Chapter 15

When Uraraka woke up again, she felt so warm, cozy, and comfortable that she didn't want to open her eyes. All she wanted was to just stay there, cuddling up on Bakugou's chest with his arm around her. Never would she have thought she could feel so at peace next to such a temperamental person as Bakugou Katsuki. But the phone in her pocket kept on ringing until she had to take it. For a second she just considered letting it ring out. Although when she saw who it was, she felt like she had to take it.

She took off the towel that had fallen down on her lap and covered Bakugou with it before she stood up as carefully as she could so she wouldn't wake him.

"Hey, Deku," she almost whispered into the phone while she walked farther away from where Bakugou sat.

"Hey, oh, am I interrupting something?"

Uraraka looked back behind her, "No, not at all, what's um... What's up?"

"I was thinking if you wanted to meet up tomorrow? For a uhm… a second date? I know our first date ended in a bad way, but I was hoping we could be luckier this time?" Midoriya's voice seemed a bit higher than usual, wavering.

Uraraka thought about it. Her reluctance to kiss him the last time, what she had said to the girls the night before. Maybe it would be good for her to try another date, maybe it would cast some light on what she really wanted because it sure felt like all of a sudden her feelings were confusing her a lot.

"Yeah, I would love to. Do you have an idea in mind?"

"Yeah, I do, if you just meet me at the park by the statue, tomorrow, at 12?"

"Okay, tomorrow at 12," Uraraka smiled and closed her phone with a small smile on her lips. That was when she saw she had several unread messages from the girls, asking where she left off so early and whether or not she was okay.

She messaged them, telling them quickly about why she left and what had happened, and put the phone back in her pocket, ignoring the new messages she could feel popping in faster than she thought imaginably.

When she turned around, she saw Bakugou had woken up, stretching his arms above his head before he collected his things and stood up.

"You're awake," she said, not really knowing what else to say all of a sudden.

"Seems fucking like it, Cheeks."

"Right. Right …" Uraraka looked out the double glass door and was relieved when she saw the weather had cleared up, the dark skies were long gone and so was the thunder.

"Let's get out of here, Cheeks."

Uraraka followed Bakugou without saying anything further. They walked back to each of their apartment buildings next to each other in comfortable silence.

xXoOoXx

When Uraraka got home, she threw her clothes on the floor instantly and went straight for the shower. The sweat she had worked up earlier had dried up, and she felt like her skin needed a good scrub. She could faintly smell the caramel-like scent from Bakugou's quirk, and she avoided exploring the thought before it even had started. Instead, she focused on the water that hit her skin as she could feel her muscles relax.

Fresh and clean, she put on her pajamas with a mochi pattern on them after her shower. Her body felt exhausted and her limbs were almost like jelly when she walked up to her desk and finally sat down on her chair. She stretched her arms over her head before she took a look at the pile of books she had for her classes. A sigh escaped from her lips. She hadn't had the time to look at her homework for the last week, and she knew they had an assignment due soon. She looked through her notes, hating herself for her lack of organization skills at the very moment. Note-taking wasn't really her forté.

While she was flipping through the textbook, she felt the struggle of getting the information absorbed every time her eyes ran over the text.

Without really thinking any further she took her phone and dialed.

"Hey Deku, I'm sorry I'm bothering you this late," she said hastily as soon as she heard she got through. Her fingers started to fidget with a few locks of her hair.

"No, you're not bothering me at all! .. What- what's up?" His voice almost sounded a bit shaky and high.

"I was looking through our textbook and my notes for the assignment we had in our English class, and I might need some help to understand some of the concepts we went through the other day and how to apply them."

"Of course! Let me just get my notes from my bag."

The sound of his breathing was as clear as if he had been right there next to her. The sounds of light steps were heard, a door opened, then closed, and then the sound of a zipper.

Uraraka could hear Midoriya clear his throat while he clearly looked through his bag until finally, he seemed to have found what he was looking for.

"Here it is, so what part of it do you need help for specifically?"

Uraraka could feel her cheeks heathen up, and she felt like something was in her throat as she looked at the cluster of words in her own notebook.

"Uhm, about everything," she almost chuckled in a sheepish manner.

And that was when Midoriya started without missing a beat. His words came fast and precise and Uraraka did her best to try to keep up with what he was saying and tried to write down the essentials. At some point, he started to fall into his usual steam of words that fell from his lips like a stream of water.

Uraraka's pen stopped writing and she sat back in her chair, listening to the excessive mumbling with a small smile on her lips. He was kind of cute when he did that.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I did it again, didn't I?" Midoriya stopped his rambling and chuckled.

"It's okay, don't worry about it!"

"Okay then, do you have any questions?"

Uraraka looked over her notes once again and finally, she saw something she hadn't before, the red thread that suddenly made everything make sense, "I'm pretty sure I understand it now, thank you!"

"No problem, really, I'm glad to be able to help," Uraraka could hear his smile through the phone, Midoriya was always quick to give a helping hand and to smile without any effort.

"So, about that date tomorrow," she started and quickly trailed off. She lifted her leg up on the table and slowly ran her hand over her prickly legs.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Are you going to keep it a secret, for what we're going to be doing?" she could feel the stubble prick the tip of her fingerpads, almost tickling her.

"Maybe I am. I thought of surprising you with something different this time."

"You sure know how to make someone curious, don't you," Uraraka giggled as she started to doodle on her notepad.

"I do my best," Midoriya chuckled, a clear sound that made Uraraka's cheeks heat up slightly.

"Then I'll look forward to tomorrow."

"I don't hope it's only because of the surprise now."

"It isn't," Uraraka almost whispered with a soft voice.

"That's good … I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow."

When the call ended Uraraka closed her phone and laid it on the table before she eventually let her leg fall down from the table again and she could feel herself float slowly up towards the ceiling from her nerves before she tried to get down again.

She looked forward to their date tomorrow, but right now she had to focus on the assignment.

That evening, Uraraka didn't notice Bakugou in the other window across the street.

xXoOoXx

Uraraka woke up feeling more refreshed than she had been for a long time.

This is going to be a good day.

She jumped out of bed and almost skipped over to her closet all giddy as she looked through her clothes. Maybe she had been a bit overdressed on their last date. She really didn't need to dress up like that. At least that's what she told herself to feel better about her wardrobe or the lack of it.

She finally found a pair of high waist shorts, a black top, and a thin, short-sleeved cardigan to put over.

She opened her cheap laptop to read through the assignment she was working on yesterday and did a few tweaks before she submitted it to her teacher, Yamada.

The pressure she had felt for a while eased up a little and now she finally felt completely ready to leave for her date. She found her shoulder bag and headed out.

When Uraraka finally found the statue in the park, she looked at the clock. 11.45, she was a bit early, which was good, that way she had some time to relax before Midoriya would get there.

The minutes went by, and Midoriya didn't show up. When Uraraka saw it was already 12.13 she started to wonder if she had gotten the time wrong, or perhaps the place. So she started to walk around the park to see if there were other statues he could have meant, but after some time she couldn't find any.

She texted her friends, Mina and Tsuyu, telling them she was still waiting before Midoriya called her on her cellphone.

"Deku, are you on your way?" She could feel the nerves pack up as her fingers started to fidget around, fumbling with her cardigan.

"Sorry I'm calling this late Uraraka, something came up. All Might arranged a spontaneous training day today and I couldn't turn him down." Midoriya was clearly out of breath while he was talking. He had probably been training for a while already.

"Oh, I see..." She would be lying if she said she wasn't disappointed, having looked forward to their date.

"I'm really sorry, I hope you can forgive me, I'll make up for it."

"It's alright, don't worry about it," were the first words that came out without her even thinking about it.

"I have to go now, anyway, I'm sorry! See you later."

The call ended quickly after that, leaving Uraraka standing by herself. She sighed heavily as she leaned against the statue and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Ya know, you're not supposed to lean on the statue," someone said from the side that made her open her eyes again.

"Kirishima!" She looked behind her and saw the sign that said: 'do not touch.' She quickly got away from the statue as if she had been electrocuted.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize," she trailed off, her voice getting softer.

"Hey, don't apologize to me," Kirishima laughed as he got a bit closer, flashing his toothy grin. "So, what are you doing here?"

"I was …" Uraraka didn't really know what today beside: "I was supposed to be on a date but got blown off," she couldn't look him in the eyes.

"Damn that sucks! What happened?"

Kirishima nudged Uraraka towards the nearest bench where they sat down next to each other.

"He canceled right before you came over. We were supposed to meet up at 12, but a training session with All Might came in the way."

"Man, you gotta treat your date properly, that's so unmanly! I'm sorry."

"It's fine, I get that it is important."

"But so should you be," Kirishima said as he placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Thank you," she smiled and Kirishima removed his hand as he stood up.

"I should really be going now, I have a few things I need to prepare for tomorrow. Hope your day gets better Uraraka," he gently tapped his fist against her shoulder before he left.

Uraraka sat by herself on the bench. A small smile had found its place on her lips. It really helped to talk with Kirishima.

xXoOoXx

Sometimes Bakugou didn't understand himself. Before he went to UA, he would never have imagined leaving his apartment for ambiguous reasons just because someone told him to. Through text. He would have laughed in their face and kicked them out of his way the next time he would see them.

And yet, here he was, walking down the stairs from his apartment and heading towards the park, just because his friend, Kirishima, had texted him to head over there with no further explanation.

Fucking hell. If this is because of another abandoned duckling, he found, I'm going to blow up his stupid face.

He could feel his frustrated energy building up in his body and some of his sweat started to produce with the anticipation of blowing something up when reaching his destination.

However, when Bakugou reached the park, he couldn't find Kirishima anywhere. The red hair was usually pretty easy to find.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he took it up to read it, raising his eyebrow.

[From Kirishima]: By the benches - you're welcome ;)

When Bakugou looked up again and turned his head towards the benches, that's when he saw her, sitting all by herself on the first bench, and instantly the frustration he had built up in his body evaporated.

Heh, fucking hell, Shitty Hair. He smiled to himself as he stomped across the park and around the lake, his hands shoved in his pockets to keep himself calm. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he came closer to where she was sitting.

"Thought you were supposed to be on a date right now," he said when he stopped not too far away from her.

"Bakugou! What are you doing here?" She almost jumped in her seat. Her eyes widened and she almost looked like she had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to do.

"Taking a fucking walk," he walked over to the other side of her, to sit on the bench next to her. He left some space between them, even though he silently wished to sit close to her.

"Oh, I see … How did you know about the … the date?" Uraraka's voice got lower until she almost whispered the last word. She was only looking at her hands, slowly fidgeting with her fingerpads.

"I woke up around the same time you did," he hadn't been sure if he should tell her these things, but for some reason, his mouth had moved on its own.

"Ah," it seemed like she had stopped moving her fingers for a short moment, but before he had the time to realize it, she had started up her fumbling once again.

"So, what happened? Why aren't you on a date with Deku?" He didn't really want to know. He didn't want to see her being sad because of someone else. What he really wanted was to be able to be the person she would go on dates with. He wanted to be able to reach his hand across the space on the bench and hold hers in his. He wanted to be able to feel the softness of her skin, to hold her, and to yell in the sky how he felt about her. And yet he couldn't. Because she liked fucking Deku instead of him.

"He sort of canceled the date."

"He fucking what?!" Bakugou turned around to face Uraraka fully, and he had to instantly calm himself down as he cleared his throat, "he canceled?"

"Yeah, something came up."

"He's a fucking idiot," Bakugou exhaled, leaning back against the bench.

"You always say that," she chuckled dryly.

"Doesn't make it any less fucking true."

"I don't know about that, to be honest, I don't think you really mean it, at least not anymore."

Bakugou was about to open his mouth, but he closed it quickly again. Clicking his tongue as he let the sound of the park engulf them as they sat there. Why was she so damn right? How much was she truly able to see?

"Well, I am going to train back at the gym."

"Great, great."

Bakugou stopped after a few steps, running his hand through his hair, "if you want to join, then it's going to be now, Cheeks."

He turned around just as Uraraka looked up with a slightly surprised look on her face before she flashed him the brightest smile he had ever seen and it gave a tuck in his heart he wasn't prepared for.