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The murmur of shared laughter hangs about the courtyard area. One voice energetic and full of life, another strong and heartwarming, the last dull and tired but just as sweet. There’s a sing-song melody to their harmony, interjected with quips and comments.
Ouma loses himself in a story, something he improvises on the spot about a royal mage and her faithful knight tasked with protecting her, and the tricky little thief they meet along their perilous travels; the thief is ever-so mischievous, but helpful in guiding them all the same. Yumeno makes brief comments and additions to his tale, pointing out flaws and plot holes where she recognises them. The supreme leader brushes each one off with an exaggerated puff, but he loves her perceptiveness, and he loves how it means she’s listening to every word that falls out of his foul, lying mouth.
Momota listens too—he makes quips and jokes about the thief’s antics—but he’s more focused on Yumeno, her head rested on his lap as he sits on the table, his hand brushing gently through her silky soft red hair as he feeds her sakura mochi. Ouma walks laps around the table as he regales them, collecting handfuls of sakura blossoms in his palm and depositing them in Yumeno’s upturned hat every time his hands get too full.
Their second year of attending Hope’s Peak Academy was soon coming to a close, and the past two years almost felt like a blur now. The school day had long since ended, but there was always something so innocent and nostalgic of their youth in sticking around after school, sharing the most precious moments of their life with one another in the dying sunset light, a soft shade of pink and orange on their faces as they laughed together under the open, cloudless sky. They all remember the day they met like it was yesterday, or just last week, vivid enough that they still talked about it, reminisced how far they’d come since then.
It was a couple months into their first year when Ouma teased Yumeno for being consistently late to class, suggested she didn’t take her ultimate talent seriously enough, and the magician likewise responded.
“Nnah… I’m busy recharging my mana, it’s vital to a mage’s everyday routine.”
“Mages have routines?” Ouma quipped, “does that include falling asleep in the cafeteria?”
And he gave her this wide, obnoxious, teasing grin of his when the magician neglected to respond. At the time Yumeno had found it annoying, but now she looks at Ouma fondly with nothing but care and love and affection for his ‘stupid-looking’ face, so she says. Nowadays they hold hands, and Ouma hums sweet little songs to her, and runs his hands through her hair while she gets a little extra sleep to make it through the day.
“Leave her alone dude, I’m sure we’re all tired with assignments and homework,” Momota had said.
Then Ouma looked over his shoulder at the other boy. “Oh? I feel as fresh and well rested as ever! How’s being an astronaut going for you, Momota-chan?”
Almost two years ago, Momota had growled at the other and consequently made himself a target of many relentless jokes and pranks for the foreseeable future. The astronaut would never come to expect them, as Ouma was always a step ahead, always planning something he could never predict or plan ahead for—but he loved it that way, loved always being on his toes in anticipation for the next thing the supreme leader was going to hit him with. He could see Yumeno’s influence on Ouma too; confetti, and never-ending checkered scarves, and unaccounted for doves flying out of his locker. Ouma brought out the childlike wonder in both of them, an old sense of fun and freedom they thought they were supposed to leave behind as they got older.
The way Yumeno’s eyes light up in the presence of her boyfriends is something only the other two will ever get to see, even on her worst days.
Momota’s hearty bear hugs are just a little gentler with them, because he knows they’re a lot smaller than him, and he doesn’t want to cause them discomfort.
The days Ouma lets his walls down just a bit, offers them the tiniest sliver of his vulnerability, and the other two understand him a little more each time.