Word Count: 829

"Hey, Kyo. I've got something to tell you," Momo said, late one night during a sleepover.

"What is it, Yaomomo?" Kyouka lazily replied, not taking her eyes off her phone screen.

"Come closer."

Kyouka groaned and turned off her phone, rolling over so that she could narrow her eyes at her best friend. "What, Yaomomo. What could be up."

"I need to whisper in your ear!" Momo exclaimed in a low voice.

Kyouka dragged herself over to where Momo sat cross-legged on the bed, bitching the entire way. Eventually, she lay her head upon her friend's lap and glared up at her face and with half a pout, half a scowl, and asked, "What is it?"

Giddy, Momo whispered, "I'm dating Todoroki-kun."

Kyouka sat up, crossed her arms, and cocked an eyebrow at Momo. "Uhhh, yeah? We know? Everyone knows?"

"No, I mean, for real now," Momo said.

With a sigh, Kyouka crawled back to whence she came and cuddled up in her previous niche. "Momo, we get it," she said as she pulled out her phone again. "You're pretending to have a boyfriend to keep your parents chill with the marriage interviews. You don't have to keep faking it while we're at school, you know!"

Momo sighed. Suddenly, she felt tired, and so she fell back and fell asleep.

"Midoriya."

The green-haired lad in question jumped, not expecting to hear Todoroki speak after such a long period of silence. "Yeah, Todoroki?"

"I'm dating Yaoyorozu," Todoroki bluntly said.

Midoriya's face twisted from surprise to confusion to some version of, "What in the god damn hell are you talking about?" before eventually settling on some brand-new emotion previously unknown to man that was perfectly between acceptance, bafflement, and "I'm wholly convinced you're not in your right mind." (Of course, it wasn't as if Todoroki could perfectly identify those last two expressions, so he simply dismissed them.)

"Um, Todoroki?" asked Midoriya.

"Yes?" said Todoroki.

"What are you talking about."

Todoroki blinked at his friend. He thought he was being perfectly clear on the matter. "I'm dating Yaoyorozu," he repeated, though with a lesser degree of the fantastic confidence he'd had just a moment before.

Midoriya sighed like a 90s anime character. "Yeah, but doesn't everyone already know that?"

"That was pretend. This is real now."

Ever the overthinker, Midoriya stared at Todoroki, thoughts racing at a mile a minute, trying to decipher the potential layers of meaning behind his friend's words. Was this just code for, "The adults have us figured out and are watching so I must reassert the new context of our game of pretend; please play along, Midoriya!"? Or maybe he meant, "We fell for the oldest cliché in the book through fake dating and developed real feelings for one another." If the latter was the case, then was he subliminally asking for help on how to get across the reality to Yaoyorozu? Was he lamenting the built-in lack of a line between real and fake that came from the situation?

Of course, Todoroki meant none of these things, but considering Midoriya had gone on another one of his mumble-rambles, he simply decided to give up telling the news for the day.

"Kyouka didn't believe me when I tried telling her!" Momo lamented late the next night as she and Todoroki sat upon the roof of their dorm (against all school rules, of course, but shhh…), watching the stars creep by.

"Neither did Midoriya," Todoroki said, fidgeting slightly as his internal monologue debated hotly as to whether he should reach for her hand or not.

Momo sighed. "I suppose we should have seen this coming from the moment we realized we liked each other for real in the middle of an open secret of fake dating."

Todoroki made a noise of acknowledgement, and his (real) girlfriend continued.

"I mean, of course, in their defense, it was difficult enough for us to get the message across to one another, and yet, I still can't help but feel frustrated— huh?"

Before she could get lost in her rant, Momo felt something warm wrap around her waist and drag her down so that she lay down, half upon the roof, and half upon her (real) boyfriend's chest.

"They'll believe us eventually," said Todoroki, notably looking away from her. "There's nothing you can do to help it now, soo you shouldn't worry about it."

Momo stared at him (hearing the beat of his heart echoing through his chest) for all of a minute before realizing she was staring, then quickly averted her eyes to gaze upon the stars. Then, just a minute later, she remembered, she was allowed to stare now.

So she did.

A minute more, and he caught her eye, which prompted her smile.

.

.

.

.

The best kisses came in the cold night air.

Author's Note xxv: i was actually very surprised to discover that this is already chapter 25! it's been a while since i last posted, and i really don't post nearly as much as i used to (though i really really wanna change that), but it's still a pleasant surprise to rediscover how much i've really written.

so. It's been a while again. Believe me when I say I am trying very dearly to get back into the groove of writing. For a while, I've simply accepted that I've been writing other things that shall simply never be published online, things of a far different design than fanfiction. But in my secret things, my hidden things, the words do not sing; they snark and they mock, and as such, it will probably be a while before my writing carries with it again the same grace the earlier chapters had. /sorry!

anyway yes! thank you for reading. follow/fave if you're new and interested, please leave a review if that's what you're into (since it's always especially nice to receive feedback after long breaks on writing ^w^), and as always, have a greaaaaaat daaaaayyy~~~ (happy holidays in this case i guess lol)