Rui walked into the agency the following morning feeling like crap and went straight to Gunhead's office.

"Ah, good morning Rui! How are you today?"

Rui sighed and shrugged. "I've been better."

"Uh oh, anything you want to talk about?"

Rui shook her head. "Not really, I just need to clear my head. I think I'm going up north a bit to the lake to train unless you need me here?"

Gunhead shook his head. "It looks like it'll be a pretty quiet day today, so you go ahead and if anything does come up, I'll call you."

Rui nodded and offered him a tired smile. "Alright sounds good. I'll check in later."

Gunhead watched as Rui left his office and wondered what was on her mind. 'She rarely goes up to the lake to train anymore.' He would soon have his answer though.

Katsuki sauntered grumpily into the agency about an hour after Rui had and everyone stayed clear of his path. He looked around the agency for Rui, but no one had seen her so he made his way to where Gunhead was overseeing an early morning training session and waited until he could step away a moment.

When Gunhead noticed Katsuki almost pouting in the doorway of the dojo, he gave his instruction and stepped away. "Katsuki, you're looking especially grumpy this morning."

"Where's Sirona?"

"She's won't be in the office much today," Gunhead said, watching his body language. "She went up north to the lake to train."

Katsuki grumbled a thanks and began to turn away, only stopping when Gunhead added, "You should go up there, too. It's a good area to train with your quirk away from lots of people."

As Katsuki left the dojo and started making his way out of the agency, he knew he needed to find Rui and fix things but how he was going to do that was eluding him. 'What am I even going to say to her...?'

Rui sat in meditation on one of the large boulders at the edge of the lake. She listened to the sounds of the birds chirping, the occasional frog croaking, the soft chittering of squirrels nearby, the rustling of leaves as the breeze blew through the trees around her.

After over an hour, she finally felt as though she could focus again. Standing, she hopped down from the boulder and went over to her things, stripping down to the bathing suit she had worn beneath her hero costume. Walking to the water's edge, she waded into the lake and welcomed the refreshing cold. When she had gone far enough out, she dove beneath the surface. She swam beneath the cold water, her hand gently sliding over the submerged foliage before she came back up for air and dipped down beneath the surface once more.

A rustle came behind her and she turned to find Katsuki standing at the edge of the lake. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you."

"What do you want?"

"We need to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," Rui replied, ducking down beneath the surface again.

Katsuki rolled his eyes, following along the water's edge as she swam, and waited for her to resurface. "Don't ignore me," he said when she came up for a breath.

Rui just swam a bit further out. "Just leave it alone, Katsuki."

"Don't make me come in there."

Rui scoffed at that, glancing back at him. "As if you'd really come in after me." She dove under the water and swam around a bit before resurfacing. She looked back at the shore, seeing that Katsuki had disappeared. She sighed, but then she noticed that his things had been discarded where he had been standing a moment before. "He didn't... did he..?"

"Didn't think I would, did you?"

Rui jumped and spun around to find Katsuki advancing towards her slowly, backing her up into a nearby rock. "Is this really how you want to play it?"

Remembering what Mina had told her the night before, Rui tried to keep her composure as best as she could. "J-Just say what you need to say..."

"About last night, I should have said something."

Rui held his gaze, unsure of where this discussion was going to go. "Why didn't you...?"

"You caught me off guard!" Katsuki replied, a bit more harshly than he had intended. Realizing he snapped at her, though, his tone softened again and he rubbed his neck nervously. "What did you expect would happen just blurting out something like that out of nowhere?"

"You wouldn't stop pestering me! Do you really think that's how I wanted to tell you?"

"Were you ever going to tell me?" Katsuki shot back.

"I-" Rui stopped and sighed, shaking her head. "I knew this was a mistake... just forget I ever said anything, alright..?" She used her quirk to push Katsuki back a bit, giving herself enough space to swim away from him and back to the shore. She ignored him as he called to her, quickly slipping back into her hero costume.

"Don't ignore me, Rui," Katsuki said as he followed her. "Would you stop running away?"

"Just leave me alone, Katsuki..!" Rui couldn't focus on talking with him, her mind was too jumbled at the moment, and she hurried off into the woods in hopes of putting distance between them so she could try to think.

"Damn it, Rui!" Katsuki reached the shore and slid back into his clothes, then used his quirk to catch up to her and landed in front of her- catching her off guard. "We're not done."

"Yes, Katsuki, we are," Rui retorted, growing irritated with his persistence. "Now move or I'll make you move."

"I'd like to see you try," he replied, advancing towards her. "Why are you being so damn stubborn?"

"Why do you care so damn much?" Rui asked, not backing down.

"Because you won't let me say a damn thing!" Katsuki retorted, quickly closing the distance between them.

"Actions speak louder than words and your silence said plenty, so what more could there be to talk about?"

"To hell with it," Katsuki said, grabbing Rui's waist with one hand while the other brought her face to his. He pressed his lips to hers, silencing her as she tried to protest. When he pulled away and looked down at her, her cheeks were as bright as cherries and she was speechless. He smirked and leaned down to kiss her again, this time lingering a while longer.