical arguments against Oboro. He should have known better.

“But I need to know everything that’s going on in there. It’s killing me that I don’t. Please, Shouta!”

Shouta was so going to regret this. He could feel it. His instincts, honed by being acquainted with Oboro for over two years now, were telling him as much and he trusted them.

“Well? So where do I come in?” he still asked.

“Have I ever told you that you’re the best friend in the whole wide world?” The scenery behind Oboro was blurry and moving in circles, likely from Oboro spinning around with his phone as if he’d had picked Shouta up to do so.

“Just as many times as I told you to stop attempting to flatter people to get what you want. This is not a skill you can pick up from Hizashi or Kayama.” Shouta leaned his phone against the spice shaker on the table and rested his chin in his hand. He hoped it looked like a casual change of posture when it was actually to conceal the stupidly fond grin on his face. “So, what do you want from me? I’m not going to ask again.”

“Okay, so I thought of a plan. No,” he lifted one of his hands, palm forward, “that joke about me and thinking’s getting old by now, Shouta.”

“Didn’t think you’d ever say that a joke’s getting old.”

“Whatever, so… You’re still the class cryptid that has given his phone number to none of our classmates, just to Hizashi and me, right?”

“Yes, and every day I start regretting it a bit more.”

“And you’re always saying how you want to stay out of the spotlight and do ‘undercover missions’, right? So I thought you could sneak—“

“—into the group chat, without revealing who I am, to keep you updated on the conversation,” Shouta finished the explanation for him. His hand wandered upwards to pinch the bridge of his nose. “How do you even want to invite me if you’re not in the chat anymore?”

“Easy-peasy, I still have an invitation link saved!” Oboro beamed. “So… will you do it? Pretty please?”

“You’ll owe me for that.”

“I know.”

“You’ll owe me for that big time. I’d say lunch for a week at least, though lunch until the beginning of the summer holidays should be more appropriate.”

Oboro wouldn’t be deterred. “Whatever you want, Shouta. Um, but… You’re referring to lunch bought at the cafeteria, don’t you?”

“Do you think I want you to appear on my doorstep at night asking for not-quite-temporary shelter because you burned your house down? Of course I’m talking about lunch from the cafeteria. Though if you want to go to the convenience store in the mornings before school, I wouldn’t stop you…”

“Alright, alright, I got it.” Oboro was shaking with laughter. “It’s a deal?”

“Sent me that link before I recover my senses and change my mind.”

“Okay, will do.” Oboro was grinning widely. In triumph, probably, because he had talked Shouta into doing his bidding. “But hey, Shouta, you know that I’m only telling the truth when I say that you’re the best? Because you are!”

“No,” Shouta disagreed, “what I am is being delusional. Every morning I wake up thinking, ‘Today is going to be the day neither Hizashi nor Oboro will have any crazy ideas’, and I’m proved wrong every time but don’t seem to learn my lesson.”

“Aww, you’re thinking about us as soon as you wake up? That’s so sweet, Shouta!”

“The link before I change my mind, Oboro.”

“I can see that smile, no matter how hard you try to hide it.”

“You can’t see anything that doesn’t exist. Now give me the link because I’m changing my mind in two seconds.”

“Okay, okay, I got it. Hero hopeful Loud Cloud over and out!” However, Oboro didn’t immediately end the call. His expression softened as he kept looking at the screen and thus Shouta for a moment longer. “Thank you, Shouta. I mean it!”

“Two, one—“

With another hearty laugh from Oboro, Shouta’s screen turned dark. Shouta continued to look at it until it vibrated with a new text message from Oboro, the preview showing the link he sent. A couple other messages followed, which enthusiastically thanked him again, accompanied by various hearts and sparkle emojis.

When he had first registered his phone number on the messaging app, Shouta had refrained from using his true name as his username. Instead he had inserted a simple cat emoji. In the end, retaining his privacy hadn’t mattered, as he had only given his number to Hizashi and Oboro – after much, much pestering – who had probably saved his contact information under some kind of terrible nickname.

Well, now Oboro had decided to capitalise on his unrevealing username.

Shouta ignored the numerous thank-you messages, but he replied, telling Oboro to continue badgering someone who was in the group to let him back in, as that should help with people dissociating him from the random stranger with the cat emoji name that was going to enter the group chat. Oboro sent a thumbs-up in return.

That taken care of, Shouta clicked on the invitation link.

2XXX/02/17  

Oboro^-^ created the group “HIZASHI 18^th B-DAY PARTY!!!”  

2XXX/05/28  

You have joined the group “HIZASHI 18^th B-DAY PARTY!!!”

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

lol so bc the pres doesnt answer hes bugging the v-pres now?

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

So. Many. Messages.

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

just tell him that Ricchan will let him back in tomorrow.  

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

So. Many. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just spamming one single emoji by now.  

+81-90-9855-9409~ BANANANA

and then mute his message notifications?  

+81-90-9855-9409~ BANANANA

yeah probably the raining cloud xD  

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

@BANANANA Probably. But I’m not gonna give him the satisfaction of checking!  

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with 300+ messages won’t I?

+81-90-9855-9409~ BANANANA

XD

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

Yeah you will xDDDDDDDDDD

+81-90-8673-4978~kiru joru

Welcome @=^_^= ! :3

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

@Tendo Sorry you have to take one for the team. Stay strong, we believe in you!!

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

@Tendo As Sarudo already said just tell him something like, “Ricchan already told you that you’re not permanently banned from the birthday party group chat. You’ll be let back in by tomorrow morning.” And maybe you want to add something about how the incessant begging is rather making us consider postponing his readmission?

Now that he had entered the group chat and the messages were rapidly popping up at the bottom of his screen, Shouta noticed that he hadn’t even thought of a secret identity to adopt if he was indeed asked who he was. The fact that he’d been greeted had already startled him, but fortunately, it seemed like his classmates were too engrossed in their conversation to pay any more attention to him.

And he was even more fortunate when the presence of another newcomer further distracted from his own.

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

Yeah I’ll just tell him that your message to him still applies and that I’m not going to overthrow your decision. And then just ignore him.  

+81-90-1712-1457 ~APathi~-~

New “ignoring Oboro challenge” record incoming? Last one was like 3h right? ^_^  

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

I think so but bruh Tendo’s too much of a bleeding heart he’s not gonna last that long xDDDDD  

+81-90-8999-6591 has joined the group.  

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

@Tendo We believe in you! :^)

  +81-90-8999-6591~Dusk Catch

Hey everyone, I’m Fukasawa Satorou, nice to meet you all! I heard from a friend of Mic that his classmates plan to throw him a surprise b-day party & was asked whether I wanted to join (a few days ago actually but better joining late than never, right)! We’ve interned at the same agency last semester so hope that explains how I know him. Rad that you’re doing this for him! :D

+81-90-8673-4978~kiru joru

@Dusk Catch Welcome! ^o^/  

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

ntmy @Dusk Catch :)  

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

welcome dusk catch *waves* :D  

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

@Dusk Catch Welcome, glad to have you here! :D The more people the merrier after all! I’m Nakamura Ritsuko, but people mostly call me Ricchan, and I’m in the same class as Yamada/Mic. ^^ You’ll find that most of us know each other as we’re in Mic’s class at U.A., but there are also people from Class B, lower grades, and others that he knows from outside of school (also from internships like you for example), so I hope you won’t feel left out in any way. ^^° Otherwise please speak up!! I’m the class president of Class 3-A, so I’ve sort of slid into the role of assuming control of all the planning/coordinating that has to be done, technically though Shirakumo Oboro is this group’s leader (please mind that he’s not currently here however, but he should be back tomorrow!) so you should feel free to also address him with any questions/concerns you might have. :)  

+81-90-1712-1457~APathi~-~

@BlowingSpark so much for your one hour long meditation huh? ^_^  

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

@APathi~-~ gagf fujimi >.>  

+81-90-8999-6591~Dusk Catch

Thank you everyone f the warm welcome! :D We’ll rock this thing for sure. ^.~  

+81-90-8999-6591~Dusk Catch

Btw is it ok to invite other people in here as well?  

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

@Dusk Catch as long as they’re friends of Mic it’s fine, but the consensus was not to invite any1 whos like a friend of a friend or sth bc otherwise things’ll get outta control  

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

@Dusk Catch And as long as they’re willing to celebrate on Yamada’s birthday on the 7^th. If they tell you that they won’t have time on that date it’s fine, but we don’t need anyone in here who’s all excited about it, hears about the date and then is like “Nope, sorry guys, I’m outta here!” >.>  

+81-90-8999-6591~Dusk Catch

No dw, I was thinking of the other two people who also had their internship at the agency at the same time as Mic and I, we were sort of an unofficial team by the end. Tiger is actually in my class and Seru is from Isamu but we definitely kept in contact afterwards, in our group chat and we also met up again some time ago, so I do think we’re all still friends. :D (At least I think so haha.) Well I’ll ask them beforehand whether they actually want to be added ofc so don’t worry about that!  

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

Then I think it should be fine, right @Ricchan?  

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

Yup, I think so too. :) Oboro has been hunting for numbers of as many of Mic’s friends as possible but naturally not even he knows them all. So this goes out to everyone, if you know someone you think is still missing here, feel free to add/invite them. :D

+81-90-8999-6591~Dusk Catch

Ok thanks for the confirmation. Then I’ll ask them and you’ll either find them in here soon, too, or not. ^^

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

guys oboro’s bugging ME about being let back in into this group chat now X’’’D

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

threatening to come over to steal my phone

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

stay strong @MariMari!  

+81-90-5357-0684~hat

wtf  

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

@BANANANA thanks I will! XD I mean I have all the good blackmail material on him so… XD  

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

also that threat prbly sounded worse than intended without context oops XD we’ve been neighbours for about ten years now so spontaneous visits aren’t really anyth special

Shouta guessed that this was one of the twins – a sister and a brother – that lived across the street from Oboro and were the same age as him. He had occasionally hung out with Hizashi, Oboro and them when Oboro’s house had been appointed as the place of choice to go to after school. While Shouta wouldn’t exactly consider them his friends, he admitted nonetheless that it had often been fun when the five of them spent an afternoon together.

+81-90-6496-6929 joined the group.  

+81-90-7994-8863 joined the group.

+81-90-6496-6929~serpent singler

heya everyone nice to meet you  

+81-90-8999-6591~Dusk Catch

As you can see I invited them. :D Also another question, is there anything planned about the party already or what’s the state of affairs?  

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

@serpent singler welcome @Dusk Catch @Ricchan knows everything

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

Yup EVERYTHING lol

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

Yes, I can post a short summary of where we’re at currently, please just wait a moment while I type it all up. ^^°  

+81-90-8999-6591~Dusk Catch

Cool thanks! :D And np I can wait! XD

In a bout of idle curiosity, Shouta opened the group info page and took a look at the list of participants. He knew that his whole class – sans Hizashi himself and Oboro currently – was likely in this group and he had been able to recognise quite a few of them by their names or their interactions in the chat just now.

But overall, the number of group members exceeded the number of his classmates by far. And even if he added the few newcomers and Oboro’s neighbours, there was still a large discrepancy between that number and the amount of people in this group.

With a quick swipe of his thumb across his phone screen, Shouta let the list of participants flash by. The momentum hadn’t been enough to make the display bump into the list’s end. He had to manually scroll a few more times to reach it.

There was suddenly an uncomfortable heaviness settling into his gut. A feeling he normally associated with their Heroics teacher’s announcement that they would do an exercise focused about their quirk’s versatility or measuring the hitting power.

Maybe that was just his stomach complaining about the overdue meal that it hadn’t gotten yet.

Shouta leaned back on his seat, stretching out his legs and lightly crossing them at the ankles, which caused him to slouch a bit down in the chair. He forcefully swiped on the screen again several times until the list was back at the top, then he started scrolling it down slowly, focusing on each individual name and trying to place it.

Aside from various names that must have belonged to his classmates, the only other ones he could attribute without a doubt were those of the twin brother that was also Oboro’s neighbour and of Kayama, an upperclassman who had graduated last year but was actually the only person in this group chat that was in possession of his phone number, from when they had interned at the same agency during the last year. Thankfully, she wasn’t online, and Shouta could only hope she wouldn’t appear and somehow blow his cover.

Overall, Shouta didn’t know why he had been so surprised by seeing how many people were interested in celebrating Hizashi’s birthday because they were his friends. He knew that Hizashi had many friends. He had been dragged along to various gatherings with some of them, even though he never interacted much with them beyond an awkward exchange of greetings.

It made sense that Hizashi had such a large number of friends. Hizashi was always brimming with charisma and energy, he could charm a whole room into listening to him if he wanted to, and not by virtue of his quirk. He was also inherently curious and always eager to learn and discover new things, whether that be skills, knowledge or world views. For all that he was talking so often, he was also excellent at listening to others.

No matter to which location he – alone or accompanied by Shouta and Oboro, or even by other friends – went, he always seemed to return with at least two names of new friends in his phone contacts and heart.

Oboro had a very similar talent. He, too, was easily able to endear people to him, probably without even knowing what he was doing, and seemed to forge new friendships with the same vigorousness and speed that a small child eating a cookie had. The only difference to Hizashi was that Shouta had absolutely no idea how he was doing it at all.

Hizashi’s tactics he had been able to observe and analyse in the many times he had demonstrated them. However, Oboro must have had a second quirk to explain his talent of casually and seemingly obliviously chatting up random, unremarkable people who then turned out to be among the most interesting conversation partners Shouta had ever met. This had, among other, equally memorable things, brought them VIP tickets for a baseball game, the most fascinating talk about hero sociology he’d had the pleasure of listening to to this very day, and an invitation to an ostrich farm.

He himself never really involved himself in those random conversations either though. Upholding their flow clearly fell to Oboro and Hizashi. Not that they minded it in any way, or even seemed to notice. Shouta was content just to listen, and if he had the urge to interject with a comment, he mostly swallowed it down because it was likely an unfriendly one. Sometimes their chance acquaintance gave him prompts to enter the conversation as well, but after a few awkward exchanges, there was often a mutual silent agreement between the two of them to drop the attempt again.

When Shouta dragged himself back out of his thoughts, he found that he had been mindlessly scrolling up and down the list of group members.

As if that would somehow make it smaller and only contain names that he remembered.

With a quick shake of his head, he banned this line of thought from his mind entirely and tried to refocus on his mission. Wasn’t it nice that Hizashi was a social butterfly and had so many friends? Shouta was not jealous of it, because he knew how limited the amount of his energy that could be devoted to social interaction was, but he was still able to appreciate the objective amenities of having many people to call one’s friends. It wasn’t his thing, but it was very much Hizashi’s thing, and Oboro’s, too, and a large part of each of their personalities in fact.

He knew that, and if he was honest, a part of him somewhere deep, deep down also liked them for their outgoingness specifically. After all, Shouta himself would have likely never thought of talking to them. So if they hadn’t taken the initiative, the three of them never would have gotten to know each other so familiarly.

But he was getting caught up in his head once again, instead of keeping an eye on the chat like Oboro had asked him to do.

Shouta tapped the back-button so he could go back to surveying the chat and, as expected, was faced with many messages that had been sent in the meantime. Before he could start reading through them in order, a new message popped up at the end of the chain and the chat automatically jumped to display it, as well as the others that followed in quick succession.

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

just uuhh quick question to make sure  

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

mic’ll really appreciate a surprise party and it wasn’t his plan to spend the day just with his boyfriends or sth like that?  

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

idk i just wanted to make sure becaue cloudboy can be really dense sometimes and not pick up on any subtle hints

If Shouta’s stomach had felt vaguely queasy before, it now felt like a ball of lead had dropped into it all of a sudden.

Apparently he didn’t know Hizashi as familiarly as he had thought.

Because Hizashi had never mentioned to him that he had a boyfriend. (Or even several of them? Was that a typo or facts?)

Well, it made sense that Hizashi’s other friends didn’t only know just as much about him as Shouta did – or thought he did – but even more.

Because Hizashi was always talking and always eager to share seemingly every thought that crossed his mind, one had the feeling that one knew everything about him after spending even just a week in his vicinity. But it did make sense that there were pieces of information that Hizashi wasn’t sharing as liberally as others.

And it also made sense that he was selectively confiding these to people.

Starting with those he trusted the most.

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

lol understatement of the century  

+81-90-9900-8473~sugimoto

Wdym “sometimes”? xD  

+81-90-9900-8473~sugimoto

But it’ll prob be fine, I mean Mic and not liking a party? I’d be seriously concerned for him if that ever happened  

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

as long as the music’s fine I don’t think we can do wrong with throwing him a party, it’s mic we’re talking about  

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

dude u sure u shouldve just posted this in a chat w/ a fuckton of rando peeps  

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

I thought all the people in here are his friends either way?  

+81-90-1545-4164~luminousturtle

^this and also @2ndArael i haven’t ever seen mic not being open about being bi so i don’t think anyone doesn’t know /shrug  

+81-90-8015-7064~Naoko

Or about his boyfriends.  

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

True. XD  

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

sry guys no reason to go all aggro on me jst wanted to point it out  

+81-90-9900-8473~sugimoto

Wasn’t meant as an attack surely, you’re totally good!!! Mic just makes no bones about it so I also don’t think anyone DOESN’t know who he’s dating ^^”

Well, Shouta was living proof that this wasn’t true. Not that he had any desire to admit that whatsoever.

+81-90-1545-4164~luminousturtle

Yeah sorry @2ndArael it totally wasn’t meant to come across as attacking you

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

ag ag

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

@everyone To all the newcomers, here is the little overview of the things we have discussed and planned so far for Mic’s birthday party! For everyone else it serves as a reminder as well. If you have any questions regarding any of the points please don’t hesitate to ask!

•  Location: Well, we’re a bit late for this already, so what we’re currently looking for is just a “hall big enough to fit about 50 people”, without much concern for other variables. ^^° However, @DreamyGirl’s father is an event manager so she said she’ll try to wangle something for us here!
• Food & Drinks: There were some discussions about whether we would commission a party caterer to provide the foods and drinks for us or whether we’d assign everyone a food or drink that they’d have to supply. In a vote the caterer option was in the lead, but as it has been conducted some time ago and many more people have joined since then, I think we could also retake it if that’s what people wish? However, the decision would have to be made soon, as there has to be enough time left to find a caterer/come up with a list of food and allocate it to people and for them to buy the ingredients and make them.
• Decoration: Here we already agreed that everybody would contribute something to the decoration, either from their own ideas or upon request from the decoration team. This is just so that nobody has to buy 30 packs of paper streamers nor somebody has to advance too much money, which we’re generally trying to avoid. As I said, there will be a team that will take care of fixing the decoration, @Sakura<3 has already agreed to undertake the management of it, but roles have not been assigned yet. We did already agree, however, that those people who don’t help in the decoration and general setting up of the space would later, after the party, have to be part of the clean-up crew. ^.~
• Music: Has to be top-class of course, luckily @itani yusei and the others from the radio station already said they’d look after this topic. :D
• In general, there was some talk about perhaps making this a theme party in the beginning that came to nothing though? I don’t know if this should be revived once more so a conclusive, official decision, whether it may be in favour or against it, can be reached? If voting on this is a thing of interest to you all, it should definitely also be one of the top priorities to take care of as quickly as possible.
• Money/the whole financial aspect: The sum of expenses will be divided equally among all of us guests in the end. While I’m only unofficially assuming the role of the coordinator for this whole thing, I *have* actually been appointed as the treasurer by Oboro. I have a spreadsheet that’s accessible by everyone but that only I’m able to modify, and I ask that people please send me their expenses, with receipts of course, so I’m able to add them there. On the aspect of costs, when we reach the stage of items to buy assigned to people: You’ll not have to justify every single yen you spend more by not buying the cheapest products on the market. However, if there’s a decent discrepancy between what we’d expect an item to cost and what you spend or if you want to buy something additionally to the list, you *should* clear that purchase with us beforehand. Just some quick notice on how this will roughly go off, we’re not at that stage yet and more info will follow when we reach it. :D

That’s it from me on our current state of affairs, as I said if you have any questions please feel free to ask! :)

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

And that, everyone, is why Ricchan is the undisputed MVP of our class \^0^/

+81-90-1712-1457~APathi~-~

Aaand Ricchan’s ~*~Wordiness~*~ strikes again ^_^

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

@APathi~-~ Ricchan uses wordiness
it is very effective against fujimi’s brain xd

+81-90-6496-6929~serpent singler

thx for the info

+81-90-8560-6363~amistery

*thumbs up*

+81-90-1712-1457~APathi~-~

@BlowingSpark ^_^

+81-90-8999-6591~Dusk Catch

Wow, thank you very much for that extensive and comprehensive overview immediately updating everyone on all the important things @Ricchan :D

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

@Dusk Catch Thank you, I’m glad you found it helpful ^^

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

@Ricchan Say didn’t oboro mention that mic’s parents are also involved & would contribute some money? Which would mean that each of us would have to pay less right

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

@cbcw Yes, I’m remembering something along those lines as well – but please don’t take my word on that because *I’m* not in contact with Mic’s parents and thus cannot confirm anything. ^^° So please just ask Oboro when he comes back, okay?

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

@Ricchan KK will do :)

+81-90-1543-6739~HopewingTheFlyingHero

Question here!

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

Feel free to speak lol

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

Yes, though I’m afraid I have to go afk for a moment ^^ But someone else can surely help you in the meantime.

+81-90-1543-6739~HopewingTheFlyingHero

Okay, I just wanted to ask whether it’s already been decided that the party’s definitely going to be a “party” kind of party?

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

??

+81-90-1543-6739~HopewingTheFlyingHero

What I mean with that is that it’ll be in a big hall with music and dancing basically.

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

Yeah I think so

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

@HopewingTheFlyingHero As far as I know that’s the case

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

@HopewingTheFlyingHero That’s what has been planned thus far, yes. Wherever we go, it has to fit quite a lot of people after all. Though just earlier we discussed about doing some kind of other, small activity before the party, as a red herring from the big surprise party of sorts, but we couldn’t reach a conclusion because the conversation was… derailed. ^^ Feel free to make your own suggestion as long as it isn’t karaoke. xD

There it was, the reason for being temporarily kicked out of the chat that Oboro had mentioned.

Shouta frowned. It was said so casually, so matter-of-factly, but it honestly didn’t make much sense to him.

Because Hizashi absolutely loved karaoke. And he was also very good at it.

So while a statement like this might have been a dig at someone’s singing talent in different circumstances, it really wasn’t warranted when it came to Hizashi.

Originally, Shouta had planned to stay absolutely silent in this chat and not utter a peep in whatever conversations unfolded. But…

There shouldn’t be any harm in asking for a simple clarification on that limitation at least.

His fingers typed his question on the keyboard and hit sent before he could second-guess himself.

Why shouldn’t it be karaoke?

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

For obvious reasons. ^^°

Shouta’s frown deepened.

I’m not aware of any of them

He didn’t know whether it was funny that the chat which been constantly active and hard to keep track of due to new messages popping up at the bottom almost as soon as one had finished reading the previous ones was now rendered silent for at least a dozen of seconds.

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

Hey @=^_^=, can I ask how you know Mic?

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

It’s not meant in an aggressive way I’m just curious?

Fortunately, Shouta had been able to come up with a cover name and relationship to Hizashi in the meantime.

I’m Yamada Taro, a second cousin once removed of Mic

Although I fail to see how that’s important?

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

No it makes a lot of sense why you don’t know about the incident then!

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

You see, when we (as in our class) were still in our first year at U.A., we celebrated the end of term in a karaoke bar once. And when it was Mic’s turn he managed to fry the whole karaoke device with his quirk somehow. It was an accident of course but still a hassle to deal with and that’s why Mic’s banned from karaoke. ^^°

Of course Shouta still vividly remembered that incident as well. However—

Considering how much his quirk control has improved in the meantime I don’t know what you’re worried about?  

Which is actually something you should know better than me as *you all* see him in class every day

There was another lull in the conversation. Shouta waited patiently for the next response to his text messages.

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

You’re not wrong there, but still, making the financial calculations with a side note of a reserve fund to cover expenses of an incident that *possibly* might occur is still not a tempting deal, you know?

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

Like, no matter how small the risk might be, not going to karaoke would set it at 0 flat, so it’s more logical to drop the idea entirely

Yeah it’s very important to make those financial calculations because Mic would *totally* leave you all to pay the bills for a destruction that *he* caused. Completely in line with his character.

There was a faint voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like Oboro or Hizashi himself saying, “Shouchan, your withering sarcasm is showing again.” Consciously releasing the tension he noticed having settled in his shoulders, Shouta typed further.

Look I’m not here to pick a fight with you

It’s just that karaoke is one of Mic’s favourite pastimes so organising a party or pre-party with it would be a guaranteed success

But if his classmates have no faith in his abilities I doubt my words hold much weight

+81-90-8015-7064~Naoko

@=^_^= kind of has a point

+81-90-5350-7979~Iida T.

Agreed.

+81-90-5350-7979~Iida T.

We’re kinda givin Mic too little credit aren’t we?

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

Yup

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

tbf last time mic shredded sth w/ his q in class was ages ago

+81-90-4946-6600~L Exeel

yeah, i really doubt anything would happen at karaoke

+81-90-2760-2243~Arata

Me too, I admittedly don’t have heroics with him every other day or know how often @=^_^= sees him but I agree that the last time my eardrums were in danger of getting blown up when I was with him was quite a bit ago ^^

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

*IF* something does happen it’ll ruin Mic’s whole 18^th birthday. That’s all I want to emphasise.

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

But if we’re recognising but deliberately deciding to take that risk, that’s something different. Plus Ultra after all.

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

Perhaps we can take a vote on that as well?

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

That sounds the most fair to me.

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

agreed

+81-90-7611-2392~Fuukuuu39

Yeah that would be good

  +81-90-8560-6363~amistery

*thumbs up*

+81-90-3104-8551~itani yusei

Sounds great

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

@Ricchan what do you think?

+81-90-8673-4978~kiru joru

*raises hand* I’m in favour too

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

oboro’s gonna have a field day with this

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

lmao yeah

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

Should we *do* hold a vote on it and it *does* turn out in favour of karaoke he’s going to be so unbearable smug about it… xD

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

X’’DDD reason enough to vote against it guys!!!!!!!!

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

just kidding just kidding, i wouldn’t ruin mic’s b-day party over my squabbls with oboro

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

UNLESS

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

X’’DDD

+81-90-1372-2875~MariMari

nah i’m just going to spill the beans on every embarrassing stuff he ever did X’’DDDD

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

Sorry for being afk everyone! ^^ As far as I’m concerned we can definitely hold a vote on the karaoke question, that’s probably the most democratic solution. :) I’ll add it to the to-do list!

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

@MariMari lol PLEASE DO although I’m actually not sure whether I can bear even more stupidity

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

Speaking of, should I post the current to-do list here as well for everyone to see?

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

@Ricchan Sure!

+81-90-8560-6363~amistery

*thumbs up*

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

Okay, here it is. ^^ It’s only semi-sorted by priority though and a bit of a mess, sorry about that. ^^° And it’s also definitely not complete yet, so if you find that I’ve missed something, please tell me!

+81-90-2402-0144 ~Ricchan

To Do:

• !!!Find all of Mic’s remaining friends/those who are interested & finalise guest list
• !!!Get back to @DreamyGirl with final number of guests to look for fitting location
• !!!Collect money for deposit for booking the location!!
• Caterer vs home-made food vote
• Theme party vs no theme party vote
• Pre-party(?) or not vote -> if yes, karaoke or no karaoke vote
• Something that just occurred to me?: Music and dancing is often accompanied by special lighting, so we would probably need someone who takes care of that too?
• Assign Decoration Team and Clean-up Team roles
• Plan decoration
• Distribute decoration purchase duties
• ???Try to ask Aizawa for his phone number again so he can be included in the chat and doesn’t have to be kept informed via MoMs
• ???Try to find out whether Mic’s parents are indeed (financially) involved in the planning of the party or not
• ???Create a schedule – for the party preparation but also for the party itself(?)

Shouta’s heart jolted in his chest when he suddenly and completely unexpectedly saw his name mentioned in the chat.

Before he could further think about this offhand mention though, a message notification popping up on top of his screen distracted him.

It was from Oboro again and read,

Oboro ^-^

Shouta?????????????

Another message notification replaced it almost instantly and instead of trying to read it before it inevitably went away as well, Shouta clicked on it, opening the chat between him and Oboro that way.

Oboro ^-^

Shouta?????????????

Oboro ^-^

Shouta!!!!!!!!!  

Oboro ^-^

maria & i were txting as u suggested and she suddnly said theyre debating a karaoke party in the chat???????  

Oboro ^-^

Shouta???????????????? whats going on????????

Really, Shouta wondered why exactly Oboro had asked him to infiltrate the chat in the first place if he evidently had plenty of other sources available that led to him keeping perfectly up to date.

On any other day, he would have rolled his eyes at that, and likely also conveyed the eye-roll to Oboro via text.

But this time, the thought left a bad aftertaste in his mouth that he just couldn’t explain.

Ignoring Oboro’s clear abuse of punctuation marks, he texted back,

Calm down

What has been debated is doing the “pre-party” some people thought were a good idea to set Hizashi on the wrong track

Not changing the party to a karaoke party

Oboro ^-^

Still!!! Saem thing!!!

And it has only been suggested that they *might* hold a vote on whether there *maybe* could be a karaoke “pre-party”

  Oboro ^-^

still omg wtf

Oboro ^-^

that’s crazy

Oboro ^-^

did something happen that they all hit their heads or sth

Oboro ^-^

is this just a fever dream i’m having????

Do you want me to send you screenshots to prove that it isn’t.

Not waiting for a reply, Shouta hit the back button to go back into the birthday party group chat and do just that. However, before he could put his plans into action, his attention was inadvertently drawn to his name that had been dropped in the chat yet again.

+81-90-8015-7064~Naoko

Yeah that would be good ^^  

+81-90-6496-6929~serpent singler

question: who‘s aizawa?  

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

@serpent singler He’s Mic’s other boyfriend  

+81-90-6496-6929~serpent singler

ooohhh I see

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

And veeeeery reluctant to give out his phone number, hence why he’s not in our class chat or anything haha.

Shouta stared at the texts, even as others followed and slowly pushed them out of the screen.

The last time he could recall his head being only filled with static, unable to think straight, had been when he’d accidentally got himself a concussion during hero training.

Where was the text telling “serpent singler” that it had obviously been a joke? He waited for it, but it didn’t follow even as the seconds ticked by and the conversation moved on.

Painfully slowly, it dawned on Shouta that Katasugi wasn’t joking but completely serious. He must really think that he was Hizashi’s boyfriend. And no one else from his classmates had spoken up and corrected the notion.

How could they think that he was… dating Hizashi?

Ice-cold fear started spreading in his chest.

He couldn’t—He couldn’t be that obvious about his feelings, could he?

And what even was Hizashi’s “other boyfriend” supposed to mean?

But as soon as the question had formed in his mind, Shouta already knew the answer. He didn’t even need Oboro shooting him a myriad of question marks again asking him where he’d gone as a clue before the puzzle pieces neatly lined up for him.

Somehow, his classmates thought that the three of them – Hizashi, Oboro and he – were dating.

Shouta tossed his phone onto the table, where it slid across the surface but fortunately came to a stop before it could slide over the edge.

Needless to say, Shouta arrived at school the next day exhausted and drained after a sleepless night.

As soon as he entered the classroom, his gaze was drawn to Oboro and Hizashi, who were sitting at Oboro’s desk and animatedly talking about something. Automatically, Shouta dropped his backpack onto his chair when he passed his own seat on his way towards them.

Then the conscious part of his mind caught up with what he was doing.

He aborted the motion. He slid his bag underneath his desk and sat down on his chair, placing his arms on the table and his head on them in turn.

Perhaps a quick nap during the few minutes that were left until homeroom started would give him at least a little boost of energy and help him get through the day.

Last night he had only tossed and turned in his bed. His brain, in overdrive, had mentally time-travelled through every single interaction he’d had with his two best friends, trying to figure out which of them might have given away the feelings he secretly harboured for them.

However, when the hand on the clock had strayed into a vicinity that was closer to his wake-up time than to his bed time and when cheeky rays of sunlight had dared simmering on the horizon and peeking into his room through the blinds, he had understood that he most likely hadn’t tripped up and revealed his feelings on accident at some point but that the problem was much more fundamental than that.

Shouta hadn’t paid the idea of finding friends when entering high school any mind. He hadn’t had any luck making friends before that. There was no reason to suspect that this should change in this next and last school he would visit. Of course he could do without being hated by his classmates, but that was about it.

Nevertheless, when one boy asked for his name and struck up a conversation with him as soon as they were seated – likely simply due to the fact that they were seatmates – he found no reason not to respond.

At first, he only went along with whatever shenanigans Hizashi and Oboro ended up in because he had nothing better to do. And also because, well… it was nice to be included and not take up the role of the perpetual outsider again.

Then he had realised that he actually liked them.

Liked listening to whatever topic they could be talking about for hours, liked going with them to whatever eccentric place had caught their fancy, liked spending the breaks between classes and the afternoons and his free days with them.

Liked being friends with them.

The euphoria of this must have went to his head, even before everything had then intensified further when he realised that his feelings might have skidded over the marking of what was still friendship territory and what was already beyond that.

While Oboro and Hizashi had indeed befriended him, so had they all the rest of the class.

And many other people beyond it. And continued to do so almost every other day.

They had heaps of people to choose from to hang out with them whenever they wanted to spend time in someone’s company.

Shouta only had them.

He must have clung to them too much and taken it for granted that they wanted to hang out with him as much as he wanted to hang out with them.

Every morning, he went up to Hizashi’s or Oboro’s desk – depending on around which one the other two had gathered – inserting himself into their space without giving them any other choice. At lunch, during training sessions, after school… It was a stable pattern at this point.

Not that the two of them were very likely to say it out loud if they were bothered by his presence. He knew them well enough by now and their hearts were simply way too soft for that.

It was very likely that they were aware of him having no one else besides them to turn to. So they continued to endure his constant company instead of abandoning him.

And at some point, his clinging must have turned so noticeable to the outside that people could only explain the way they were attached at the hip by assuming that they were dating.

He would have to keep himself better in check in the future.

It was going to hurt, but he was so grateful for Oboro and Hizashi’s presence in his life he couldn’t even put it into words, and the last thing he wanted was to jeopardise whatever relationship they had due to his behaviour.

“Shou-ta!”

Shouta’s eyes snapped open as a heavy weight suddenly settled down onto his back, pressing his upper body uncomfortably into the edge of the table and squeezing the air out of his lungs.

To his credit, he didn’t even have to shoot a hard glare over his shoulder before Oboro eased up again and stopped putting his whole weight onto his back. He did smile sunnily though when Shouta turned around.

“Hey, what happened yesterday? You stopped talking all of a sudden and I couldn’t get a hold of you anymore. Something wrong?”

Shouta shook his head, his mind frantically scrambling for an excuse.

“I nearly set my kitchen on fire because I was distracted from my cooking by the bunch of messages from you,” is what he ultimately blurted out, staring Oboro down in the way he was wont to do to combat any embarrassment he felt.

“Damn,” Oboro’s face fell. “Sorry about that.”

How he could have no sceptical bone in his body at all would always be a mystery to Shouta.

He dismissed the incident with a shrug of his shoulders and mumbling against the palm of his hand, “Nothing happened in the end so whatever.”

“Well…” Now that he knew that the event led to no serious consequences, the grin came back to Oboro’s face. “Don’t dare ever complaining about my cooking again.”

“Your attempts at it. And I reserve the right to complain if I’m served something that’s going to give me food poison.”

“You don’t know if it would have, you were too chicken to find out!”

“Considering that the actual chicken wasn’t identifiable as one anymore but just a sooty residue that had to be scraped off the pot, I don’t regret it one bit.”

Oboro laughed and flicked his bangs out of his eyes. “Man, we really have to up our game in the cooking department, huh? Otherwise Hizashi’s going to be the only one in our household who can cook and thus provide us with food one day.”

“I HEARD MY NAME?” Hizashi’s voice blasted through the classroom from the other end of it, where he had chatted with Oizuchi, Fujimi and Mushimori, even without being augmented by his quirk. A second later, he had already excused himself from the conversation and was weaving his way through the desks until he arrived at Shouta’s, grinning from ear to ear. “Which one out of the multitude of my charming talents did you praise, my dear listeners?”

“Your ability not to mess up heating up cup noodles,” Shouta conceded, biting on his lower lip to hide a smirk.

“In contrast to the two of us,” Oboro added cheerfully, gesturing between himself and Shouta. “You’re our last hope to keep us from suffering the grim fate of dying of starvation after we’ve graduated!”

Before Hizashi had a chance to reply, their teacher entered the classroom and ordered them all to go back to their seats while he himself approached the teacher’s desk. Oboro childishly puffed up his cheeks in a pout but led himself be swept to his seat by the current of other students heading back to their own as well. Hizashi could plop down into the chair next to Shouta’s though.

“Did you try cooking on your own yesterday after all?” he asked, leaning over to Shouta while the rustling and bustling of their classmates still hadn’t died down.

“Yeah, and it was a disaster. So much for the recipe being ‘so easy not even you or Oboro would mess it up’,” Shouta replied, pretending to shift the fictitious blame to Hizashi for being the one to relentlessly search for and eventually suggest an easy recipe for him to try the previous afternoon in the first place.

“You know,” Hizashi briefly glanced to their teacher and angled his body so it was facing the front more properly but continued speaking nevertheless, “I still have those vouchers for a cooking class and they haven’t expired yet.”

Shouta followed suit and turned towards the front while muttering under his breath, “You just want to enjoy seeing me and Oboro fail horribly.”

When his eyes flickered back to Hizashi for a second after his attendance had been taken, Hizashi was wearing a sly grin. “Guilty as charged!” he proclaimed, loud enough for their teacher to throw a glare in his direction and raise his voice demonstratively while he finished reading the day’s announcements. (He had abandoned calling Hizashi out every time he was speaking when he was not supposed to or louder than appropriate somewhere towards the end of their second year.)

Hizashi amiably stopped talking and seemed to offer his whole attention to their teacher’s words, which gave Shouta a moment to breathe and gather his thoughts.

It was just so easy to slip back into the usual banter with the other two. Shouta hoped that he wouldn’t have to miss this rush their frequent repartees caused him to feel entirely at some point.

But the question of how often he would still be able to hang out with Oboro and Hizashi if they could freely choose to do so and not be pressured into it by him ceaselessly sticking to them like a leech made his stomach churn uncomfortably.

Perhaps he might be granted small mercies and it would be like a slow weaning, giving him time to readjust back to what was going to be his new (or old) normal.

All he could do was to hope that would be the case.

His thoughts were interrupted by catching the tail end of their teacher’s sentence informing them that the next lesson would involve partner work and that they should already start sorting themselves into pairs. The command was answered with the scraping of chairs over the floor as people got up, nearly all of his classmates starting to talk all at once, and the loud, even among all the noise very distinct groans from Hizashi and Oboro that they both always let out when it was announced that they were going to work in pairs of their own choice.

Shouta turned towards Hizashi so his elbow was resting on the back of his chair, watching Hizashi rummaging through his bag and waiting for Oboro to come over.

Hizashi was likely searching for his notebook in which they had drawn up a list meticulously recording who out of the three of them had paired up with each other at which task so they could rotate who was the leftover one every time.

Shouta at least couldn’t say off the top of his head whose turn it was going to be next, so it was probably for the better to consult the list.

But then it suddenly occurred to him: Such partner work assignments were the perfect opportunity to show the other two that he was fully capable of working with one of their classmates even without being forced to do so.

That they didn’t need to go out of their way to accommodate him as much as they did.

While Oboro arrived and hopped onto the desk of the seat in front of Hizashi that had already been vacated, hanging his head in displeasure at the task, Shouta let his gaze sweep through the room.

As far as he could tell, many of his classmates had already found their partners, as was expected. If he wanted to act it was better to do so fast.

It wasn’t like there was anyone he would have absolutely loathed to be paired with, but being partnered up due to being the only persons left over always brought with it an awkwardness of its own.

That Hizashi apparently had to do a more thorough digging to reach his notebook this time played into Shouta’s hands.

With as much nonchalance as he could manage, Shouta mumbled, “Isn’t it irrelevant whose rightful turn it would be to pair up?”

Both Hizashi and Oboro lifted their eyes from Hizashi’s bag to look at him.

“Well, it keeps things fair, right?” Hizashi responded, his brow furrowed in confusion as he likely wondered what exactly Shouta was getting at.

“It also makes this whole process unnecessarily complicated.” Shouta gestured between them. “I’ll just be the one to search for another partner.”

And with that he stood up and quickly strode between the rows of desks and chairs before the other two could protest, scanning the room and the pairs that had already formed yet again.

His gaze landed on Kuga, who was still in his seat, probably too absorbed in his drawings to pay much attention to what his classmates were doing around him as always.

As far as project partners went, there were definitely worse options.

The first time Shouta had to work together with him had been full of conflict, but they had managed to get it together in the end, and Shouta had learned to appreciate visualisation techniques instead of solely text-based slides while Kuga had accepted that the exact graphic embellishment he preferred was his task to do.

After they had negotiated these ground rules, subsequent teamwork between them had been much smoother.

Kuga didn’t look up from his sketching when Shouta approached him. His eyes only briefly flickered upwards when Shouta grabbed the chair behind him in order to sit himself down on it. “You’re free?” Shouta asked, mostly just out of politeness.

“Yep,” Kuga answered, popping the ‘p’ and emphasising it with a sweep of his pencil while his eyes remained glued to the sheet.

Shouta turned towards the front to hear the next instructions their teacher would be giving them.

For the most part, their battle training lessons were exciting, adrenaline-filled spectacles that left one’s head spinning, one’s lungs burning and one’s quirk’s imagined mana bars depleted.

There were times when it could be horrifyingly boring though.

Especially recently, U.A. had started testing letting robots take the role of the villains in battle simulation exercises. While the third years were the ones closest to graduation, it was still quite a few months away, and compared to the lower grades, they were logically the ones with the most skill and experience.

And thus also the ones most equipped to withstanding it should the robots, despite the heavy security mechanisms put in place, go haywire.

If their technology was going to continue advancing from where it was, the villain robots might actually hold potential. As things were, however, the programming was still so immature that they didn’t pose much of a challenge. Even watching the other students battle them didn’t give one much of an insight into anything.

The teachers continued with these exercises though, for the development of the students and the robots alike.

The problem was that there was nothing really to do besides staring into space while one awaited ones turn. There wasn’t enough time for Shouta to take a nap. And although he could have probably used it to recite English vocabulary in his head, that was decidedly not something he was interested in doing.

“Shouta, stop eating your hair!”

“’m not eating it.”

Still, Shouta obediently opened his jaw, the strand of hair falling out of it but getting stuck on his face due to its wetness. Lifting his eyes from the ground and glancing up at Hizashi, he saw that the other had crossed his arms in front of his chest and huffed.

“You totally were.” Hizashi sat down next to him and brushed the strand from Shouta’s cheek. He guided it behind his ear and used the gesture to capture his whole mane of hair in a loose hold. “Why do you torture your poor hair like that? I’ll have to tie it up if you don’t stop.”

Shouta grimaced. He hated the feeling of a hair tie against his neck. Or the way a ponytail slapped into one’s face at every sharp turn.

“Oh, why not pigtails again!” Oboro suggested, sitting down on Shouta’s other side and intercepting the punch Shouta aimed at his shoulder with a chuckle.

Hizashi parted his hair so he was holding each part in one of his hands but made a noise of disagreement. “We’d need two hair ties for that, which I don’t have.”

Ever so gently, he tugged at the hair, and Shouta willingly followed the gesture, leaning backwards until he was almost slumped against Hizashi’s chest. Then Hizashi let go and pushed his fingers forward, and Shouta was barely able to stifle the moan that wanted to escape his lips as he felt them lightly running over his scalp, leaving him boneless and sagging even further down.

Damn it. He still cursed the day his friends had discovered this weakness of his, and would continue to do so until the end of time.

“Pity.” Oboro put on an exaggerated pout. “Maybe we can find someone who has hair ties, the last time he looked really—“ He was interrupted by Shouta kicking against his shin, though with his current relaxed condition, there was not much force behind it.

It only lead to Oboro and Hizashi breaking out into laughter.

“Aaaaaanyway, guys,” Hizashi untangled one of his hands and snapped his fingers in front of their faces a few times to get their attention when he had recovered, “my parents told me what my birthday present is going to be!”

Oboro’s face clouded over with a frown. “Uncool, man.”

“No, no, no,” Hizashi defended, an excited smile still on his lips. “They had a valid reason, you see?  Because my present’s going to be three tickets for a weekend trip to a hot spring resort! Buuuut you know what the best thing is? They won’t come! So no parent supervision!” He pulled his other hand from Shouta’s hair as well and mimicked shooting finger guns in the other two’s direction.

“I take it back!” A stupidly large grin was back on Oboro’s face and his eyes seemed to sparkle just as eagerly as Hizashi’s. “Dude, how awesome is that?!”

“I know, right? They kinda had to tell me ‘cause I was thinking about doing another radio internship this summer, and with the three concerts I wanted to visit as well and my hero internship and all the festivals and stuff, they were a bit anxious how it could still fit in,” Hizashi admitted sheepishly. “So they said that I should leave some space in my calendar and tell them about it so they can book everything. But, I mean, that also depends on when you two have time! Sooo if you could get back to me about when you’re free on a weekend as quickly as possible so everything can be pulled off that’d be neat.”

Out of nowhere, the thought struck Shouta whether Hizashi’s parents also thought that the three of them were together, as boyfriends, and that their son simply hadn’t had the courage to formally introduce them as such yet.

It almost made him jerk away from the others, but he fortunately managed to suppress that reaction.

As far as he knew, Hizashi’s relationship with his parents was fantastic, so they shouldn’t think that he’d have any reason to hide something from them.

But on the other hand, why else would they have offered such a present that included him and Oboro specifically?

“Alright, Shouta?” Tipping his head back, Shouta was able to see Hizashi beaming down at him. “Just tell me when it’d fit into your schedule as quick as possible, ‘kay?”

Shouta grunted in vague assent, and as if rewarding him for that, Hizashi’s hands were back in his hair and continued massaging his head.

Then all three had their attention diverted from the topic by Sugimoto scuffing up to them. “Don’t mind me, I’m just here to steal Aizawa from you,” she said in a flat voice.

Immediately, Oboro and Hizashi both gasped, gripping one of Shouta’s arms each.

“You want to kidnap him! That’s villainous!”

“We will not let you realise your fiendish scheme!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sugimoto not-so-subtly rolled her eyes, “our team’s scheduled to start in like five minutes though.”

“No,” Hizashi protested dramatically, clutching Shouta’s arm even tighter, “this is emotional extortion! Also we’re protesting against always being put into different teams for about half a year already! Really, wouldn’t it make much more sense to let us have all the practise we can get for our agency?”

“Please don’t protest where I’m going to get a failing grade for not having shown up to an exercise,” Shouta deadpanned, batting their hands away and sluggishly clambering to his feet. He followed Sugimoto, ignoring the excessive cheers and good luck wishes called after him.

“Are you still looking for the off switch for those two?” Sugimoto asked with a wry smile. “If so, please tell me when you find it, alright?”

Shouta held back an amused snort at her reference to something he had once proclaimed he would do in their first year. “Will do.”

“Thanks,” she responded, the chuckle in her voice making it clear that she was joking.

They continued on their way to meet up with their other teammates. If Shouta remembered correctly from the plan shown at the start of the lesson, they were in a team with Nakamura and Niragi.

The other two were already waiting in front of the door to the battle ground. “Eraserhead, Rollerblade! Ready to go?” Nakamura greeted cheerfully while Niragi only nodded at them.

Together they entered the compound and took positions on the designated starting platform. Peering through the windows to the ground below them though, they could see that last clean-up movements were still getting done, so they would likely have to wait a few more minutes.

Shouta would have been absolutely fine passing the time in silence, but it seemed like his teammates wanted to take the opportunity to make more conversation.

“Say, Aizawa,” Sugimoto suddenly addressed him, “do you have a cellphone?”

The question came so out of left field that it took Shouta a few moments to answer it. “Of course,” he replied bewildered.

“Okay, well, you never gave your number to anyone to enter our class chat, so I wasn’t sure.” Sugimoto shrugged. “Anyway, you’ve heard about the big surprise birthday party we want to throw for Mic?”

Shouta nodded, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. As if Oboro hadn’t constantly bothered him about it since the idea for it had first come to him.

“There’s a group chat to talk about all the planning and organisation issues of it, too. I’d be easier if you entered it as well. Then you’d always be up to date with everything about it.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be staying up to date without the group chat,” Shouta declined.

Sugimoto shrugged again. “Suit yourself.” Then she turned around towards Nakamura, saying, “I tried, Ricchan.”

“It’s fine, there’s no obligation to join it after all. You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she told Shouta directly, smiling kindly. As an afterthought, she added, “And Oboro’s probably already informing you about everything, right?”

That he did, so Shouta nodded once more. “Yeah, but thank you for the offer,” he politely acknowledged, even though his mind was far away already.

Oboro and Hizashi had always kept him in the loop about everything important – and also unimportant, unfortunately – that was discussed in the class group chat. After a couple of times pestering him and inquiring about why he refused to give his number to anyone else, they had just accepted it as a fact and rolled with it. Another thing where he had relied on them too much.

“Anytime, really! Should you change your mind and want to join it or even our class chat, just let me know!”

He couldn’t allow himself to go down that road any further at that moment though. He had to focus on the exercise as the sign above their heads lightened up and started presenting a countdown to them now.

“Everyone good to go? Arael? Eraser? Roller?” Nakamura looked at them in turn.

“At your command, Glam, I guess,” Sugimoto responded, and as neither of the boys had any objections, they went along with it.

Shouta tried to concentrate entirely on the battle, but whether it was due to the thoughts still weighing heavily on his mind or the sleepless night weighing heavily on his body, a moment of abstraction lead to him being thrown against a wall.

His arm that he’d used to shield his head with and his side hurt and would likely bruise, but it luckily wasn’t bad enough that it would have gotten him a trip to the infirmary. He could even continue contributing to the fight just fine.

Nevertheless, Niragi walked next to him on their way back to the observation deck. His whole body was attuned to each of Shouta’s movement, prepared to support him if he so much as stumbled, despite Shouta waving him off and telling him that it was unnecessary.

He couldn’t find it in him to be too annoyed about it though. Overall, he got along with Niragi quite well. The only thing that grated on his nerves was the other boy’s tendency to mumble so quietly every time he said something that one had to strain one’s ears to be able to catch it.

Like he did at that moment once again. Although it was probably just another apology, seeing as he had been the one who had accidentally sent Shouta flying.

Shouta disguised his irritated huff as sighing heavily due to his bruised side and then had to wince when the motion did sent a throb through his injuries. Niragi’s hands darted out to him worriedly.

“I’m fine,” Shouta dismissed his concern.

“My apology once again, Aizawa.” Niragi was still mumbling, but the increased proximity between them meant that Shouta could actually understand him this time. The other boy lowered his hands again and, darting a glance at the road before them, added with a small smile playing around his lips, “I’d better make haste to withdraw from your side anyway, lest your reception committee should trample me.”

Really, Shoua’s mind was still reeling from discovering the discrepancy between the other’s verbal speech and his texting habits the previous day.

He didn’t have time to wonder about it further though before he was hit by a flurry of voices demanding to know his condition.

“Shouta!”

“Shouta, you okay?”

“That looked really nasty! Does it hurt?”

“And where?”

“Do we need to go to the nurse office?”

“I am fine,” Shouta repeated yet one more time. He removed Hizashi’s hands that had carefully started probing at his side. “Just a few bruises, but nothing warranting a trip to Recovery Girl,” he added when the other two didn’t look entirely convinced. “Our physical training lessons are over for the day after all, so they won’t bother me.”

Considering the exhaustion he still felt, he really wasn’t sure whether Recovery Girl healing just a few bruises wouldn’t knock him out and make him miss their next lessons.

Besides, the last time he had ended up in the infirmary, Hizashi and Oboro had so vehemently refused to go back to class and demanded to see him that not even a few purposeful swipes of Recovery Girl’s cane had been able to dissuade them and she had to threaten them with calling the principal.

Shouta definitely didn’t want a repeat performance of that.

“Also, I’m hungry, so I’m going to eat lunch now,” he declared, looking straight into the others’ eyes.

Oboro and Hizashi exchanged a quick glance and gave him one more once-over, but whatever they saw let them eventually relax and nod their approval.

“Yeah, let’s eat, let’s eat,” Oboro exclaimed, laughing, “I’m starving, too!”

Together, they heeded into the changing rooms, changed and went back towards the main school building. Hizashi and Oboro were animatedly chatting with each other again the whole time, and while it was not unusual for Shouta to only listen to their conversation, this time, his mind was racing and thinking ahead again.

Lunch generally provided the perfect opportunity to get to know other people.

After all, it was how he, Oboro and Hizashi had gotten to know each other better back in first year, eventually reaching a point in which their relationship could be called a friendship. And even though there was lot to learn about another person on the battlefield, too, Shouta was sure that most of the other friendships in the class had been forged by having lunch together as well.

So eating lunch with some of his classmates might be a good way for him to get to know them better.

No animosity was brewing between Shouta and any members of his class, he was generally on friendly terms with all of them. But he realised that he did not really know anything about them that was beyond what was important for their lessons.

However, if he had more people he knew well enough to call his friends, he wouldn’t have to glom on to Hizashi and Oboro anymore.

Shouta had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice at first when the other two stopped short in the middle of the corridor when he turned to follow his classmates in the direction of the cafeteria. He only turned around when someone accidentally ran into Oboro, complaining about the two of them blocking the hallway.

“Um,” he started, looking from Hizashi to Oboro and back, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Shouta,” Hizashi answered quick like a shot. “Just, uh…” His eyes flickered upwards, onto something above and behind Shouta, before locking with his yet again. “You wanna go to the cafeteria?”

Shouta resisted the urge to curse under his breath. Of course they were surprised, given that he had been the one to demand that they eat far away from the hubbub that was several classes all gathering in one big, echoing hall at the same time.

He tried to mask his blunder with a scowl. “Oboro owes me lunch,” he said, pointedly looking at the boy in question. “Because he disturbed me during cooking yesterday and that way caused me to burn my meal,” he added. “Don’t tell me you forgot?”

“Noooo, of course not! How could I forget about this?” Oboro denied the accusation in a voice that clearly told Shouta that he had indeed forgotten about the deal. While Hizashi burst out laughing, he continued, “Well, to the cafeteria it is then! Come on, otherwise everyone’ll be there before us and the queue is gonna be endless!”

And so they went and picked up their lunches. Shouta still wasn’t a fan of the noise, but he gritted his teeth and bore it.

Getting their food wasn’t even the task he dreaded the most. There, people stood in line, patiently waiting for their trays to be filled, and left again. It was all very orderly.

The real daunting task was to find a seat for them.

Personally, Shouta would have preferred it to be somewhere in the periphery of the room. But he knew that it was very inconvenient to reach if one needed additional cutlery or napkins or a refill. Plus, hiding away in a corner would defeat the very purpose of why he was in the cafeteria in the first place.

Before the three of them could stand in the middle of the aisles lost and looking around for a free table too long, a voice caught their attention.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here? You three in the cafeteria?” Oizuchi asked, approaching them with his own filled tray in his hands. He raised his eyebrows, but a twitch around his lips betrayed the smirk he was holding back. “A miracle occurred. I can hardly believe my eyes! Did you fall victim to some kind of quirk influencing your will?”

“Nah, we just wanted a change of scenery!” Oboro countered easily. “A breath of fresh air, you know?”

“Yeah?” Oizuchi’s eyebrows rose impossibly higher. He nodded his head to the right. “Do you want to sit with us, or would the presence of your classmates be too much of the same air again?”

“Sure, man!”

And so they followed after Oizuchi to his table.

As it turned out, “us” referred to Katasugi, Tendo, Takahashi and Yoshikawa. Oboro, who was already deeply engrossed in a conversation with Oizuchi, slid into a seat opposite of him. In line with his plans, Shouta sped up his steps a bit so he could sit next to Katasugi, leaving Hizashi to take the seat between Shouta himself and Oboro.

With this seating arrangement, Shouta was in a position that would have allowed him to naturally start a conversation with Katasugi, Tendo or Takahashi.

Except that he didn’t know how.

Hizashi though, in his element like always, easily did so.

What started on the subject of their latest class assignments switched to prospective afternoon activities, and further to favourite movies, all while Shouta was slowly chipping away at his food and morosely contemplating how to speak up and contribute to their discussions.

They all seemed to be talking animatedly, but he found that he either didn’t know or didn’t care about whatever their focus happened to be to offer a worthwhile insight.

“What about you, Shouta?”

Shouta looked up at Hizashi’s question.

“What?”

“The new All Might movie,” Hizashi repeated, ignoring how Shouta had zoned out on their conversation and slinging an arm over his shoulder. “Whaddya think about it?”

“Dunno,” Shouta mumbled, not making eye contact with any of the others. “I haven’t seen it yet.”

The friendly, freely doled out touch had taken him a while to get used to, but Oboro and Hizashi were both incredibly touch-feely people and at some point it had simply become second nature for him to lean into whatever physical contact they initiated.

Now, though, Shouta wondered whether those were another factor that had added fuel to the belief that they might be dating.

He tried not to tense up, lest Hizashi think that anything was up.

While Hizashi took his comment as an invitation to immediately make plans to rectify that, the others mostly passed over his uninformative comment and continued talking among themselves. No surprise there. Shouta hadn’t said anything interesting.

On his other side, Katasugi temporarily paid more attention to his food than the conversation, and Shouta wondered whether he could take that opportunity to approach the other boy directly.

His lack of topics to discuss impeded that plan, too, however. No matter how much he racked his brain, absolutely no conversation starter came to his mind. So he simply stared down into the bowl on his tray and didn’t even move when Hizashi briefly leaned over it as he seemingly reached for something from Takahashi.

Then a phone was suddenly thrust into his field of vision.

Shouta recoiled, but his eyes immediately zeroed in on the litter of adorable kittens that the photograph on display showed and he relaxed again.

“A cute bunch of kittens, right?” Hizashi asked, beaming. With his thumb, he swiped through the image gallery, showing even more of them. Shouta nodded, laying his hand over Hizashi’s to bring the phone closer.

Only then did he notice that it did not belong to Hizashi. It must have been Takahashi’s, the thing that he had reached over the table for.

“Do you have cats?” he asked, glancing up at her.

She was smiling at him but shook her head. “No. They belong to my neighbours, but they always let me come over and look at them.”

“They’re cute,” Shouta said, because reiterating what Hizashi had already voiced sounded like a safe bet.

“Yeah, actually, the first time I saw them I took so many pictures that they hogged all my phone’s remaining memory space.” Takahashi laughed sheepishly.

Abruptly, Katasugi set his glass which he’d just taken a swig of down onto the table and gestured wildly between her and Shouta. “If you give Takahashi your number,” he sputtered as soon as he’d swallowed down his drink, “’m sure she’ll sent you the pictures if you want them.”

“Oh!” Takahashi’s eyes widened in excitement. “Absolutely, I can do that.”

But Shouta shook his head while he handed back her phone. “You don’t have to go out of your way to do that.”

“I wouldn’t mind! Really.” Fortunately, Takahashi’s attention was diverted from him when Hizashi told her that he’d gladly receive the kitten pictures.

“Do you like cats in general, Aizawa?” Tendo asked after a brief moment of silence. “Or can you just admit that the kittens are cute?”

“I guess,” Shouta answered the first question. He shrugged. “If I’d have to say what my favourite animals are, I’d probably name cats.”

“Huh. Didn’t know that.”

“Right, cats are the best pets!” Katasugi said, thereby saving Shouta from having to come up with a reply. “I’d love to have one as well. Unfortunately my brother has his domesticated rats, so no cats allowed anywhere near them.”

“Rats?”

“They’re supposed to be really clever!” Hizashi chimed in. “You can teach them all kind of tricks and stuff like that!”

“Yeah, that’s what he does,” Katasugi corroborated. “Let’s them do tricks and then posts pictures and videos online.” His phone was in his hand now, too, clicking and swiping until he had pulled up what he’d been looking for.

Turning it around, he first showed it to Takahashi and Tendo and then moved it further so Hizashi and Shouta could see it as well. It was what seemed to be his brother’s rats’ social media account.

The rest of the lunch period, he scrolled through it, playing the uploaded videos. Takahashi and Hizashi fawned over the rats, Tendo was more reserved about them but appeared nonetheless intrigued.

And Shouta, well, didn’t really care about domesticated rats or performed tricks, but looking at videos and nodding approvingly was at least an easy way to spend time around his classmates.

Over the course of the next weeks, Shouta furthered his endeavour of becoming more independent from Hizashi and Oboro, and he thought he was fairly successful at it.

He was getting better at not attaching himself to their sides first thing in the morning. At not forcing them away from big groups that they were very much enjoying hanging out in just because he didn’t enjoy it. At turning down the offers to hang out that were extended to him so he didn’t feel left out.

It wasn’t easy and it hurt, but he squared his shoulders and soldiered on.

For the time being, his heart still often ached in his chest when he found himself alone at home after school had let out and he was thinking about whatever kind of fun the other two might be having at that moment without him, and he only hoped that it would fade away with time.

On his second objective – forging friendlier relationships with his other classmates – he unfortunately hadn’t been as successful.

He had tried to reach out to them more, and everyone was mostly at least receptive to his awkward attempts at making contact. But no matter what he did, conversations always tended to be a little stiff.

After over two years of largely not showing any interests in interacting with his classmates beyond the necessary amount, he probably shouldn’t have expected anything less.

Though it was a comfort that he would only be seeing them all for less than a year by this point. Afterwards, everyone would go their own ways after all.

“Hey, Shouta!” Oboro skidded up to his desk, only braking by grabbing onto its surface. “How ‘bout the two of us go somewhere together after school?”

Shouta seized the knot of Oboro’s tie and yanked his head forward so harshly that hitting the desk would have likely broken his nose. Of course, given that Oboro’s training over the last two years had predominantly consisted of practising to summon clouds everywhere near him in less than a second, nothing happened.

“You wouldn’t know subtlety if it hit you in the face dressed in that awful All Might bunny costume,” Shouta sighed.

Oboro turned his head so his face wasn’t buried in the cloud anymore, though he kept resting his chin on it. He also put on an expression of utmost betrayal. “I can’t believe you made me to remember that atrocity! Also, what was that sudden attempt on my life all about?!”

Supressing another sigh, Shouta leaned forward and whispered, “You should improve your situational awareness – though what else is new. Anyway, this is about Hizashi’s birthday, isn’t it? So you maybe shouldn’t make such a declaration so loudly if the person it concerns is standing literally just two desks away.”

He exaggeratedly rolled his eyes towards where Hizashi was lingering and still talking to Yoshikawa.

Oboro gravely returned Shouta’s accusing gaze as he listened to him, then he whispered back, “Ohhh, I seeeee. So he doesn’t ask to tag along. But actually,” he raised his upper body up again and his voice back to a normal volume, “he already has plans for today, so he can’t hang out with us anyway!”

“Oh.” Shouta blinked up at Oboro. He hadn’t expected him to be sensible for once.

Nodding solemnly, Oboro continued, “So, I thought we’d go to the Cats’ Temple!”

“Forcing me into going along with your plans? How underhanded.”

“I’m not forcing anything,” Oboro laughed.

“Forcing me.”

“Oboro’s right,” Hizashi suddenly weighed in with a mischievous grin, joining them at Shouta’s desk. “He’s only setting up a perfect winning condition.”

“You stay out of this.” Shouta turned towards him and pretended to pout. “You’re cruelly abandoning me. At his,” he gestured up and down Oboro’s body, “mercy. Seriously? Do you know no sympathy?”

Hizashi faked a deep, regretful sigh, bringing a hand up to clutch over his heart. “I know, Shouta, I know. It plagues me down to my very core, but it couldn’t be helped!” He grabbed Shouta’s hands, cradling them within his own. “Please, promise not to get yourself killed by him and his foolish ideas, alright? He can be a handful at times, I know, but I trust you to be the one with common sense. And I’d really miss you if you were gone!”

Shouta inclined his head gracefully, keeping a straight face the whole time. “I’ll do my best.”

“Objection! Correction!” Waving his arm up and down between Hizashi and Shouta, Oboro broke off their contact. “It’s way more likely that Shouta’ll take a seat and stay still until all cats are piled on top of him, suffocating him like that.”

A beat.

Hizashi pointed a finger gun in Oboro’s direction. “True.” Then it was Oboro’s hand that was enveloped in Hizashi’s as he reworded his plea, “Please, promise me to look out for Shouta and don’t let him do anything stupid.”

With his free hand, Oboro gave Hizashi’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Of course. Leave it to me.”

“Oboro preventing me from doing something stupid?” Shouta smirked. “That’s as likely as him learning to keep all his clothes on for more than three hours at a time.”

Naturally, Oboro – more confused than offended – protested that notion, which lead to him attempting to use the very extent of his mathematical abilities to calculate time intervals within his day to prove Shouta wrong (which he failed at), and before they knew it, the three found themselves rehashing their playful debate of what items of clothing had to be worn to be considered “fully clothed” yet again. Their teacher had to end it when he walked into the classroom.

Moments like these always made Shouta question why he was even friends with those two and why he enjoyed every second of it.

Even if he did count himself lucky that Oboro was not interested in reopening this discussion during their walk to the cat café.

Oboro didn’t use the opportunity to start discussing the plans for Hizashi’s birthday party either though, despite Hizashi waving them goodbye at the school gate already and heading into the opposite direction. Instead he talked about the cats they were going to see and whether today would finally be the day that Mikan would grace him with the honour of letting himself be petted by him.

They arrived. They got seated. Mikan made a beeline for Shouta from the other end of the room, passing the waitress who was coming to take their orders, and climbed into Shouta’s lap before clambering onto his shoulder, as he always did. He was a shoulder cat in general, but Shouta had made his even more attractive this time by not sitting at one of the tables crammed into a corner.

Shouta didn’t bother to hide his glee as he lifted his hand to Mikan’s lower back to stabilise him on his perch and felt the smooth fur beneath his fingers.

Neither did Oboro try to be subtle in his despair.

“Why, just why?! Why is he always sitting on you and cuddling with you and I’m… I’m…” With a loud groan, he draped himself over the table. His hands hung over the edge as if in a poor attempt at getting them within Mikan’s range of interest.

A very poor one, considering that Mikan was attentively staring in the opposite direction, surveying the café. His tail swished back and forth, lightly brushing against the very top of Oboro’s fingertips, but the contact elicited no reaction whatsoever.

“Jealous?” Shouta suggested. He was sure that the smug grin he wore could be heard in his voice.

“Yes! Lemme have that, too!”

Shouta made sure to pet Mikan, who was already purring contently, thoroughly as Oboro relayed their orders to the waitress – Shouta always asked for the same thing, so it was easy for Oboro to do – while he waited for the discussions of the plans for Hizashi’s birthday to finally begin.

A nose bumped against his leg and when he looked down, he saw Yuki crouching on the floor next to his seat before jumping up and into his lap.

After bumping her head against his hand and kneading his thighs until they were apparently comfortable for her, she curled into a ball and radiated the aura of someone not planning to move for a very long time.

Shouta had zero complains.

He had two hands, meaning that he could pet two cats at the same time. Things would only get difficult if another one should decide to join as well.

“We haven’t even been here for five minutes and you’re already trying to make the cat pile come true! It was supposed to be just a joke! Though I should have known…”

A flash of light told Shouta that Oboro was taking pictures. The smile slipped from his lips and he looked up to glare at his friend. “Stop that.”

“No way!” Oboro protested. “This adorable sight has to be preserved for the world to come!”

Shouta hated that he couldn’t snatch Oboro’s phone from him without stopping to pet either Mikan or Yuki, and that the movement would most likely dislodge at least one of them, and that Oboro was likely fully aware of and shamelessly taking advantage of that to snap more pictures.

Thus he had no other choice but to wait until his attention was drawn to something else. Which fortunately didn’t take long.

Their foods and the treats for the cats arrived and, after both Mikan and Yuki ignored the ones offered by Oboro, he mournfully tried to attract other cats with them.

Sora eventually took notice – or pity – of him and curled up in his lap, much to Oboro’s great delight.

The cats were naturally the main attraction of this café. If it weren’t for them, no matter how good the food or how peaceful the atmosphere was, Shouta wouldn’t visit as regularly as he did. But somewhere along the line, Shouta realised now as he couldn’t look away from his face, it had become common for him to be accompanied by Hizashi or Oboro or both on those visits.

And while he had been annoyed at their boisterous behaviour scaring off the cats at first, when he now imagined having to come here on his own again at some point in the future, after Hizashi and Oboro had understood that they didn’t have to follow him wherever he went, his heart clenched painfully in his chest.

He put all his focus on taking in the feeling of Yuki’s warm, rumbling body beneath his hand to distract himself from his thoughts. It was weak and dangerous to close one’s eyes instead of facing the inevitable, he knew that, so it was no surprise that he did it, right?

“Shouta?”

The call of his name made Shouta raise his gaze from where it had firmly rested on Yuki. Oboro was frowning, his eyes flickering across his face as if searching for something.

The scrutiny made Shouta’s hands feel clammy. Thus, before Oboro could open his mouth and say something, he asked, “So, this whole meeting is still about Hizashi’s birthday party, isn’t it?”

Oboro’s frown deepened for a split second before it relaxed again. “Sure, that too. But also,” he sat up a bit straighter in his seat, slightly adjusting his hold on Sora as he did so, “is something up with you, Shouta?”

“No.” Now it was Shouta’s turn to frown. “Everything’s fine. Why?”

“Well.” Oboro splayed his fingers out on the desk, looking at them with sudden interest. “You’ve been sorta aloof for a while now.”

That was not what Shouta had expected.

He raised an eyebrow and asked, putting on a slight smirk, “So ‘a while’ is synonymous with ‘all the time’ in your book?”

Inwardly, he felt a sudden, stabbing sense of disappointment.

He had truly put much effort into trying to be more sociable with his classmates, something that Oboro and Hizashi had tried to get him to do for the last two years. But now that he was making the effort, they didn’t notice and even thought that it was grounds for concern?

“’course not,” Oboro snorted. His knee gently bumped into Shouta’s underneath the table. “You’re not aloof. Just the last few weeks, you have been a bit… distant. It’s… I don’t know how to describe it.” He scratched the back of his head and gestured helplessly in Shouta’s general direction. “But Hizashi noticed too. And said I should ask you whether everything’s cool or not because I’m apparently better at talking about those kinds of things with you.”

“Yeah. I can feel the fabulous job you’re doing at it. Fantastic. Phenomenal. Outstanding.”

This time, Oboro kicked at him playfully. Shouta kicked right back.

“Shut it,” he laughed before his voice turned serious again. “Just… If something’s wrong, you can talk to us. Me or Hizashi. Or both of us. You know that, right?”

Under his entirely open and earnest gaze, Shouta felt pinned in place like a grain of dust between the slide and coverslip of a microscope.

He did know it, technically.

Both Oboro and Hizashi were good listeners and had shown nothing but understanding in the past when he did confront them with the various doubts and troubles he had faced.

Still, that didn’t change the fact that there was no way they could stay objective if Shouta told them that they really didn’t have to pretend so much for his sake.

No matter how he would word it, it would likely come off as an accusation, and nobody liked being called a liar.

Any normal person would get defensive and argue that they weren’t pretending anything. That was only natural.

Mikan’s tail smacking into and curling against his cheek from a more forceful tail movement provided a welcome out of his conflict and the suddenly grave atmosphere. Yuki was also still a comfortable weight in his lap, purring softly.

“Yeah, I know,” Shouta answered as he watched how Azuki, a small tabby, stalked up to and jumped onto the table of an unsuspecting couple, startling them enough that a careless hand toppled one of the cups of coffee over. “Thank you for the offer.” Yuki’s purring increased even further when he moved his hand to scratch behind her ears. “But nothing’s wrong, so you don’t have to worry or anything.”

For emphasis, he lightly kicked against Oboro’s leg one more time. Oboro returned the gesture, and Shouta’s heart fluttered in his chest in relief when a fond smile returned to his friend’s face.

“Alright then!” He took a sip of the milkshake he had ordered, humming in delight at the taste. “So, about Hizashi’s birthday party, you know how everyone could vote whether we should do a smaller party at a karaoke bar before the actual party to set Hizashi on the wrong track?” His eyes sparkled in excitement. “Well, most people voted in favour of it, so we’re gonna do that! Hizashi will also get to sing karaoke on his birthday!”

Of course Shouta knew that much already.

Even though Oboro had been readmitted into the group chat and taken on the role of the official leader of the whole endeavour – though Nakamura was still very much doing the majority of the actual coordinating – and a reporting service wasn’t necessary anymore, Shouta had not left the chat.

It wasn’t like he actively involved himself in the various discussions going on though. He just became another face in the crowd of group chat members, thereby trying to reduce the chance of his presence being called out by the two members who would recognise him, and quietly read along in the chat history.

About which event hall they had booked. About who would be responsible for the decorations and who for the clean-up. How the money would be collected and how much everyone was supposed to contribute. How the food would be organised.

How they were going to do a “karaoke pre-party”, but due to space and money constraints could only let a small number of people tag along. Preferably, as difficult as that might be to determine, the ones Hizashi was the closest to. (He hadn’t raised his hands to put himself on the list, neither in his undercover identity nor as himself.)

He read about the enthusiastic birthday present ideas the others shared. About anecdotes and insiders they had with Hizashi.

He distantly wondered why he had always vehemently refused any invitation to a concert of a band Hizashi adored when it had been offered to him. From the looks of it, many of the friendships had been formed or fortified by concert visits. Which made sense, given Hizashi’s personality.

He also slowly but surely learned about and managed to recognise the names of the people besides his classmates.

There were a couple from the B class and juniors that Hizashi tutored, from Support, and even a few from the business course.

Hero students from other schools that he had met during their mandatory or voluntary internships.

Other peers from his internship at a radio station.

Some friends from elementary school that he’d stayed in loose contact with over the years.

A guy from the orchestra club in middle school. Another one he’d met and befriended on a language holiday in America of all things.

There were also a few Shouta had mentally saved under the category of Oboro’s friends, but who must have become friends with Hizashi as well by virtue of association. Like Oboro’s neighbours or the girl who’d been his classmate in middle school and now worked part-time at a ramen booth Oboro, Hizashi and Shouta liked to visit.

Or his whole former baseball team from middle school.

Hizashi was truly blessed to have so many people who cared about him in his life.

Nearly every night, Shouta would lie in bed and catch up on what had been discussed in the chat.

And if his chest ached afterwards and his head felt like it was stuffed full with cotton, that was clearly only the exhaustion of that day catching up with him.

In the week leading up to Hizashi’s birthday, it got simultaneously easier and more difficult for Shouta to realise his intentions, as the birthday plan group had found an essential role for him to fulfil.

Semester finals were looming at the horizon, not yet close enough to cause any serious worry but still close enough that it was plausible to start studying. Especially in one’s week subjects.

Shouta’s weakest subject was English. A subject that Hizashi was only ever excelling in. Thus, it was only logical that Hizashi might help him with the exam preparation.

And at the same time have his afternoons occupied enough that all of his other friends that he might otherwise want to hang out with could further set up the surprise birthday party without obstruction.

Shouta had no idea how Oboro’s flimsy excuse of having promised his mother to try his best on his own this time worked to get him out of the study sessions nor why Hizashi accepted having to spend every afternoon with him for a week without batting an eyelash, but he was relieved that such an easy task had been assigned to him and willingly complied.

Even if it meant doing more English course exercises than he ever wanted to see again in his entire life.

Perhaps the reason he in particular had been chosen for this job was because he could really fill in the correct solution to a grammar problem multiple times only to get those same ones wrong again on further trials.

Still, regardless of how often he messed up, Hizashi always continued patiently explaining the rules to him, no matter how much Shouta believed that they would never stick inside his brain.

Though maybe he might also make more visible progress if his attention wasn’t constantly evenly divided between his exercises and Hizashi.  

They had decided to conduct the study sessions in the undisturbed quiet of Shouta’s home. Hizashi always started by giving Shouta a brief run-down of whatever grammatical phenomenon he was going to face that time, then gave him the exercises, letting Shouta work on them at his own pace, and afterwards explained whatever mistakes he had made.

However, while they had at first sat across from each other at the living room table, used to this from the study sessions all three of them had together, it hadn’t taken long into their first session until Hizashi had migrated to Shouta’s side because of how annoying it was to read a worksheet upside down.

Which meant that he spent most of the time leaning partly against the couch behind him and partly against Shouta’s shoulder.

During the time Shouta spent working, he mostly busied himself on his phone, typing messages or scrolling through social media, grinning or snickering whenever he saw something funny.

And whenever he did, Shouta’s eyes automatically snapped to him like a magnet to the fridge, and he couldn’t tear them away from Hizashi’s captivating expression until he was done laughing, and often not even then.

The contact point between their shoulders seemed to be radiating heat like a stove top to him.

Shouta hated these moments in which he somehow couldn’t help but be acutely, painfully aware of his crushes. When every fibre of his body seemed to beg for him to get closer and closer, until they were pressed flush against each other and looking into each other’s eyes and then—

He resisted the urge to shake his head to dispel these thoughts.

They were so stupid, too! If anything, he should shift away from Hizashi and bring more distance between them again!

A finger jabbing into his rips ripped him out of his thoughts.

He yelped in surprise, dropping his pen.

“Are you even still working on these, Shouchan?” Hizashi asked, hooking his chin over Shouta’s shoulder and peering down at the worksheet that Shouta hadn’t added another pencil stroke to in several minutes.

Shouta rolled his shoulder to shrug him off before turning around to face him. “Yeah, I just can’t breeze through them like you do.”

“Hmm…” A thoughtful look appeared on Hizashi’s face, then his eyes brightened and he aimed a finger gun and a wink at Shouta. “I know just the thing for bringing your spirits up to speed!”

With that, he buried his nose in his phone again, made a few taps and swipes and then thrust the display into Shouta’s face.

“Here! So adorable, right?”

Shouta had to lean back and blink a few times to stop going cross-eyed, but the picture of the small calico kitten evidently bumping its nose into the camera was a very welcome surprise – and distraction from studying.

Hizashi scrolled a bit, bringing up a whole litter of kittens, seemingly in their adventures of exploring a playpen.

A very familiar litter of kittens actually.

“Are those Takahashi’s kittens?”

Hizashi’s grin widened. “Yup! She made an account for them, posting loads upon loads of cute pictures of the little babies! So, whaddaya say?” His grin turned calculating as he retracted his phone and thumped it against his open palm several times while batting his eyelashes coyly. “One completed exercise for one kitty picture?”

Shouta stared at him flatly. “I can just look for that account on my own,” he deadpanned, his hand already reaching for the pocket of his pants.

“HEY—NO!” Hizashi lunged across his lap to snatch his phone from him. “C’mon, there will be no learning motivation like that!” He turned his head and stared up at Shouta with a way too cute pout on his face.

Damn him.

“Please, Shouta? This simple cloze for an adorable pic of a fluffy kitten belly?”

Shouta grimaced. “This has about thirty gaps.”

“For ten filled gaps?”

“No.”

“For five filled gaps?”

“Well,” Shouta leaned forward, picking up his pen again, and trapped Hizashi between his body and the table that way. “I guess.”

Hizashi whooped before squirming and breaking free of Shouta’s hold. “Five correctly filled gaps.”

“Don’t push it.”

If asked at some point afterwards, Shouta would never admit that the bribe worked. But it did, and the two fell into a new rhythm, with Hizashi checking his work on the go and his phone laying on the table in front of him, his finger periodically scrolling further down to reveal another kitten picture.

Then something he saw in his feed made him burst out laughing.

Curious, Shouta craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the display.

And promptly had the urge to strangle someone with his capture weapon. Very slowly and very torturously.

The picture that had been posted, and likely appeared in Hizashi’s feed because he followed the right account, showed the party hall that had been booked for Hizashi’s surprise birthday party with a group of people wearing party hats and sunglasses posing in the foreground and the caption, “Testing the lights before Saturday’s SHOWTIME BABY~!”

Shouta vaguely recognised most of them from profile pictures in the group chat, though he wouldn’t be able to correctly recite all their names. However, if he was able to recognise them, there was no doubt that Hizashi, whose friends they were, would also be able to do so.

And it wasn’t like he would not know what significant event on the upcoming Saturday friends of his could be referring to. Putting two and two together here was a no-brainer.

Really, he thought the stunts Oboro pulled were the pinnacle of dumbness, but this…

With a quick swipe of Hizashi’s finger, the picture was replaced by another kitten one. “Whoops! We never saw anything, right?” He winked at Shouta conspiratorially, his eyes still sparkling with mirth.

Shouta was decidedly not in a playful mood. “Who posted this?” he glowered.

Hizashi gasped, pulling his phone against his chest. “My adorable mentee at the radio station, and you are not allowed to say anything to them about this!”

“I’d really, really like to though.”

“Shouta, no! Don’t ruin this whole surprise for everyone, okay? Please. Everybody’s working so hard on it.”

A snort escaped Shouta at those words. “It was meant as a surprise for you.” Tilting his head, he deliberately glared at Hizashi from underneath his bangs. “And you knew about it the whole time.”

Hizashi threw his hands up in front of his chest in a placating gesture. It was all Shouta needed as a confirmation for his suspicion. “WELL, ACTUALLY—“ Pinned under his gaze, Hizashi relented quickly. “Yeah, I knew. But not really from the beginning… technically!”

“And instead of saying something you just let everyone keep up this ridiculous charade.”

With a sigh, Hizashi slumped in his seat, a hurt expression on his face. “Well, my parents forbade me from throwing a party for my birthday – and certainly not because they suddenly hate me or something. What kind of excuse do you think they were supposed to give?!”

Admittedly, Shouta had no answer to that question.

“And everyone put so much effort into it, I just know it. Oboro’s been excited about doing this for months! Please, let’s not ruin this for them, yeah, Shouta?”

It wasn’t that Shouta had any intention of upsetting Oboro at all – and he would be incredibly upset if he discovered that the planned surprise party wasn’t really a surprise. He didn’t doubt that Hizashi would be able to splendidly pull of the part of the very surprised birthday boy.

Still, the thought of blatantly lying to Oboro like this left a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

Hizashi must have read that in his face because he continued, “I know that it sucks to lie to your friends. But sometimes a little white lie is also necessary to tell in a friendship.”

The words were like a stake driven right through Shouta’s heart.

“It’s not like Oboro would be mad at you for it,” he argued.

So the way he was pulled along with Hizashi and Oboro to whatever places and activities had struck their fancy, neither of them ever voicing that they didn’t want to spend time with him, was probably a “little white lie” just like this one as well.

“True, but he would be sad, and that’d feel even worse, right?”

Yeah. It had to be.

“Well, I’m definitely not going to be a tattletale,” Shouta said as he turned his attention back to the exercises in front of him. At least they should provide a good enough distraction from the sick feeling in his stomach. Not even Hizashi’s relieved grin that he caught out of the corners of his eyes was able to attenuate it.

It took him a while to notice that Hizashi knowing about the planned surprise party meant that he, entrusted with the job of diverting his attention from it, was totally expendable now.

When the seventh of July arrived, Shouta’s mind was already made up.

It hadn’t been his intention. The part of him that had been raised to be polite and well-mannered and act socially desirable was still screaming at him that it was an outrageous notion, and he had planned not to jump the gun but instead sit down and calmly and rationally evaluate his options, feelings and desires and choose the path that would reconcile them all.

But he could feel that deep inside of him, the decision had already been made when he woke up that day. Probably already had been during the last few days leading up to Hizashi’s birthday, too.

Time passed in uneven chunks. Shouta could do a menial task to temporally distract himself from the circumstances and not even ten minutes had crawled by, then he could do a similar task and find the hands of the clock telling him that over two hours had passed.

Eventually, the late afternoon hour arrived at which the karaoke party had been scheduled. Somewhere, Hizashi, Oboro and some of their friends were meeting right now. Shouta had already announced a lack of interest in participating in this part of the birthday celebration, which nobody had been really surprised about, so that gave him more time to contemplate the decision that his subconsciousness had already made.

The hour arrived at which he should have left his home in order to catch a train that brought him to the party venue early. Shouta stayed.

Then the last point at which he, if he ran as if his life depended on it, could still be there in time. He watched the seconds tick by on the clock, trying to ignore the feeling in his stomach as if he might puke any moment.

Then, another one and a half hours later, nothing short of being caught up in a large-scale villain attack could excuse being late by such a large amount.

At that time, Shouta picked up his phone, which had until then been banished into the drawer of his desk after he had congratulated Hizashi that morning.

With shaking, sweaty hands, he dismissed the message notifications on his home screen without sparing them a glance.

He pulled up Hizashi’s contact information and hit the dial button.

His heartbeat in his ears was almost loud enough to drown out the ringing tone as he waited with bated breath for Hizashi to pick up.

However, when the call was finally answered, it was Oboro’s voice that shouted, “Shouta? We miss you! Where are you? Did something happen?”

“Oboro? What’re you doing?” Shouta asked in confusion.

Music from the party filtered through the phone speakers, explaining why Oboro felt the need to raise his voice as he explained, “Hizashi’s in a conversation just now, so he told me to pick up your call instead. Something holding you up right now?”

“Um…” For a second, Shouta considered just telling Oboro his matter to be able to weasel out of a confrontation with Hizashi. But that would be even worse than what he was already about to do, so he replied, “It’s easier to explain it to Hizashi.”

“Okay,” Oboro agreed readily. “Just a sec.”

The noise coming from the speakers grew muffled for a while. Shouta strained his ears and thought that he could make out Oboro mentioning his name, but it was too distant to be sure.

He focused on taking a few, deliberate breaths to calm his still erratically beating pulse.

Suddenly, the noise was back in full force, together with Hizashi’s voice that cheerfully laughed and called out, “Hey, Shouta! Everything a-okay with you over there? You’re late!”

“Uh, yeah,” Shouta mumbled, “that’s what I’m calling about.” It occurred to him that he would have to speak louder, otherwise Hizashi was likely not going to hear him, with the party going on around him.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“I’m not coming.”

Anxiety and relief were swirling around in Shouta’s chest like a pair of tightly intertwined snakes. There, he’d said it. Finally doing so was accompanied by a small spike of relief, but awaiting Hizashi’s reaction made dread spread through his body like wildfire.

“What?”

“I said I’m not coming.”

“Wait a—“ There were some scuffing sounds that Shouta couldn’t identify. “Wait, hang on.”

More rustling sounds that Shouta couldn’t identify the source of followed, but he heeded Hizashi’s request and waited.

He listened to the noises of the party without really paying attention to them until there suddenly was a sound of a door snapping shut that caused all the music and clamouring to become muted and more distant. Instead however, there was the rhythmic sound of footsteps on what was likely a tiled floor echoing in the space on the other side of the phone.

Then Hizashi spoke again, much easier to understand than before. “So. I’m back. You,” he paused briefly, “said you weren’t coming, Shouta? To the party you mean?”

Shouta was no great actor, but he had fabricated his excuse beforehand and recited the words over and over again so he could smoothly present it to Hizashi. “Yeah, I did. It’s just that there are so many people. And it’s loud and wild and crowded. And you know I’m not that good at that kind of stuff… And when I think about being there I’m just... uh… it’s just—“

“Shouta.” Hizashi’s voice was firm enough that Shouta immediately stopped his babbling when he interrupted him, but also overwhelmingly full of warmth. “It’s okay, Shouta. I understand.”

No. It wasn’t okay. Shouta strongly disliking being dragged into crowds of people wasn’t a lie, but it was merely that, a simple dislike. Not a kind of encompassing misery like he had played it up to be.

The truth was that he simply couldn’t bear to finally have his overall insignificance in the big circle of Hizashi’s acquaintances pointed out to him. He couldn’t bear sitting in the dimness of the party room, on his own, watching and listening to the joy and dancing and laughter all around him, and Hizashi and Oboro at the other end of the room, surrounded by all their friends.

He was cowardly running away, he knew that. But if anything, that was only the proof of how bad a friend – if he could even be called that – he was in the end, wasn’t it?

“Sorry,” he managed to croak out despite the lump seemingly blocking his throat.

“It’s o-kay, Shouta. Really.”

It really wasn’t.

“Of course I’m sad I don’t get to see you on my birthday. But you forcing yourself to be uncomfortable just for that would be way, waaaaaay worse.” There was a brief lull, but before Shouta could figure out whether it was appropriate to say goodbye and hang up now, Hizashi continued, “Oh! How ‘bout me n’ Oboro come to you instead!”

Shouta stared ahead, not believing what ridiculousness he had just heard.

It took a few seconds until he could recover himself and say, “Now?!”

“Sure now! Why not?”

“Y-You… That’s—You can’t!” Shouta managed to stammer incredulously.

“Why?”

“You have a whole party that’s being thrown for you!”

“Yeah,” Hizashi drawled, “but they all seem to be having a great time. They won’t even notice if we sneak off!”

Shouta snorted. “Oboro put so much effort into organising this party for you. He’s going to hate me if it’ll have been for naught because of me.”

The laugh that preceded Hizashi’s reply was honest and bright. “If that’s what you think, then you don’t really know Oboro at all.”

It was a casually thrown around statement, Shouta could tell. Very likely not meant seriously.

Playful, not accusing.

“But sure, okay, you win, you win! I’ll stay if you insist on it so much.”

And yet it stayed with him, latching onto him like a crow with its sharp claws, reverberating inside his skull. He couldn’t help the desire to tear it apart, letter for letter, to examine how much truth there was in it.

Surely Hizashi didn’t actually mean that Oboro would be okay with throwing away hours upon hours of effort just so he and Hizashi could come to Shouta’s home instead because he appeared to be too uncomfortable to join them?

“Then how about we visit you after the party is over, hm? Yeah!” Audible excitement crept into Hizashi’s voice. “YEAH! That’s what we’ll do! Not seeing you at all on my birthday isn’t something I can stand, so Oboro n’ me will just come to you after the party and then the three of us can celebrate some more, together! Yeah, yeah, that’s good. You’d better be still awake by then, you hear me, Shouta?”

It felt like something had snaked around Shouta’s ribcage and proceeded to squeeze the air out of his lungs.

“When the party’s finished, a new day has already began,” he managed to remark dryly.

“Shuuuuuuuush. Not true at all. A new day only starts after you’ve gone to bed for the night, don’t you know that? So it’ll still be my birthday no matter at which unearthly hour we show up. That settled, any other questions?”

Normally, Shouta would have likely followed up with another sarcastic comment, perhaps a ‘Yes, do you really have to do this?’ or a ‘How long will I have to ignore you ringing the doorbell until you give up and leave?’ and thus given a display of mock-protest.

But at that moment he found himself unable to do that.

“No,” he only mumbled.

“Aaaaalrighty! Then we’ll see you later! And you better not be late!” Cackling over his own joke, Hizashi hung up the phone.

Shouta continued to stare at his own, clutched in his hand, for several seconds after that.

His head was swimming.

Whether consciously or unconsciously, school facilitated people setting up and then falling into well-worn routines.

Talking to each other between classes after setting up the habit during the last few years qualified as that.

As did wanting to be paired on projects or spending the lunch hour together.

Inviting each other to join oneself in various afternoon activities did, too. They had done just that for years as well after all.

Without any kind of shocking event disrupting the order of things, like a falling-out, there was no reason to expect that things would change overnight. And staging something like that had been the last thing Shouta had wanted to do.

Yet he had assumed that gradual changes would lead to further gradual changes. That him gradually pulling away from the others and giving them back the space which he had foolishly encroached upon would lead to them recognising and taking the opportunities to finally not have to drag him around everywhere they wanted to go.

Hizashi and Oboro wouldn’t drop him like a hot potato the second they had the chance to do so, he had known that. In the first place, it had always been a possibility that they would stubbornly refuse to cast him out and perhaps keep dragging him around due to pity or simply the genuine kindness of their hearts.

However—

Shouta’s phone buzzed with incoming messages from Oboro. The first one showed a flood of unhappy emojis. The second one showed just as many pleasantly smiling emojis. The third one read “CANT WAIT TO SEE U LATER THEN!!!!!!!” and when he switched to their messaging history, Shouta could see that the exclamation was accompanied by a gif of a white kitten speedily tapping towards the camera and nuzzling it, with the words “me @ you” overlaying the scene.

However, no matter how one looked at it:

Going out of one’s way to visit someone who had refused to show up at a gathering after it was over – at an ungodly hour in the morning no less – was not something you did if you did not like being around that person.

No matter how kind you were.

Wasn’t that right?

His phone buzzed once more, this time with a message from Hizashi that was sent into the group chat between the three of them. It was a video that was just a few seconds long and very jittery, but if Shouta wasn’t wrong it showed someone sending a billiard ball through a crowd of unassuming people dancing on a dancefloor. Considering the lack of shouts or falls and the faint impression of someone else cheering on the other side, it went through smoothly.

Hizashi’s accompanying text read, “what did i say abt ppl having fun without me???”

Before, every single step in his argument had seemed to be leading to the next in a crystal clear manner.

Now, though, Shouta could feel how seeds of doubt had been sowed and already taken root, breaking through the frame of his reasoning like weeds through tarmac.

His heart yearned for his doubts to be right.

It yearned for the reality which he had believed in for years before those beliefs had been upset to be true after all.

Even more, it painfully yearned for Oboro and Hizashi, stupid as it was.

And for certainty.

While the final confirmation that his fears were accurate had been something he had desperately wanted to avoid until now, no matter how illogical that was, it suddenly seemed like the lesser of two evils compared to the uncertainty that had emerged from his doubts.

So even if the nightmare scenario of him attending the party and cast aside without a second glance he had envisioned would turn out to be true and it would hurt as much if not more than he’d imagined, at least he would know the score.

And if, by some miracle, it wouldn’t turn out to be true…

Well, then maybe he’d been wrong.

A glance at the clock revealed how late it already was. Definitely late enough that there was no chance Shouta would still arrive at the party venue that day.

Still, he grabbed the essentials – keys, phone, capture weapon, wallet – and dashed off.

Despite the time, the streets outside were still filled with people moving about this way and that, clogging the streets and making it difficult to move forward. The sun had already set quite a while ago, but the heat from the day still hung in the air, resulting in Shouta’s clothes sticking to his body in no time. In contrast, the well-acclimatised train station caused him to shiver. The train ride felt endless, and at the halfway point Shouta found it well within the realm of possibility that he’d fall asleep right there, the crowds confining him on all sides notwithstanding.

That changed the moment the arrival station was in sight and the party venue only a stone’s throw away from there. Yet again his heartbeat was too loud in his ears to be comfortable while his stomach was twisting itself into knots. From the street he approached the largely rectangular building from, the entrance wasn’t immediately noticeable and it took him a few moments of agonising until he found the door impractically hidden away in a recess on the opposite side of it.

Discreetly wiping his clammy palms on his pants and taking a last deep but shaky breath, Shouta entered.

There was a small hallway ending in another door that acted as a buffer between the outside and the festivities. As soon as Shouta opened that one, however, he was right in the middle of them.

As expected, loud music was playing and the dimmed room was illuminated by several colourful lights. The available space had been divided, with one half being empty and evidently acting as an area to gather and talk or dance and the other half containing portable benches and tables filled with food and drinks. All things considered, the room was large enough to hold fifty people without everyone standing on each other’s toes but small enough that little floor was visible between the groups of people standing together.

When a cursory glance around didn’t immediately clue Shouta in about Hizashi or Oboro’s whereabouts, he uncertainly stepped into the crowd.

Only to almost immediately bump into one of the twins who were Oboro’s neighbours across the street.

“Oh, Aizawa,” he said. “We didn’t cross paths here yet until now.”

“I just arrived,” Shouta admitted.

“If you’re looking for Oboro and Mic, the last time I saw them they stood close to the DJ desk.”

After uttering a ‘thanks’, Shouta made his way over to the corner he had been helpfully pointed towards. He was practised in the art of weaving his way through groups of people without disturbing them, so it didn’t take him long until he had crossed the floor.

The first to spy him out of the corner of his eyes when he approached was Oboro. A delighted grin spread on his face and he quickly clasped Hizashi’s shoulder, shaking it excitedly.

Hizashi turned around, and as soon as he noticed Shouta, his face lit up in sheer euphoria. There was no other word to describe his expression.

“SHOUTA!”

And then he was suddenly running in his direction and throwing his arms around Shouta’s neck.

Awkwardly, Shouta patted the space between his shoulder blades, not quite returning the embrace. Fortunately, Hizashi didn’t stay pressed up to him for long. He quickly drew back and, while still gripping Shouta’s shoulders, examined his face with a worried frown between his eyebrows.

“What are you doing here? You said you couldn’t come!”

Shouta shrugged helplessly. “Changed my mind.”

Being close enough that Hizashi’s eyes were visible through his sunglasses, he could see the concern swirling in them. “You didn’t have to.” Before Shouta could interject somehow, he exchanged a glance with Oboro, who had come up to them in the meantime as well. “Though now that you’re already here – let’s go somewhere.”

Throwing a quick wave and apology over his shoulder at the group he had been engaged in a conversation with, he started leading the way through the crowd, with Shouta and Oboro trailing after him. They tried to be subtle about it, but Shouta did notice how Hizashi and Oboro bracketed him on either side, thus effectively shielding him from people who potentially might address him.

Guilt gnawed at his insides.

The place they were headed towards was tucked away in the corner of the room, seemingly belonging to its natural interior decoration but not being used by the birthday party organisers. In front of an unused bar, a pair of couches covered in cheap, red leather was positioned, one of which was swiftly occupied by the three boys. Even though Hizashi was unequivocally the star of the evening, it was Shouta who ended up in the middle. Not that he minded at all.

With eyes sparkling with joy, Hizashi launched into a retelling of the party until that point and of the general highlights of the day. Oboro contributed his own comments from time to time, and Shouta was content to just sit and listen to them.

Absolutely nothing in the other boys’ demeanour reflected that he had announced not too long ago that he would cancel on them on such a significant occasion as a last birthday celebrated during high school – and thus perhaps the last time they would celebrate Hizashi’s birthday all together. All Shouta could find in their words, expressions and gestures was a simple elation that he was there with them after all.

It simultaneously made his heart skip a beat and the guilt churn him even more vigorously.

Afterwards, he wouldn’t have been able to say how much time passed while they were just sitting in their quiet corner and talking, mostly ignoring the goings-on of the party. Only once did a commotion and resounding laughter briefly draw their attention, but although they all craned their necks trying to see what was going on, neither Hizashi nor Oboro jumped up and went to investigate further.

Shouta’s previous fears shrivelled up and died a wretched death in some faraway corner of his mind.

He couldn’t say where exactly the turnout had been that had lead his train of thought on the wrong track. Maybe he would be able to find it if he traced it back step by step.

That wasn’t what was really important though.

Really important was to ensure that his judgement wasn’t clouded like this in the future again.

And to make up for the damage he had done.

What eventually concluded the three boys’ hanging out session was a squad of girls approaching them in order to bid Hizashi goodbye properly, citing the late time for their departing and thanking Hizashi for the good time they’d had.

This encounter caused Hizashi to take another look at the expanse of the room. Most other people were still partying enthusiastically, however that looked in each specific case.

“Say, how long had you planned this party to last?” he directed towards Oboro.

“Uhhhm…” The frown on Oboro’s face told both Shouta and Hizashi that he had not spared any thought on that question. “Dunno… Open-end?”

“But, like, the room has to have been booked for a certain amount of time, doesn’t it?”

“Uhhhhhh…”

With an amused huff, Hizashi shook his head. “Well, guess it is time to find Ricchan then and ask her about that.” He leapt to his feet from his seat on the couch.

Oboro followed close behind, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little because he seemingly still had too much energy to spare. “We’ll be back in a minute or two,” he said to Shouta, “and then we can figure out whether to stay some more or take an early leave, okay, Shouta?”

However, Shouta didn’t answer. His full attention was on Hizashi in that moment.

“Hizashi, wait a moment?” he called. Then added, “Please.”

“Sure?” Hizashi turned around to face him, his eyebrows raised in confusion. “What’s up?”

Wanting to be at eye level with him for this, Shouta stood up as well. He hoped the way his hands were clenched into fists around the fabric of his pants wouldn’t be too noticeable. “I… I want to apologise to you, first.”

“For what?” Hizashi’s confusion seemed to increase even more.

“For,” he took a breath in, “lying to you so I wouldn’t have to go to this party. And—Planning not to go in the first place. No, wait, let me finish and then you can say something?”

Hizashi nodded and closed his mouth again.

His whole body posture looked tense. Shouta knew that this talk wasn’t going to be easy. But he had to do it.

So he ploughed on, the words pouring from his lips in the order they randomly came to them, without much thought from him,

“I was lying when I told you that I was too scared of the crowd of people to come, and I did that so I wouldn’t have to. I’m really sorry about that. I—didn’t intend to hurt you this way or anything, I hope you can believe that. It was just—I was just… stupid, because I…”

Suddenly, the battered and stained carpeted floor seemed to have a magical pull to it, leading to his eyes drifting downwards.

“I… somehow convinced myself during the last weeks that… you two didn’t actually want to be my friends and just let me tag along everywhere due to your kindheartedness. So I wouldn’t be all alone on my own. Because, well… You both have so many other friends already. Real friends at that, not superficial relationships with people you’ve talked to for a minute and already proclaim your friends even if you don’t actually know anything about them, but genuine friends who enjoy being around you and care about you and know you, and you care about and know them in return. And… It just…”

He really hoped the shaking in his voice wasn’t distinct enough for Hizashi and Oboro to notice, though he estimated the chances as rather slim.

“It just… didn’t make sense… why you would want to spent time with me, who’s boring and distant and standoffish and—“

“Oh Shouta.”

Shouta’s gaze snapped to Oboro, who apparently couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

Instinctively, he had expected to see pity written across his face. However, Oboro’s tone and his expression rather seemed to suggest that he, personally, had been thrown with his head against a wall and was in tremendous pain.

Before he could think of how to react, Shouta was already swept into a tight hug by him. The kind that Shouta normally struggled against, if only as a matter of principle. Now though, he not only refrained from doing so, he even found himself latching onto Oboro’s arm that was slung across his chest, as if wanting to keep it in place.

“Shouta, that’s…” Oboro huffed and squeezed him impossible closer. “That’s… You know, if anyone else would have said those things about you, I’d have let my fist kiss their face with the speed of a bullet train.” He gently bumped the knuckles of his other arm against Shouta’s temple. “I guess because it’s you, I’ll let you get off lightly. But only this time!”

Hizashi’s hand gripped Shouta’s free hand. “Why didn’t you tell us? No, wait,” he immediately continued as he pushed his shades onto the top of his head, “stupid question. Scratch that.”

His eyes searched for Shouta’s and didn’t back down until they were locked. Behind the direct and steady gaze, there seemed to be a pain echoing Oboro’s.

“I rather want you to know that whenever Oboro or I say something about how funny or kind or clever or reliable or hard-working or absolutely amazing or whatever you are, we completely and totally mean it. Right?”

The last question was directed behind Shouta’s head, and Oboro made an affirmative sound.

“Right! Hell, we said we’d start our own agency together, and that wasn’t… We meant it! Still mean it. And we wouldn’t start an agency of ‘Present Mic and Loud Cloud and That Weird Guy We’ve Just Failed To Get Rid Of Until Now Because We’re Feeling Kinda Sorry For Him’…! Like, c’mon, Shouta, not even we’re that stupid!”

The last comment managed to elicit an involuntary snort of amusement from Shouta.

Hizashi’s thumb started running back and forth over the back of Shouta’s hand. Which of the two of them the motion was meant to soothe Shouta didn’t know.

“Well, you’re right, I have a lot of friends and they’re important to me and I like spending time with them. But, honestly…” His gaze dropped down to the floor, sheepish, but his lips twitched in a smile. “You and Oboro are my best friends. No doubt about it, I’d tell everyone who asked with no hesitation whatsoever. You guys just… make me feel like you truly get me. Not that there aren’t others who get me, too! But, well, not like this? And also, no matter what we’re doing – even if it’s being confined in a car on a motorway during a traffic jam or something like that! – as long as we’re doing it together, it’s a l w a y s fun?” He shrugged, a small laugh escaping his lips. “I mean, I’m already feeling down when I don’t hear from you guys for like two days, so I think it’s pretty safe to say that you two have the Best Friend positions!”

“You’re a giant ball of cheese,” Oboro declared fondly, “but, totally same! Like, sure, doing stuff with other people is fun, but if I had to choose between doing that stuff with you two or anyone else? There’s not even anything to decide!”

Shouta could feel a warmth spreading through his chest at his friends’ assurances that had absolutely nothing to do with the body heat radiating off of Oboro. Their words were bright and lively, but he couldn’t help but detect a certain undercurrent of desperation in them, as if they really wanted him to believe them.

And believe them he did, even though there was no hard, logical evidence. But, considering how his initial assumptions had, as he now had to face, been based upon even more illogical foundations, it only made sense to reverse things this way, didn’t it?

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled into Oboro’s arm.

“Nope, nope, nope!” and “None of that, Shouta!” were the replies immediately shot back at him.

“You don’t have to apologise to us,” Oboro said. “Instead, the next time you think something like this, tell us? Please. No matter what.”

“Yeah. Whatever it is that’s bothering you, we wanna know so we can be there to help,” Hizashi added. “We are your friends after all.” He mimed a finger gun with his hand and playfully tapped it against Shouta’s shoulder.

Shouta ducked his head even lower into his capture weapon to hide his grin.

“Oh!” Oboro piped up, lightly jostling Shouta who was still in his hold. “How about we make that like a rule in our friendship?” With a dazzling, enthusiastic smile, he looked from Hizashi to Shouta and back. “Whatever’s bothering one of us, he has to share it with the others! Hmm, unless there’s a very good reason not to do it maybe? But ‘I think they will hate me for saying it’ does not count as a good reason,” he added, perceptive as he sometimes was but had no right to be, punching lightly against Shouta’s temple once again.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. Whoever would say that he was pouting at that moment would be a big, fat liar.

“Let’s definitely promise that we’ll be honest with each other if what’s bothering us involves one another though? I just think that’d make things easier!”

“Sure, man,” Hizashi readily agreed, smiling as wide as Oboro. “I think it’s a good idea!”

“Fine,” Shouta followed along, exaggeratedly rolling his eyes. Despite his seemingly reluctant answer, however, he hadn’t even needed to think for a second about his response.

“I think we broke Shouta somehow.” Oboro used the hold he still had on Shouta to shake him yet again. “He’s too docile now.”

“You better remember that your fingers are within biting range for me.”

 “Hey, seems like my worry was unfounded.”

“Yeah, well… Let’s see whether my next question changes that though…”

The way Hizashi evaded Shouta’s gaze and how his thumb came up to press against his teeth before he caught himself and dropped his hand again made a fresh surge of anxiety roll through Shouta’s stomach.

He pressed his lips together tightly and awaited Hizashi’s question.

“So, definitely don’t think this is an accusation in any way, Shouta, okay?”

Hizashi’s smile wobbled ever so slightly and despite his request just now, Shouta felt as if the queasiness in the pit of his stomach increased tenfold.

“I was just wondering… You mentioned that you thought me n’ Oboro would only hang out with you all the time because we knew that you had no one else to hang out with – which’s not true, by the way. But, well, that’s just why I wondered… You are hanging out with the two of us because you enjoy it, right? Not… because you think you have no better alternatives and we’re the only chances you have to get a bit of socialising—“

“No!” Shouta found himself interjecting vehemently, though he wasn’t particularly sorry that he didn’t let Hizashi finish. “Definitely not. It’s the same for me, what you described. I could never—I love you both too much to ever think that.”

The words slipped out before he knew it.

His friends didn’t leave him any opportunity to have a heart attack, however.

“Aww, buddy, we love you, too, right?” Oboro squeezed Shouta closer with renewed force, almost lifting his feet off the floor.

“OH YEAH! We’re all gonna be the bestest of friends forever!” A tug on his arm from Oboro let Hizashi tumble forward, crashing straight into Shouta’s chest, though he only laughed and wrapped his arms around both of them, effectively encasing Shouta in a group hug.

“Yes, forever and ever and ever and ever! No matter what happens!” Oboro echoed.

“What are you, a child?” Shouta asked, raising his eyebrows.

Well.

His confession being misunderstood like this wasn’t a bad outcome either.

They were promising eternal friendship to him after all. It was incredibly cheesy. There also existed no guarantee at all that they would not somehow grow apart eventually over the course of time.

Still, Shouta’s mind was filled with the perception that they truly meant their words, even if it was just for the moment, and he couldn’t help being comforted by them.

He tucked his face over Hizashi’s shoulder, trying to shove the folds of his capture weapon out of the way with his chin, focused on the familiar scent of his friend that filtered into his nose like this, and wrapped his own arms around Hizashi while simultaneously leaning further backwards and into Oboro’s steadying hold.

“We’re gonna be sitting in a nursing home in seventy years and still be friends and that’s a promise, Shouta!”

“You mean a threat,” he mumbled against the flimsy fabric of Hizashi’s glitter top.

“And don’t worry, even if you turn into the typical grouchy ‘get off my lawn’ old guy, we will still love you regardless!”

“Thanks. That’s so encouraging to know.”

“Well, he already is a grouchy, albeit young, guy! So it’s not a matter of ‘if’ but a matter of ‘when’.”

“I see your point, but I raise you: Consider the incredible softness hidden underneath all the outward crabbiness!”

“Okay, an excellent point. So now it’s a question of whether softness increases with age, huh?”

“I totally say it will. Like he’ll have at least five cats that were all rejected due to some disfigurement by their former owners.”

“Yeah! And if he tells kids to get off his lawn it’ll be because of a ‘your sneaking techniques are terrible, a villain would spot you before you can make a peep and your mission as a hero would have failed, get back to the start and try again’ kind of situation!”

“Dude, I can totally see that!”

“If you do, please see an eye specialist immediately.” When this only elicited laughter from Oboro and Hizashi, Shouta managed to wriggle his arm between their comfortable cage of bodies so he could simultaneously elbow Oboro into the side and jab at Hizashi’s rips. “And stop talking about me like I’m not even there,” he grumbled for good measure.

This just caused Hizashi and Oboro’s laughter to increase and them to squeeze each other closer for a moment.

Then, however, they slowly started letting go again and untangling their limbs.

When they had all extract themselves from each other, Oboro piped up once more though,

“So, I just had a thought—“

“Sounds dangerous,” Hizashi grinned, “don’t overexert yourself.”

“Hizashi,” Oboro almost whined, sending a small cloud into Hizashi’s face. “Really, after two years, the joke does start getting old, doesn’t it?”

“A few minutes ago you signed up for a lifetime of being subjected to it,” Shouta remarked dryly.

His heart stuttered briefly at Oboro’s ensuing contemplative expression but was able to return to its normal rhythm when he then dismissed it with a shrug and a casual, “Guess I did.”

Then he continued, “So, anyway, as I was about to say… You know how me and Hizashi are generally viewed as the biggest idiots among the three of us, and Shouta’s dumbness is rather seen in how he chooses to go along with our stupid schemes? Well, now the way Shouta somehow managed to reach the conclusion that we do not like him was such a display of complete stupidity, of utter foolishness, of a lack of any rational thought—“

Shouta sunk his teeth into his bottom lip and rigorously ignored the burning sensation he could feel in his cheeks. If he didn’t acknowledge it then his blush might be hidden from the others by the dimmed light.

“—that it can surely be seen as the same degree as our crazy ideas. Like your mind lowered itself to our level!”

Hizashi burst into laughter, which quickly dissolved into hiccups as he prevented his quirk from activating and shattering the eardrums of everyone in the vicinity.

Indignation should have probably flooded him at Oboro’s idiotic line of thought. But all Shouta could feel was a mixture of the lingering embarrassment, disbelief at the amount of inanity falling from Oboro’s lips, and, somehow, laughter that bubbled up in his throat and threated to spill out.

Only with great difficulty, he managed to keep his mouth in a flat line and his eyes deadpan as he said, “So you’re telling me I’m losing brain cells as my mind tries to align with yours?”

“Yeah!” Slapping Hizashi, who had started choking on his own spit from the force of his laughter, on his back several times without looking, Oboro beamed at him. “Another reason why we all obviously belong together, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, I don’t.” The grin was getting impossible to keep off his face or out of his voice, so he turned around, pretending to walk away. “I’ve changed my mind. I want nothing to do with you two in my life ever again.”

He was quickly grabbed on the shoulder and elbow by two pairs of hands and spun back around.

“No can do, Shouchan!” Hizashi warbled.

“We said we’d be friends forever and ever and ever! Our bond cannot be broken that easily,” Oboro added.

“I’ll find some way to do it.”

“Nu-uh, not possible! It was forged with blood, sweat and tears battling villains and homework, shared secrets and dumb decisions.”

“And actual talk about emotions just now!”

“And actual talk about emotions! And those cool plaited bracelets with the impossibly big plates with the ostriches on them that we decided to get at the—“

“No, those are still ugly as hell.”

“Are not.”

“Yes, they a—!”

“Is there something like a majority vote in this friendship?” Shouta sighed.

“On the ugliness of ostrich bracelets, yeah,” Oboro concurred. “But not on whether our bond can be broken or not. Accept it, Shouta, you’re stuck with us now. Like old pieces of chewing gum stuck to your shoes!”

“I’m aware.” He made a show out of glaring at the other two’s hands that were still holding onto him.

Hizashi wrinkled his nose. “You couldn’t have come up with a better metaphor?”

“Like what? Also, have you ever been ordered to scrape chewing gum off the bottom of your shoe?”

“Well, no, but consider: We’re stuck together like the flat, two-stud interlocking toy bricks.”

“Damn, Hizashi. You’re more than right.”

With a groan, Shouta shook his head. “Ugh, what was it I did to ever deserve this?”

“What,” Hizashi grinned mischievously, “having the best friends on earth one could ever ask for you mean?”

Shouta’s gaze was still directed downwards, onto the hands that were wrapped around his arms.

The hold was loose, meaning he easily could have broken away and stomped off if he had truly meant his objections and hadn’t just fallen back into the usual, comfortable rhythm of the playful back and forth between them.

They knew him after all. Not completely, as the whole fiasco they’d just managed to clean up had proved. But being more honest with them and making an effort to let them in even further, until they knew nearly every intricate detail about him, was an undertaking Shouta was more than willing to commit to.

Starting right at that moment.

“Yes, actually,” he answered.

The embarrassment he felt made it impossible to lift his head, instilling worry in him about what their expressions, and based on that their reactions, would be.

However, the twin coos of “Aww, Shouta!” were a quite clear indication.

As well as the fact that he was tackled again by two pairs of arms a second later, pulling him into another tight embrace.

“But if I conclude this evening with a broken rip from you trying to squeeze the life out of me, I’ll forever hold that against you,” he complained, even as he wriggled his arms free so he could wrap them around Hizashi and Oboro in turn as well. His hands clenched around the fabric of both of their shirts and he breathed in their intermingling, familiar, comforting scents.

Naturally, laughter resounded and the embrace he himself was in tightened even further in response to his words.

However, after the laughter had died down again, they stayed entangled with each other in near silence, not speaking a word but just enjoying each other’s company, for a surprisingly long moment. Certainly longer than Shouta had expected.

In fact, he was surprised that he ended up being the first one to break the silence.

“On the topic of concluding,” he said tentatively, “didn’t you want to conclude the party? Or at least find out when it is meant to be concluded?”

“Oh, yeah.” Hizashi retracted his arms and started squirming slightly, which caused the other two to remove their hold as well and break up the hug. He glanced at the clock. “Guess it wouldn’t be too unacceptable to start kicking them all out by now.”

“What, do you want to tell me that you’re tired of partying already?” Shouta snorted. “Your plans aren’t to keep at it until even every respectable late sleeper crawls out of their bed?”

“Don’t you remember, Shouta?” Oboro quipped. “He, in a moment of utter cheesiness, confessed earlier that he doesn’t need any other friends besides us. Isn’t that right?” He playfully elbowed Hizashi in the side.

“No, it’s not.” Shouta rolled his eyes. “That’s not what he said at all.”

“Same difference,” Oboro snickered.

“Different difference.”

“It’s not what I said,” Hizashi agreed. “But.” His eyes gleamed with archness. “I guess it is true that I don’t need any other best friends beside you. Which just gave me a great idea!”

“For some reason I do not like the sound of that.”

Hizashi laughed and flicked his sunglasses back onto his nose with his fingers, only to then push them down to the tip and look at Shouta over their frame. “Well, Shouta, it just occurred to me that you might benefit from some reinforcement of my and Oboro’s earlier claims.” He winked, grinning from ear to ear. “Don’t worry though, you don’t have to do anything, just sit back and wait.”

And with that, he was off, approaching the throng of party guests and expertly winding through it on his way towards the small elevation on the other side of the room that was supposedly meant to be a stage.

Shouta looked at Oboro questioningly, but Oboro could only shrug. He didn’t know what kind of plan Hizashi had just devised either. The two of them decided to follow after him, though Shouta insisted on hanging back beyond the edge of the crowd instead of going on into it.

Before they could debate it further, a microphone’s acoustic feedback sounded through the hall, easily drawing everyone’s attention to the stage.

“HELLO, my dear listeners!” Hizashi greeted spiritedly. He leaned against a tiny speaker’s desk that he seemed to have plucked the microphone from, but immediately pushed himself off of it and sauntered about the platform. “Y’all still with me enough to PUT YOUR HANDS UP?!”

The crowd answered with the same enthusiasm and hands shot up into the air. Shouta huffed, buried his chin in the folds of his capture weapon and crossed his arms in front of his chest, even when Oboro, with raised arms, bumped against him in a prompt for him to do the same.

“We’re all still having fun?”

The crowd cheered once more.

“C’mon, I can’t hear you! ARE YOU HAVING FUN?”

The cheers increased in fervour.

“YEAH! Great to hear that! I’m a happy camper knowing that you’re all having a blast as well at this party that was thrown for me! So! I know I already expressed my thanks at the beginning of this whole show, but one simply cannot commend this entire effort enough! So how about we thank everyone again whose contribution helped pave the way for this maximum awesomeness! Let’s give them a big hand, guys!”

Wild clapping of hands and whooping followed Hizashi’s prompt, the party guests clearly full of beans due to the late – or early – hour.

Expertly, Hizashi managed to gently clap around the handle of the microphone as well while simultaneously continuing to shout and further fuel the hyped atmosphere. “That’s your applause, everyone, for all of you who planned and provided things and searched and collected and put their thoughts into it and helped with the setup and keeping things running smoothly and showing up and celebrating with us here today! Thank you all so much for everything! Thank you! THANK YOU!”

His voice got louder and louder, though he thankfully wasn’t using his quirk, which in turn seemed to spur on his audience to get even louder in their efforts, until Shouta was seriously considering sticking his fingers into his ears in the hopes of blocking out at least some of the noise.

However, when he continued, the crowd seemed to sense the slight shift in his mood, as it quietened down considerably.

“I really appreciate you all! I’m thankful I got to meet and become friends with each and every single one of you! But – I especially want to give a shout-out to two people!”

Shouta realised what he was doing a second before his name was being called.

His face felt hot once more. He was grateful that he had chosen to remain at the outskirts of the crowd and could only hope that Oboro wouldn’t draw enough attention that everyone’s eyes suddenly swivelled to them.

“Oboro and Shouta! One day, I will have to investigate who exactly puts the class rosters together and send them a lifetime supply of chocolates or flowers or something, because being put in the same class and thus getting to become friends with them was the best thing that has ever happened to me! No offense to you guys!”

He laughed amusedly at the various playfully-outraged exclamations of their classmates his announcement caused, ranging from “So that’s how you really think of us!” to “And we’re suffering every day for it, Yamada!”

“But, I will use this opportunity to be brutally honest, even if that means it’ll reduce my listenership like this: They are indisputably my best friends. Their friendship means the world to me and I’ll consider myself blessed if I’m able to keep the status of being a best friend in their books for a long time.”

Although he really wasn’t someone who liked attention in any way and thus would have welcomed if he suddenly developed a quirk that let him sink into the floor in that moment, Shouta knew and appreciated what Hizashi was trying to do.

As much as he did not want to be forced into a spotlight, public gestures, exactly because of their publicness, had a certain gravitas to them.

It was like a commitment, more than words babbled in private without any witnesses could be. While Shouta had decided to trust and believe in Hizashi and Oboro’s assertions from this night, his heart fluttered nonetheless at seeing the effort to meet him halfway.

And Hizashi was fortunately well-versed enough in managing an audience that his declaration wasn’t met with affront from all the people that considered themselves his friends, too, but instead with more cheers and applause and chaotic shouts that all drowned each other out.

However, despite the overall noise, the startled question by their classmate Sarudo somehow managed to ring loud and clear in the air,

“Wait, are you telling us you guys are actually not dating?!”

All at once, all conversations and exclamations hushed.

Something cold and slimy seemed to close around Shouta’s heart that had until seconds ago fluttered with the delicateness of a butterfly.

He recalled the conversation he had witnessed in the group chat for the planning of Hizashi’s birthday party weeks ago.

How his classmates seemingly weren’t just wondering whether the three of them were in a relationship but convinced that it was a fact. It had been responsible for his misgivings about their friendship – whether he was telegraphing his crush on his two best friends too much and from there whether they even wanted to be friends with him – after all.

He cursed himself for not remembering and not foreseeing how Hizashi’s declaration could lead to this exact response.

Now Hizashi had to stand there on the stage and for once look like he had lost control of the situation and not know how to navigate it.

“Uh – what?” he asked and the microphone picked up on the slight tremor in his voice spectacularly and made it audible for everyone. “What do you mean? W-Why would we?”

A commotion broke out at those words.

From the snatches Shouta could make out, their classmates especially loudly voiced their protests, presented their views and arguments and asked for explanations. Other people were filling each other in on the topic of discussion or tried to contribute to it with their own opinions or even so-called evidence on why the three of them should have very obviously been dating.

Shouta knew it was only a matter of time until people would look for him and Oboro to involve them as well.

Which was the last thing he wanted.

He blindly reached beside himself, found Oboro’s wrist and grabbed it before dashing towards a secluded staircase that was shielded from view, surprised at how willingly Oboro followed after him.

He threw himself onto one of the stairs, his breathing quickened more from nerves than from exertion, and threw his head back to rest against the wall.

Oboro took a seat across from him before leaning slightly to the side to peer at the pandemonium, his forehead furrowed in confusion.

“So, I have to admit, I have no idea what exactly happened, Shouta? What’s all the fuss about?”

Shouta definitely didn’t want to be the one Oboro heard it from, but it didn’t seem like he had any other choice.

Taking a deep breath by disguising it as letting out a sigh, he said, “Somehow, our classmates – all or nearly all of them, I don’t know – were convinced that… that the three of us are dating.”

“Huh.” Oboro’s eyes immediately flickered to him. “How’d they reach that conclusion?”

It felt like a small punch how unfathomable the very idea seemed to be for Oboro.

At the same time though, Shouta was also relieved that he hadn’t replied by saying that it was no wonder with Shouta’s obvious crush on them or something to that effect.

So he just shrugged in lieu of trying to find an answer to the question and, in order to escape Oboro’s heavy gaze on him, turned around to peer at the commotion as well.

Hizashi had abandoned the microphone in the meantime and apparently been able to jump down from the stage, but Shouta could see the way the crowd surged in the direction where he was most likely pestered and he was sure that, if he had found his cool again and regained control over the situation, they would have heard it loud and clear.

“Let’s get Hizashi out of there,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Oboro immediately agreed. “You have a plan though? I guess I could fly over the crowd on a cloud and pick him up like that, but that’ll probably lead to even more of a fuss.”

Shouta thought so, too, and he did have an alternative approach in mind. Plan was probably overestimating it a little.

He and Oboro walked up the stairway which lead onto a very small gallery. It allowed them to get a better view of the small stage and the cluster of people in front of it and to creep closer to that point. Furthermore, fate seemed to be kind to them that night, because the path ended in a door-sized window.

“You’re ready?” Shouta made sure. He grabbed the end of his capture weapon as his eyes searched for Hizashi.

In line with his predictions, he quickly found him in the centre of the crowd, thoroughly encased by people talking insistently at him on all sides. The frown on his face and the way he defensively held his hands in front of his body indicated that he definitely wasn’t happy where he was.

The sight alleviated Shouta’s doubts whether this was the right course of action or not.

He had only started getting the hang of the technique of wrapping people up in his capture weapon from head to toe towards the beginning of the school year, but once he had had the breakthrough of discovering how exactly to throw and pull at the fabric, he’d been successful in performing it every time.

This time was no different.

Hidden in the darkness, his weapon struck out of nowhere. It neatly wrapped around Hizashi as it was supposed to and with a sharp tug and using a beam overhead as a pulley, Shouta could pull him up. The most difficult part of this endeavour was making sure that Hizashi’s trajectory wouldn’t lead him to slam headfirst into the underside of the gallery.

Before the spectators had a chance to react, the wrapped bundle was already standing between Shouta and Oboro.

Then the clamour rose, though it was more complaints than alarm, given that all of their classmates as well as a number of students from the other hero class was familiar with Shouta’s weapon.

Before anyone could make an attempt at addressing or following them, Oboro had already opened the window, summoned a cloud, pulled Shouta and Hizashi onto it, and the three of them flew out into the night.

“Sorry about this,” Shouta gasped as he made sure to dig his one hand firmly into the cloud and hold onto Hizashi with his other to minimise both of their chances of accidentally falling off. He was referring to the way Hizashi was wrapped completely as much as their overall interference. There was no way this whole stunt wouldn’t be grist to the mills of everyone’s assumptions, but they would deal with that problem at a later point.

Hizashi, with his eyes free but his mouth obscured by a strand of fabric, shook his head in an indication that an apology wasn’t necessary. Shouta pulled his hand out of the cloud again so he could tug the strands around his head that were supposed to stabilise it in the manoeuvre he’d just pulled off of him.

“Thanks for the save,” Hizashi sighed as soon as his mouth was freed. He slumped to the side, fortunately against Oboro, who tightened his own grip on him.

“Where to, by the way?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Shouta answered because he had indeed not thought that far ahead. “But we should probably land soon if we don’t want to spend the rest of the day in a police station due to unlawful quirk usage.”

“Yeah,” Oboro said. “Oh, I know!”

They landed in a small side street, next to a vending machine.

With solid ground beneath his feet again, Shouta felt more comfortable in retracting his capture weapon. He activated his quirk and the cloth loosened, and with a distinct tug, it coiled back around Shouta’s neck.

Hizashi plopped down to the ground, leaning against the wall next to the vending machine, his arms hugging his legs and his forehead resting against his knees.

“Dang.” Oboro was padding down his pockets while shooting a longing glance at the vending machine. “Guess I left my wallet at the party hall.”

“Here.” Shouta fetched his own and tossed it over to him.

Oboro took the appropriate number of coins out of it and soon all three of them held a can of soda in their hands.

Buying the soft drinks had been a good distraction from addressing the elephant in the room, but only for a moment. Shouta knew they couldn’t put it off forever. That didn’t mean he was inclined to bring it up first.

“Hopefully someone will find your wallet and store it for you,” he said. “Given that… we don’t know when we can return there.”

“Well, my bag is still there, too,” Oboro replied. He took a gulp of his drink. “So going back there would be better.”

“Yeah. Before the timeslot it was booked for is over no less…” Most of Shouta’s attention was occupied by Hizashi, who still sat slumped over with no trace of his usual exuberance in sight.

Oboro seemed to notice, too. He kicked a pebble against the side of Hizashi’s shoes. “You okay, man?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah.” Hizashi lifted his head from his knees, smiling weakly. “What an absolute clusterfuck that was, right?”

Shouta hmmed in response whiling exchanging glances with Oboro.

It was obvious that the ordeal had upset him greatly.

“Yeah. What the hell, right?” Oboro echoed Hizashi’s words, clearly for a lack of anything better to say. “We should come up with a plan to beat everyone else in hero training on Monday!”

Shouta made another vague hum of agreement, but he couldn’t find the motivation for more.

Hizashi had started tapping a rhythm against the unopened can in his hands, not saying anything at all.

They lapsed into silence. Contrary to the previous time that evening though, the atmosphere wasn’t relaxed and comfortable but heavy and strained this time. Shouta racked his brain for something to say that would fend it off, get Hizashi back to his usual boisterous self and make them all leave the disastrous event from just now behind.

Nothing came to him however.

What he blurted out eventually was, “Sorry.”

That did get a reaction out of both of the others.

“What’re you apologising for?” Hizashi was the one to ask in confusion. “It’s not like it’s your fault our classmates are crazy.”

Shouta didn’t think he could say, Well, maybe it is, as it was likely my huge, noticeable crush on the two of you that lead them to believe that there’s something more between us.

So he just averted his eyes and watched Oboro kicking another pebble, against the bottom of the vending machine this time, and Hizashi went back to staring into space again.

The silent seconds that passed between them felt like hours.

Eventually, Oboro tried once more. “Hizashi? Can we do something that’ll cheer you up again?”

For a moment, Hizashi continued to sit still and withdrawn.

Then he shook his head. “I’m not—I’m not exactly upset, and this definitely isn’t you guys’ fault. If anything, all this,” he gestured vaguely with his hand, “is mine.”

“What do you mean?” Oboro and Shouta said nearly simultaneously. They looked at each other, recognising their shared confusion, and then back at Hizashi in anticipation of an answer.

Hizashi took a deep breath, then he faced them again.

Shouta didn’t dare to move a muscle. He had to consciously remind himself not to hold his breath.

Hizashi’s lips tilted upwards in a lopsided smile, but he continued talking, “Well, I’m going to find out whether this will be the best birthday ever or the most horrible day in my life I guess. And also whether our earlier announcement of ‘friends no matter what’ will hold true or not. Maybe it would’ve been smart to define certain limits beyond which it would only be natural for it not to be anymore. At least I can think of several things that—“

“Hizashi,” Oboro gently interrupted his nervous rambling as he took a seat on the ground next to him. “We weren’t kidding before about our bond not being broken that easily.”

“Exactly,” Shouta immediately affirmed, following Oboro’s example and sitting down, too. “Whatever it is, you can tell us. And I promise we won’t just up and leave you.”

He did not know what it could be that bothered Hizashi so much, but he was convinced that he would be able to keep that promise.

Hizashi’s smile wobbled and he wasn’t looking at them anymore, but his fingers tightened around the can in his hands until they made small indents and he sputtered, “Okay, well, you remember, in our conversation earlier, when I asked Shouta whether he somehow hated us, Oboro, and then he said ‘no’ and that he loves us and we said that back because, well, we do, right? And—and—“

His breathing had been so shallow that he had to cough a few times now to get enough air into his voluminous lungs.

Shouta reached out to rub his arm encouragingly. It was an automatic action and it only occurred to him afterwards that he maybe should have asked beforehand whether he was allowed to do so. But Hizashi didn’t flinch away, and it seemed to give him the last bout of courage necessary to spit out,

“So I just want to say if you want to interpret that ‘I love you’ directed to you guys in a platonic way you absolutely wouldn’t be wrong, but it’s just that if you wanted to interpret it in a romantic way than you certainly wouldn’t be wrong either!”

A villain attack could have happened in the neighbouring alley, complete with falling buildings and police cars with sirens and heroes with megaphones rushing to the scene, and Shouta was sure he would not have been able to notice it.

He was too thrown for a loop by Hizashi’s confession to react, or move, or even think.

Even though Hizashi deserved a response, and a fast one, and one that told him unambiguously that Shouta felt the same way for him and which would hopefully alleviate all his worries.

But Shouta couldn’t find the right neural cells that would get his mouth and tongue and everything else to move and speak all these words, so Oboro was the first to reply.

And he did so with a short laugh and an amused, “Guess we’re on the same page on that then.”

And Shouta felt like he short-circuited completely at that.

Thankfully, at least Hizashi’s reaction looked similar. “You—We’re—We’re W-WHAT?”

Oboro shrugged and probably aimed for looking nonchalant, but his hands were fiddling with the fasteners of his shoes.

“Honestly, all the benefits of dating in the world couldn’t offset the damage that losing your friendships would have been if I had asked you if we wanted to date and you’d had decided you wanted nothing to do with me anymore. But, well, if dating between us is a thing that is on the table… Or at least… Well, if it is…”

His gaze, with a sudden speck of doubt to it, wandered to Shouta, and Hizashi’s did as well.

Somehow, Shouta managed to find his voice again just in time to blurt out, “Y-Yeah. Yes. I—Dating you both would be… great.”

An awkward pause followed his statement and Shouta contemplated the fact how that had probably been the most disastrous, anticlimactic response to a confession that could ever exist.

How this whole situation felt offendingly anticlimactic considering how much he had been agonising and fretting over his feelings for his two best friends for months.

And whether their classmates might actually, maybe be on the right track after all when they called them ‘disasters’.

“Well, that’s good then,” Oboro concluded. He sounded giddy.

“Yeah,” Hizashi agreed. Then he threw his head back against the wall, took his sunglasses off and rubbed over his eyes. “Sorry, I just… I just feel like I need another moment to compute…. like, everything.”

Shouta felt very much the same way, so he only nodded.

This time, when silence fell over them once more, it was a comfortable one again.

They all were lost in their own thoughts for a while, but at some point during the process of shooting covert glances at the others that all three of them found themselves doing, their gazes accidentally met and then they all found themselves grinning, so long and widely that Shouta’s cheeks started to hurt. If someone were to stumble upon them then, they probably seemed like a bunch of maniacs from the outside, but couldn’t care about that at all.

Hizashi let go of the hold he’d still had on his legs and slowly and carefully watching for the other’s reactions stretched them out in a way that they eventually bumped against Shouta’s and Oboro’s.

And it felt like always but also different at the same time.

Which was incredibly silly, it was such a small touch after all, they had already spent countless sleepovers all sleeping piled on top of each other in the same bed and— Okay, maybe Shouta could kind of understand where their classmates might have been coming from with their assumptions now that the thought about it.

“Probably not that much is going to change with us… dating,” he gave voice to these thoughts.

“There’s one thing though,” Oboro countered, “or at least I hope so.”

“What?”

“Kissing.”

All of a sudden, Shouta’s hands felt as wet with sweat as if he’d just submerged them in water. One should have been able to think that he’d already experienced every level of nervousness imaginable that day, but that apparently hadn’t been the case.

He demonstrated his eloquence again by saying, “Yeah, kissing would be great, too.”

Across from them, Hizashi had perked up as well and was now looking at the both of them eagerly.

“Sweet,” Oboro beamed. Then his face crunched up in dismay. “There’s still a problem though.”

Shouta’s heart dropped. He didn’t know what he was referring to, but Hizashi was already frantically asking that very question.

“Who of you am I going to kiss first?!” Oboro asked.

Shouta and Hizashi looked at Oboro, then at each other.

“Damn, man, don’t scare us like that!” Hizashi complained. He kicked against Oboro’s thigh.

“It’s a serious problem!” Oboro defended himself indignantly.

“Well, then let me help you with that.” A mischievous grin appeared on Hizashi’s face. “Shouta, may I?”

As soon as Shouta had uttered a hasty “Yes”, he was dragged forward and Hizashi’s lips pressed themselves to his own.

Shouta’s impression was that it was very warm.

And soft.

Also a bit wet.

And even though he had just frozen and was not doing anything besides tentatively moving his own lips and hoping that it didn’t clash terribly with the pleasant rhythm Hizashi was establishing, Hizashi seemed to like it just as much as he did.

In fact, when they broke apart in order to breathe again and avoid blacking out due to a lack of oxygen, Shouta could barely draw in one long, gasping breath and admire the flush on Hizashi’s cheeks and the way his eyes seemed to sparkle before Hizashi leaned in once more.

This kiss lasted longer. Shouta was able to pick up and move in tandem with Hizashi’s movements, and overall he thought that he might not want to do anything other than kissing like this for a very long while.

“Uh, guys, this is all very hot but when is my turn?”

Hizashi broke their kiss, though he was visibly displeased about it. “Nobody’s fault but your own, Oboro,” he teased, pushing him back a bit with his leg. “Now sit tight and wait your turn.”

Fortunately for Oboro (and unfortunately for Hizashi and Shouta, who wouldn’t have minded teasing him a bit more), both of his boyfriends were too eager to kiss him as well to be able to hold out on him for much longer.

2XXY/04/10  

+81-90-2402-0144 created the group “Hero Course Class 3-A (and yes, that professionalism is non-negotiable ^_^)”  

2XXX/07/08  

You have joined the group “Hero Course Class 3-A (and yes, that professionalism is non-negotiable ^_^)”  

+81-90-8658-7497~Mushimori

#peak3baka

  +81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

#peak3baka

  +81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

#peak3baka TT_TT

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

#peak3baka

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

you guys still remember

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

when we coined that #

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

#peak3baka

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

in 1st year

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

We were still so naïve back then. :’) #peak3baka

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

Not yet knowing their asininity. ^^

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

UR ALL UNINVITED

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

ALL OF U

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

#peak3baka

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

UNNEGOTIABLE

+81-90-8658-7497~Mushimori

lol

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

Uninvited from the party that we painstakingly organised? I think not, Yamada XD

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

#peak3baka

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

@<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3 go back to ur baes mic <3

+81-90-4099-5145~2nd Arael

wht r u even doin here

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

well

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

SOME PPL keep spamming our notifs

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

#peak3baka

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

#peak3baka

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

#peak3baka

+81-90-9900-8473~sugimoto

#peak3baka

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

#peak3baka

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

#peak3baka

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

I hate yall so much

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

#peak3baka

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

#peak3baka :)

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

ur all UNFRIENDED

<3<3<3<3<3The OTHER MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3<3<3<3

BLOCKED

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

REPORTED

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

to ur good taste in humor

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

wait YOU wanna lecture us about “good taste”??? :’D

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

LOL

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

X’’’DDDDDD

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

#peak3baka

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

tbh with mics definition of “friends” i dont think i wanna be his friend anyway

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

bc “friends” = “oh im talking to them all normally with my ARMS HUGGING AROUND THEIR WAIST LIKE IS TOTALLY NORMAL and when they hafta leave for sth im staring after them SMITTEN for MINUTES bc im PINING” apparently

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

omg @Omniflickchick xDD

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

THAT BURN i cant

<3<3<3<3<3The OTHER MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3<3<3<3

u will ALL get ur @sses kicked tmw

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

yeah oboro defend your man from the big bad evil classmates

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

who’re SUFFERING because they just had to make the painful discovery that their class idiots were not just idiots but idiots beyond every imagination!!!!

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

we’re HURTING here okay??

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

Faith in humanity: Lost

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

idiocy publicly demonstrated

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

mic oboro & aizawa forcefully remove themselves from the party BUT AT LEAST REGAIN SOME COMMON SENSE

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

hopefully

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

Say didn’t Mic say they plan to go on holiday during break together? How much of a disaster is it going to be I wonder

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

@Katasugijun Let’s pray we’ll get them back in one piece, shall we?

+81-90-9900-8473~sugimoto

do you even really have to ask? xD

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

They WHAT omg

+81-90-3922-6338~DreamyGirl

Now, now, everyone, even though teasing them is fun, shouldn’t we also congratulate them? At least I would like to offer my congratulations and wish you even more happiness going forward. :)

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

takahashis too nice as usual

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

i hope u guys appreciate her!

<3<3<3<3<3The OTHER MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3<3<3<3

THANK U YURIE WE APPRECIATE YA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

+81-90-3922-6338~DreamyGirl

^^

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

isnt ueno responsibl f the sentimentalism where r u @?

+81-90-9219-3192~Ueno Mio

For sure, I can set up a session to convey everyone’s actual emotions – the elation and joy and delight at their classmates’ happiness – in an appropriate, undiluted fashion!

+81-90-9219-3192~Ueno Mio

Provided that’s what everyone wants ;)

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

pls don’t

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

oof

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

We got it, we got it ^^°

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

rip

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

Btw this whole incident just means we absolutely HAVE to go through with the #peak3baka collage we discussed once right?

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

Who has the records on that again, was it you @Ricchan?

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

ohhhh yes we DEFINITELY have to go through with that!! xD

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

@cbcw No, @OizuChikashi has them, last I knew. ^^

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

and this incident would have to be right in the centre ^^

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

do you still want to take that project on @=>kuga ?

+81-90-8980-3142~=>kuga

sure

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

Now I’m thinking, shouldn’t this incident then get a hashtag #PEAKpeak3baka ? ^^

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

YES Y E S I approve omg #peakpeak3baka

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

@cbcw GENIUS!! #peakpeak3baka

+81-90-8658-7497~Mushimori

lol

+81-90-9900-8473~sugimoto

Very clever @cbcw #peakpeak3baka

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-8658-7497~Mushimori

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-9098-0903~cbcw

#peakpeak3baka xP

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-8980-3142~=>kuga

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-8015-7064~Naoko

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-3922-6338~DreamyGirl

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-1712-1457~APathi~-~

#peakpeak3baka ^^

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-2402-0144~Ricchan

#peakpeak3baka

+81-90-9219-3192~Ueno Mio

#peakpeak3baka

<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3

JUST SCREW U ALL GUYS SRSLY

+81-90-2402-0144 ~Ricchan

@BANANANA I see you typing and you’ll stop or you’ll be kicked out.

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

XDDD

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

BWAHAHAHA @BANANANA You’re too predictable

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

u r mean this is bullying :(

+81-90-1712-1457~APathi~-~

@<3<3<3<3<3The OTHER MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3<3<3<3 @<3<3<3The MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3 I demand compensation for pain and suffering for having to witness today’s foot-in-mouth feat btw. ^_^

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

@APathi~-~ Oh please let me join in. I didn’t think it was possible to die from second-hand embarrassment but I came so very close.

+81-90-9900-8473~sugimoto

Says the one who has no shame either

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

@sugimoto Yes, that’s exactly my point ^^

<3<3<3<3<3The OTHER MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3<3<3<3

.I..

+81-90-5569-0566~Sakura<3

Okay but seriously Oboro, Mic, WHY are you hanging around here in the chat? Don’t you have anything better to do??

+81-90-9855-9409~BANANANA

or someone

+81-90-2402-0144 removed +81-90-9855-9409 from the group.

+81-90-8658-7497~Mushimori

lololololol

+81-90-1642-9351~Omniflickchick

and yet again tendo was outdrawn by ricchan

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

<.<

@Sakura<3 Their first priority was to change their contact names in my phone

into ones that don’t even make sense

0/10 experience, would not recommend

+81-90-4885-8735~BlowingSpark

HOLY SH

+81-90-1992-4087~Katasugijun

Is that aizawa?!?!?!!?!!?

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

whos that??

+81-90-4099-5145~2ndArael

aizawa??????? nw!!!!

+81-90-8658-7497~Mushimori

woah

+81-90-3726-8708~OizuChikashi

WHAT THE

+81-90-8142-9414~Tendo

Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any wilder

<3<3<3<3<3The OTHER MOST IMPORTANT PERSON in my LIFE<3<3<3<3<3<3

aww we love u2 shou <3< <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

New favorited message created: <3<3<3<3<3The OTHER MOST IMPOR…

+81-90-8658-7497~Mushimori

heaven please spare me from this

+81-90-9900-8473~sugimoto

Omg you guys really TOTALLY deserve each other so much it’s not even funny anymore

+81-90-8980-3142~=>kuga

you wont hear me saying it but this ^

+81-90-8015-7064~Naoko

Say everyone, wasn’t there someone with just a cat emoji as a username in the birthday party group, too?

+81-90-8015-7064~Naoko

Or am I overinterpreting things now?

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