Hey, everyone! First of all, major apologies for the long absence. Life got incredibly busy these past three months with university, travel, and my schedule just generally being a lot less forgiving than usual. I've also been working on two other stories simultaneously, which of course always complicates things. Anyway, things have finally calmed down a bit, and this chapter, while shorter than usual, is my way to let you know that I'm still here and intent on seeing this story through. The next one will absolutely be out with a much shorter wait- hopefully 2-3 weeks, depending on how far I try to get on the newest Entropy chapter in the meantime- check that story out too if you haven't already! Regardless, this one is simply a sampler for what's to come. Enjoy!
Chapter 3: Interlude, After a Crescendo
"Sorry, but no, no way. I do not believe it. Like, I adore you, babe, but never in a million years."
Ashido Mina left little room for ambiguity with her reaction to Yaoyorozu's report on the results of her date with Midoriya, her palms laid flat on the table and her face the picture of doubt. They'd ended up at the same bar as before, in a corner booth this time- surprisingly, everyone had been able to make it out again on relatively short notice.
"I also find this entire scenario to be complete bullshit," declared Bakugo, biting down aggressively on a steaming hot chicken wing as he spoke, his brows furrowed in annoyance. "You're good at a lot of things, Moneybags, but lying ain't one. There's no way that loser would put out on the first date. He'd probably piss his pants before he got past second base."
"Okay, one, rude, and two, let's let Momo speak for herself, okay?" Kendo leaned forward to act as the moderator of the rapidly intensifying discussion, holding out one hand towards Katsuki as if he were a feral dog that needed taming.
"I think we all need some clarification, though," piped in Tsuyu. "How exactly did things escalate that far in one night?"
"Did he start crying at any point?" Shinso slurped down the rest of a clump of ramen noodles, then steeped his fingers on the table. "If so, how much?"
"And do you have any evidence to back all these claims up?" Setsuna leaned forward with an eager grin. "Ooh, how were his abs, by the way?"
"I'm with her, pics or it didn't happen." Mina crossed her arms and left it at that, and sitting opposite from Ashido, to say that Yaoyorozu looked overwhelmed by the sudden barrage of questions would be a grave understatement; Jiro laid a sympathetic hand on her back and decided to speak in her place for the moment.
"Easy, guys, let's at least do this one at a time. Clearly, Yaomomo is still reeling from the absolute ecstasy of the experience, so you can't hit her with too much at once right now. Isn't that right?" Kyoka elbowed Momo playfully in the side, but the taller girl only frowned anxiously in response rather than laughing like she expected, lowering her eyes to the table. Shit, was he actually that good?! Jiro's eyes widened, and she let out a nervous chuckle. "Come on, you can talk to us, babe. Just walk us through how it got to… that point."
"Well, to begin with…" She took a deep breath, then looked up to meet their curious gaze, her voice still wavering ever so slightly. Kyoka couldn't help but feel that there was something profoundly sad in her eyes as she spoke, but the others didn't seem to notice, listening in enthrallment. "It started off like a fairly normal date. I took him out to a nice dinner at the Imperial Standard, and things were going well after I made a bit of a fool of myself at first, but then we-"
"I'm gonna have to stop you right there, hun." Mina interjected, holding up one hand. "Hold on a second. You took him to the Imperial Standard? As in, the highest rated restaurant in Tokyo?!"
"Also the most expensive," piped in Asui. "The Mainichi did a report on it and everything. I've been meaning to go, but it's still a bit out of my budget."
"That's cheating!" Ashido crossed her arms, her face a picture of indignant shock. "Momo, you dirty girl! You bribed him into fucking you!"
"Interesting tactic," murmured Shinso, half under his breath.
"So you do admit that they had sex?" Setsuna poked Mina teasingly, and the pink-haired hero let out an indistinct grumble before Jiro had to interrupt them.
"Come on, guys, let Momo talk." She nodded encouragingly at the taller girl, then took a long sip of her mule as the table quieted down again, wincing as the muted taste of cheap vodka filled her mouth. At the rate this is going, I think I'm gonna need every last drop to make it through the night with my sanity intact.
"Well, like I was saying…" Yaoyorozu continued haltingly, "it was going well at first, or so I thought, at least. The conversation was good, and he was so charming! Much moreso than I expected." A hint of a smile crept momentarily onto her lips, and Kyoka felt her brows lifting in surprise. It was gone just as quickly, though. "…But it turned out that he was actually a bit uncomfortable about the venue- I was such a fool, not considering how he might feel out of place somewhere like the Standard. I still feel horrid about it…"
"Whoa there, that's not your fault." Kendo was the one to intervene on Momo's behalf this time, laying a hand on her arm. "I dunno what Midoriya's problem is, but I for one would be stoked if someone took me to a place like that for a date. I love people-watching with celebrities!"
"Says the celebrity!" Chimed in Hagakure, glancing up from her okonomiyaki. "Like three people asked for selfies with you on the way here!"
"That's hardly relevant to the situation," Itsuka replied, her face flushed red behind her beer mug as she lifted it to her mouth. "We aren't talking about me here! Keep going, Momo."
"Well after he told me, we both decided that we should somewhere else. We debated a few places, but we ended up deciding on my parents' mansion."
Tokage whistled in awe, her eyes wide, and Bakugo's scowl grew even deeper.
"Oh that's just great. I'm sure you paid for the private limo too. And for the record, it's just like Deku to whine and complain about something as stupid as not 'feeling comfortable' at a goddamn restaurant. For god's sake…" Shaking his head vigorously, he trailed off and reached for his glass of gin, his liquor of choice for the night, taking a deep sip as Yaoyorozu replied.
"Actually, we didn't exactly drive…" A grin began to spread on her lips again, and Jiro could see her eyes grow wistful. "He flew me there. It was the most breathtaking experience…"
"Oh my god!" Kyoka nearly jumped out of her seat when Toru practically squealed in excitement next to her, her tone giddy. "It's just like Aladdin! That's sooo romantic!"
"That… does sound pretty damn cool," offered Kendo, clearly impressed.
"If it even happened," Mina grumbled, prompting Momo to pull out her phone.
"I have pictures, if you'd like to see."
Following a mad scramble by all the girls present for the best position to see the phone's screen, they all gasped in awe on cue when Yaoyorozu began to scroll through a series of breathtaking images of the cityscape; half of them were blurry messes of light and color, but to say that the remainder were stunning was a grave understatement, as far as Jiro was concerned. For a moment Bakugo tried to protest that they could've just been pulled from online or taken from her private helicopter- then she reached the last one, a candid picture of the side of Midoriya's face, his eyes fixed ahead in determination as the moonlit clouds whipped past in a blur behind him. Katsuki promptly turned back to his food, his expression livid but his voice even.
"Well he looks like a fucking dork."
"Why did I never realize that you're just a really pissy tsundere?" Setsuna asked, propping her head on one hand as she gazed in Bakugo's direction with a mischievous grin. "Everything makes perfect sense now about your relationship with him!"
"Use that word to describe me one more time and I'll murder you," Katsuki growled, his knuckles white around his spoon.
"You know you're just proving her point, right?" Tsuyu inquired curiously, though a swift intervention by Itsuka shifted the topic of conversation before Asui and Tokage could tempt Bakugo's wrath any further, to Kyoka's relief.
"Aaannnd moving on, did you have any more photos to show, Momo?"
"Yeah, tell us all the scandalous things you did once you got him alone!" Hagakure plied mischievously, scooting closer to Yaoyorozu on the booth and tugging at Creati's arm with two invisible hands.
"It wasn't like that! Not at first…" Momo murmured, though the second half of her response was much quieter than the first. Her cheeks flushed even more intensely than before, she began to scroll nervously through the rest of her gallery, landing next on a series of photos of Midoriya in various stages of cooking a meal in one of her numerous kitchens.
"So you've managed to domesticate him already?" Across the table, Shinso stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Impressive."
"I helped him a bit towards the end," she added once they reached the photo of the final product, a plate of chicken parmigiana and spaghetti that didn't actually look half bad, as far as Jiro was concerned. God, when's the last time I actually cooked something beyond the bare basics? Maybe I can get him to make something for me too when it's my turn… Kyoka caught herself before she got too far along in her brief daydream about Deku in a chef's apron in her apartment's cramped kitchen, and forced herself to take a long sip of her cocktail to clear her head. Who am I kidding, I hope it's someone else next. I don't need the stress of trying to impress the number three hero in my life on top of everything that's already fucked up. Right?
"So how did it taste?" She asked, trying her best to distract herself from the lingering thought. "I don't think I've had actual Italian food since we all went to Tonio's for Toru's birthday last year."
"Absolutely delicious," Momo replied, her expression bashful and nostalgic all at once, a combination cute enough to make even Kyoka's heart skip a beat. God, if things keep going the way they do with men lately, I might have to marry this girl after all. "It was certainly the best food that I've had outside my family chefs' cooking in years, thought in hindsight that may have partially been the wine talking… We did go through a bottle of Bordeaux together."
"Ahhh, so there was alcohol involved, huh? Now it all makes sense." Leaning in on Momo's other side, Jiro poked her playfully in the side before transitioning to a merciless tickle, prompting a peal of choked, mirthful laughter in response as her own expression grew sinister and mischievous. "I'm starting to think Mina's right, you were trying to seduce him."
"Wine was quite the risqué decision," Setsuna chimed in in agreement, her lips twisted in a smirk to match Kyoka's. "That stuff gets me tipsier faster than anything else, and hornier too. Last time I drank a bottle alone with a guy was after a mission with Juzo…"
"…and we all know how that turned out," Tsuyu finished matter-of-factly, one finger perched on her chin as she eyed Tokage bemusedly. It was common knowledge among the circle of girls that she'd had a few spur of the moment, on-and-off flings with Honenuki, but no serious relationship had yet resulted between the two former Class B members.
"Well I say wine's for pussies," Bakugo muttered, half aloud and half under his breath- he was roundly ignored as the table's focus remained on Momo.
"And what exactly did you two do while you were under the influence, hmm?" Jiro didn't relent in her interrogation, her grin only growing wider by the moment. "I think we'd all love to know."
"We just watched a movie!" Yaoyorozu protested, tears of laughter flowing down her scarlet-flushed cheeks as she finally wrested Kyoka's hands away from the hem of her lacy top. "And then bowled a bit in my private alley! And then, well…" Momo paused to take a long, deep sip from her own drink, a Cosmopolitan, before continuing. "To be quite honest, things… may have gotten a bit out of hand after the bowling…"
"Details, babe. Details are key." Feeling the effects of her drink a bit more strongly than before, Kyoka wrapped an arm around Momo's shoulder and gave the taller girl her best puppy eyes. "Pretty please?"
"Well… we sort of… might have…" Still fumbling with her words, Momo eventually resorted to pulling out her phone once more, and swiped to the most recent picture, another selfie. Halfway poised for another tickle, Jiro's breath hitched in her chest, and she felt her jaw fall open in shock. Holy shit, she really wasn't kidding. Not that I doubted her, but just…
"Holy shit," Kyoka breathed, her eyes still fixed on the picture- they were the only words she could manage for the moment. Momo's face was center-stage in the image, with the embarrassed yet gleeful smile on her face half-hidden behind sweat-soaked locks of black hair. Though only her shoulders and part of her chest were visible, she was very clearly naked, and laying on top of someone at that- his face wasn't entirely visible from this angle, but she could make out a a hint of messy green-and-black hair at the corner of the frame, along with part of a closed eye and the familiar freckles on his cheek. The undisputable proof, though, came in the form of the boy's arm, which was draped over Yaoyorozu's back- and crisscrossed with Midoriya's instantly recognizable scars.
"That's hot," Asui declared bluntly, before the table rapidly descended into madness and chaos. Hagakure squealed even more loudly than before, Setsuna yelled out a brief string of profanities, and Ashido simply stared in utter disbelief for several long moments before letting out a long wail of defeat and jolting up from her seat. She started off towards the bar without so much as a glance back towards them, only to be rapidly joined by Bakugo as she called out to the bartender.
"Yo Shinji, I'm gonna need one… no make that two bottles of sake, on the double! Whichever one you think is best from recovering from life's cruelties."
"You kidding me, loser?! I need to forget that this ever happened, there's no way sake's strong enough! Lemme get a bottle of gin… fuck, make it absinthe! And some bleach, for my eyes!"
Itsuka, for her part, maintained a stunned yet respectful silence, while Tsuyu wasted no time launching into a round of increasingly specific questions about the juicier details of the experience, including Izuku's size, duration, and average speed, egged on by Toru and Shinso. Only Jiro and Kendo's combined intervention proved enough to convince them to let up; amid peals of laughter, though, Kyoka couldn't help but notice that for a few brief flashes between her embarrassment, Momo expression grew distant and plaintive, even verging on distraught- but never long enough for any of the others to notice. What exactly happened between you two? The proper opportunity to pry further refused to present itself, though, and Jiro forced herself to push the thought to the back of her mind for now. I'm probably just overthinking things. She's overwhelmed, that's all… right?
For a short while it seemed as if Mina and Katsuki might intend to remain isolated at the bar in their liquor-fueled recovery process, but when Momo finally produced the set of sticks necessary for their game from her purse, a shout from Setsuna was all it took to summon them back to the both.
"Looks like two alcoholic sore losers are gonna miss the next drawing if they don't get their asses back over here!"
"I resent the alcoholic comment," Ashido hiccupped, sipping sake straight from the bottle as she sidled back over toward them. Bakugo slunk dejectedly behind her with his absinthe in hand, his face fixed in a scowl and his cheeks flushed crimson- whether it was from anger, embarrassment or simply the booze, Jiro wasn't entirely certain. Regardless, their brief, self-imposed exile came to a swift end, and soon enough everyone aside from Toru and Momo had their sticks in hand. Even from across the table, Kyoka could hear Mina muttering 'redemption, redemption, redemption' under her breath as Hagakure led the countdown to the reveal, a sight so amusing that she forgot to turn her own over until everyone else's eyes were already on her.
"Oh! Sorry, uh…" Fumbling with the stick, Jiro glanced down at the result, only for her eyes to widen once more at the sight of a crown. "Oh."
"Why has all my luck abandoned me?" Ashido sobbed before Kyoka could process the development any further, tears streaming from her eyes as she took Asui by the shoulders and began to shake her back and forth- as usual, she was an emotional drunk. "Whyyyy, Tsu?! Whywhywhywhywhyyyyy? I'm gonna be dead last at this rate! It's not fair, I'm so sexy, I know I am, I should've wonnnnn!" She swiftly snatched back her bottle of sake before Tsuyu could even begin to reply and collapsed back in the booth like a baby with a bottle, cradling it in her arms like a precious treasure even after she was done drinking from it. "At least booze never betrays me… and I still have plenty of handsome matches!" Some of the light returning to her face as she swung back from despair to bargaining, Mina sat back up and pulled out her phone, navigating back to the app that had started it all. "That's right, these guys will steal treat me like a goddess! They'll bow and scrape at my feet just for a chance at a date with me!"
"Some goddess," Tokage sniggered. "What's the use in divine sex appeal if you can't even beat us lowly mortals in a simple contest? Sounds pretty useless to me."
"That's so mean!" Mina pouted, tears welling up in her eyes once more. "This whole thing is about luck, not skill! It's like I said, it's not fair at all! If we really wanted to make this balanced, we should go in order of previous body count…"
"…Moving on to our winner," Kendo interjected, giving Jiro a sympathetic glance, "I must admit I am curious to hear how she plans to top Momo's out-the-gates home run. Any ideas in mind, Kyoka? I'm sure that most of us would be willing to offer some unbiased feedback if you want to brainstorm."
"I would say none, but I feel like that's not doing the situation enough justice," Jiro mumbled- now it was her turn to be bashful. All but certain that with her shoddy luck she wouldn't be chosen, she hadn't even begun to come up with anything resembling a proper date plan- aside from the brief fantasy about Midoriya cooking for her, which was of course far too embarrassing to vocalize. "Is it possible to have a number of ideas below zero? Because I think I'm at about negative four."
"Well don't worry," Tsu butted in, "I'm pretty sure we can help you with that. I don't know about you guys, but I've got a pretty long list going already."
"Before we get to all that," Momo piped up, draining the rest of her Cosmo, "my drinks are free starting tonight, correct? Because I think I'm going to need a few more."
"You and me both," muttered Setsuna, who glanced around for a moment before her gaze settled on the same young waiter that had served them last time- he'd just finished taking the order of the booth next to theirs, and was over in a flash the moment Tokage raised her arm, his smile almost uncannily wide and eager.
"How can I help you, ma'am?"
"I'll take a... margarita, and another Cosmo for her." She gestured to Momo with a wink. "Anyone else want something?"
"Another beer for me," called Itsuka.
"And another Moscow mule over here," Kyoka added hurriedly. "Actually, I'll switch it up... how about a whiskey sour?"
When no one else spoke up, the waiter was about to take his leave, until Tokage held up her hand again, an inspired, devious gleam in her eyes. "Actually, our friend Jiro here needs some... boy help with a crush of hers. You think you could help her out with some advice on what kind of first dates guys typically like?"
"Sure!" The young man beamed, even as Jiro tried her best to stammer out an objection to the sudden turn of events. "Maybe tell me a bit about the guy first." Then his gaze met hers, and despite his gleeful, blushing expression, Kyoka couldn't help but feel a shiver run up her spine as she looked into his mesmerizing golden eyes. "Seems to me like he must be pretty special."
And we're back, with the long awaited discussion and fallout of Momo's (very successful) date with Midoriya. Let me know where you guys want to see this go next in the reviews, and what you thought of how everyone responded! You get a million cool points if you can spot the anime reference in Mina's reaction to losing the draw. Jiro's full date should be coming up pretty soon, I just thought it deserved its own chapter slot since it's pretty narratively distinct from all this. Also, just a quick reminder that the waiter is not who he seems to be, in case you forgot over the course of the hiatus. Until next time, which should be in 2-3 weeks or so!