Chapter Text
The day Jirou Kyouka and Yaoyorozu Momo met, neither of them were at their best.
For her part, Kyouka was in the final stage of grief after being rejected from UA's hero course.
The practical exam had been a nightmare. She hadn't dented a single robot. Thankfully, she'd been pragmatic - knowing that the hero course was incredibly selective, she had also applied to the business course. That's where she'd ended up.
It helped that the classes were interesting so far. She had quickly gotten to the point that she could joke with her family about becoming a sellout before she even graduated. Truthfully she had been a little surprised that the business course accepted her, especially since her grades were nothing special. She could only assume that her essay had made a difference. That was the thought that kept Kyouka going as she tried to dodge scalding grease from a spitting deep fryer in one of the concession stands inside UA's stadium.
Momo, meanwhile, had just been soundly defeated by one of the many, many skilled and powerful fighters in her class. She hadn't landed a single blow. The aspiring hero scrubbed at her eyes and wished she looked like less of a fool. She'd only even worn the damn eyeliner because she'd been told it might help with glare, and that was yet another one of her choices that proved to be wrong. The stuff had run profusely when she'd dashed off the field to cry in one of the tunnel-like halls at the edge of the stadium. Her shame was written on her face in damp streaks of black but she was too mentally exhausted to create a decent makeup remover, let alone try to retouch it. Instead she simply tried to keep her head down as she power-walked through the stadium, letting her feet carry her where they may.
After the down and defeated young heiress had unknowingly done about a quarter-lap of the stadium, fate threw her a tentacle. Momo smelled takoyaki and her restless feet slowed. While she wished she didn't have any feelings at the moment, her quirk allowed her to eat whatever feelings she had with impunity. Her stomach growled as if to cement her decision, reminding her that she needed to replace the lipids it had taken to create her damned useless shield and superfluous staff. She made her way toward the noise of the crowd, correctly assuming that the concession stand would be closer to the seats.
Kyouka had just sent a customer on their way with some piping-hot food when she noticed a statuesque, incredibly pretty girl in a UA tracksuit sniffling and scrutinizing the menu above her head for something specific. "Could I have five orders of takoyaki, please?" she inquired in a thin voice wavering with suppressed emotion.
"Of course!" Kyouka replied with an easy smile, taking a couple more trays out of the fridge and loading their contents into the crazy-fast oven she'd learned to use yesterday. She set a timer ten seconds short of the cook time Lunch Rush had specified and then tapped her way through a resupply request since it was such a large order of one item.
Momo quietly watched the other girl going about her work, noting her interesting ear mutation, her stylish hair, the flawless, creative makeup that she hadn't cried off of her face, and her striking smile and you're staring, stop staring, Momo! Her panic intensified when she realized that the girl she'd been staring at was looking at her sympathetically and offering her a wet napkin.
"Thank you," she murmured, trying to remove the black blotches she knew must be marring her face.
"I take it your fight didn't go well?" the girl behind the counter softly inquired.
"It wasn't much of a fight," Momo sighed deeply. "I feel sorry for the audience, though I assume some of them feel sorry for me too."
"Hey, you're doing better than me." Kyouka shrugged and gave a weak smile. "I failed the practical exam for the hero course."
"I'm sorry that you weren't accepted." Momo fixed the shorter girl with a sympathetic look. "I didn't pass the practical either, and I'm starting to doubt that I could have. I'm a recommendation student, but-" She sniffled again. "I assume someone is regretting their recommendation right now." Her voice was thick as she tried and failed to manage a rueful smile.
"You don't know that." Kyouka shook her head and offered the taller girl a soft look of encouragement. "I think if they recommended you it's because they believe you'll be a great hero. It doesn't mean they thought you could win every fight."
"Isn't that what a hero has to do?" Momo mused quietly. "The ones who lose don't come home."
Jirou frowned. She could not abide the idea of letting this girl walk away in her current frame of mind. Thankfully the timer went off and bought her a moment to think. She wanted to help the pretty hero student believe in herself. "I think the heroes who last are smart enough to know which fights they belong in." she said as she removed the baskets from the oven. "They pick their battles. Thirteen doesn't show up to brawls, and All Might can't save you if you're in the middle of the ocean or something. I bet you could have beaten some of the people in the final 16. What was the other person's quirk?"
Momo opened her mouth to reply and promptly closed it, eyebrows knitting in confusion. "It's honestly a little hard to say, which is funny because he's in my class. Suffice it to say he can hit hard and fast and he can do it at range."
"What about yours? Was it just a bad matchup?"
Momo frowned. "In theory there should be no such thing as a bad matchup for me. I can create anything as long as I know its composition. It takes time to make something though. Fights move faster than I do, apparently."
"You can make anything?" Kyouka asked in awe. "Did you make anything before the match started?" She slid the boxes of takoyaki toward the hero in training.
"No, it would have been against the rules." Momo wore a wan smile as she opened the topmost box so that they could begin to cool.
"Well there you go, real battles with villains don't have rules! You're not going to show up to a hostage situation and give them a countdown before you make stuff! You'll have what you need before anybody throws a punch. They're playing games today, not showing you the future." she gestured dismissively toward the field and the competition that was presumably still going on. Kyouka was not prepared for the warmth of the disheveled girl's subtle but radiant smile. She flushed under the taller girl's gaze, which she would swear eclipsed the heat of the cramped kitchen by a healthy margin. Kyouka tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and made her way to the register as an excuse to avert her eyes. "Anyway, I bet your friends are waiting on the food."
"Oh, it's all for me." Momo laughed, picking up one of the morsels and blowing on it. "My quirk uses the lipids in my body, so I eat a lot after using it."
Kyouka looked at the stack of boxes with wide eyes. "Damn," she breathed. "Anyway, it's, uh-" she prodded the register, "five thousand yen." she cringed. That was a hell of a lot of money to spend just to fuel a quirk for one fight.
The hero student initially looked entirely unperturbed by the bill, but as she reached into the pockets of her tracksuit, she stilled. Her look of dawning horror quickly morphed into heartbreak. "Dammit, Momo. You can't do a single thing right." the distraught girl whispered, shaking with emotion. The world blurred just like it had when she'd walked off the field after her defeat - apparently she still had some tears left.
Suddenly Momo found herself being hugged. "That's not true." the girl from the concession stand quietly but firmly insisted.
Kyouka had rushed out from behind the counter at the first sign of tears and was doing her level best to comfort the budding hero while grappling with the fact that they were quite literally not level. If the weeping young woman hadn't been folding in on herself with grief Kyouka was pretty sure she'd only be as tall as her chin. As it was, she had her arms wrapped around the larger girl's upper back while she cried forcefully but quietly into Kyouka's hair. After a moment she gave in to the temptation to reach up and pat the distressed girl's hair, noting with mixed feelings that it was just as soft as it looked. "One bad day doesn't make anyone a failure." she murmured.
"Thank you." Momo whispered.
"If I give you my LINE you could let me know when you've got your wallet back," Kyouka offered. "I'll try to find a pen…" she muttered, rushing back behind the counter and casting about for a pen at her thoroughly paperless point of sale.
Momo saw an opportunity to feel competent again and spoke. "There's no need - I can give you mine."
An indescribable but not unpleasant sound drew Kyouka's attention to a mesmerizing multicolored light show in the creation hero's hand. Soon something shiny and round rested in the girl's palm. Momo inspected her creation and smiled before offering it to Kyouka.
It was a silver coin with a mirror finish. Kyouka was certain she would have been able to see her reflection in it if not for the inscription: This token entitles the bearer to 5000 yen and undying gratitude from Yaoyorozu Momo. Kyouka turned the coin over and found that the other side bore a LINE ID. "That's incredible." She shook her head in wonder.
"It's just tungsten." Momo waved off the compliment. "I don't make precious metals or gems since it could affect the economy. Please get in touch with me soon so that I can pay, and-" Momo smiled in bemusement. "I'm so sorry, I never asked your name."
"Jirou Kyouka, and I'll text you tonight." Kyouka promised with a warm smile.
"I look forward to it. And thank you again for being so kind to a messy stranger." Momo bowed.
Kyouka had not stopped thinking about Yaoyorozu Momo since she'd walked away with her mountain of takoyaki. She spent the rest of the afternoon slinging food in a trance. She caught herself reaching for the takoyaki when someone had ordered something else at least three times.
She watched the recording of the second event while she commuted home and was awed by Yaoyorozu's performance. She was still ruminating on her interaction with the future hero when she walked into her family's apartment and theatrically slumped onto the kitchen table.
"I met the most gorgeous girl on earth today." Kyouka said morosely.
Her dad was sitting across from her with his laptop. It was 50/50 whether he was working or watching old concert videos. "Based on your tone I assume that was… catastrophic?" he guessed sympathetically. "I mean, I'm sure I introduced you to your mother at some point."
"Nice save." Kyouka muttered into the table. "I'll be sure to tell her you're still simping in your twilight years."
"Please do. So what happened?"
"Did you see any of the festival?"
"I saw a headline about Endeavor's kid winning through forfeits but there was another one about someone from the support course making it to the finals and giving a sales pitch."
"You didn't hear about the hot air balloon?"
"I… did not." he admitted, blinking in surprise at the non sequitur.
"We can catch you up on that later but in the second event the girl who made the sales pitch in the tournament round asked the most gorgeous girl on earth (besides mom) to make a hot air balloon because she can make anything. She can make anything she wants and yet she chose to come to me for takoyaki and make me more gay." She thumped her fist on the table four times to drive home the injustice of it. "If I wasn't completely sure it was unintentional I might have called it rude."
"I didn't think you could be more gay." her father said with mild surprise.
"Neither did I." Kyouka groaned and retreated into her folded arms. A light fluttering of hair suggested that she'd heaved another sigh. "Once you see her you'll get it. She looks like a literal goddess…" She allowed the top half of her pinkening face to peek out, staring at the fridge without seeing it. "Even when her makeup's messed up and she's being way too hard on herself." she muttered.
"Did you get her LINE?" her father joked.
Jirou Kyotoku was surprised to see an insufferably smug grin spread across the face of his formerly distraught daughter. "You think I have no game, old man?" She pinned him with a mischievous look while withdrawing something from her pocket and holding it up for inspection.
It was a silver coin with a LINE ID on it.
Kyotoku's jaw dropped. "On a literal silver platter!" he laughed. "I have nothing left to teach you." he declared with a mixture of awe and indignation. Kyouka's grin of childish pride warmed the depths of his soul, but eventually one side of the grin warped into something rueful and she offered the coin to him.
"I don't actually have that much game. Flip it over."
"Eternal gratitude." he read aloud. "That's a foot in the door if I've ever seen one." he said with uncharacteristic sincerity.
Kyouka rolled her eyes because she was a teenager and she was probably obligated to do it. Her blush told the real story, anyway.
"The money's not bad, either." he added.