When Fuyumi was a child, the family cook made a Christmas sponge cake with strawberries and buttercream, though for the life of her she doesn't remember the whole family eating it together. Her father or older brother were missing, usually, and when Touya was present, he either got up and left before having any or he engulfed the room in such an intense distaste that it defeated the purpose. They stopped the tradition altogether just after she turned twelve. That was the first year their mother refused to enter the house.

Touya permanently excused himself from the table not long after.

Christmas Eve outside the house, however, is beautiful — at least in the city. The lights are especially beautiful. If Fuyumi is honest with herself, she does not know that from experience, but from magazine ads and extrapolation from commuting through the decorated areas in the runoff days before and after the main event. It's a distant concept, the holiday, much like family is a distant concept, but one she feels a pull towards like a ship free of obstruction but still captured by an anchor obscured in the dark water.

It's incongruous for her to associate these things together since Christmas is meant for friends and couples rather than families, but something about the start of the deep winter of the year calls out to the denied corners of her heart. Her wants and needs grow louder while her fear of disturbing the family's previous equilibrium grows softer.

The Todoroki family in the changing seasons were sun and moon rotating in the sky: in the summer, their hot-tempered father rose far above them while in the winter, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto can catch his ear come the twilight of his season.

Come the twilight of his ambition, Fuyumi knows.

Her father's answering mercy is separation. He means it as a kindness and release in a journey of impossible amends, she knows, and Natsuo and Shouto will benefit from this. Their mother will benefit from this. Fuyumi, in theory, will also benefit from this. But it isn't what she wants. She wants the whole family, cohesive — or at least civil — as one.

Instead, her father will be just as distant as he ever was: a mirage in a desert; smoke in the wind; a broad-backed traveler slowly becoming one with the mountain he climbs; a creature spoken of in hushed tones with reverence, fear, spite, and disgrace by her brothers and those who knew or suspected the disgrace of Enji Todoroki.

The faraway devil in his own hell.

Fuyumi's life outside the house both before and after Touya's death was – stilted. Isolating. She went to school and was occasionally given beautiful things from her father like artfully packaged admissions of guilt, but hers was an existence of tranquil distance like that of a figure trapped in a snowglobe. As a Todoroki, she had money, status, protections, and the opportunities that afforded – but none of the approachability of the average person. It was two-fold: one, her father was outrageously famous and powerful, and two, Fuyumi could not imagine bringing anyone – friends, boyfriends, teachers – deeper into her life than arm's length and expecting them to survive there. It was part of why she tried so hard to foster an environment for Shouto to have what she did not: a place to bring friends.

She had not expected for one of Shouto's friends to turn his sights on her despite that. She had much less expected him to trip over himself to come back to see her.

Whatever her first impression of Katsuki Bakugo was through media violence, it was replaced by a newer and more incredulous one as she'd watched him sulk and shout and fidget across the kitchen table from her on more than one occasion: Bakugo-kun is shy.

From what Shouto tells her and what she can glean, Katsuki Bakugo doesn't really want money and he definitely doesn't want associative fame. He wants to be independently exceptional but uniformly unbothered; self-reliant but depended upon; alone but always considered. In other words: he's a little boy struggling to play at being a man but in denial of what that means.

This is not the first precocious crush Fuyumi has had foisted upon her. Every class of children she's taught in her short career produces more than one lovesick puppy. The admiration of her students is an evergreen crop, she's discovering, but a shallow replacement for something permanent of her own.

However, this is Fuyumi's first date, Christmas Eve or otherwise, and her would-be suitor is her father's sour-faced intern with a propensity for posturing. She would be lying if she said he was her first choice, but she would also be lying if she said she wasn't delighted to even know she had a choice: The family's broken status threatened blood in the water, Fuyumi knew, and the public would indiscriminately rip their lives apart if they caught the scent of it. If that happened, she could offer Shouto nothing. She would have nothing. She would be less than Endeavor's second-oldest: she would be the pitiable daughter of the disgraced once-Hero now-Villain Enji Todoroki, may he burn in his Hellflame, and how awful that such a lovely girl was ruined because of something like that.

So far, the biggest difference between scheduled group classroom lessons with her student sweethearts and a date with Bakugo is this: she doesn't know what to wear. She isn't in charge of their planned activities, either, especially on such short notice. She suspects that Bakugo also didn't have a clue at the time of asking, but heard the click of gears turning in his head when he told her to wear walkable shoes.

"Don't got a car," he'd explained, like saying that could circumvent the fact that he is not old enough to drive a car even if he had one.

She supposes that, besides the shoes, it likely does not matter what she wears. Her coat and scarf will obscure it. Whatever happens beneath the surface is irrelevant to anyone but her. But she chooses a dress she likes but never had the chance to wear, tights, and a necklace her father gave her.

She looks at herself in the mirror and smiles like she's practiced to do all her life. She smiles the way she expects someone would when they greet their date. Hopefully, she can make it look natural.

—

Rather than meeting Bakugo at the station like they planned, he greets her with a surprise text thirty minutes before scheduled time:

Got off earlier than expected. At the door.

In a rush, she hurries to let him in from the cold. She knows he hates it from the way he wears his scarf and hunches beneath his jacket with less calculated intention than an insecure boy actively trying to look two feet taller than he is. When she moves the cushioned draft seal and pulls open the front door, she finds him tapping his toe on the water-grey cobblestones and facing towards the last purpling light of the setting sun squeezing through the property gate. He turns on his heel at the sound of wood scraping over the track.

Fuyumi cannot help the bewildered amazement unfolding in her mind. I can't believe he actually came.

He stares at her; she stares at him. His same tawny scarf wraps around his neck like a security blanket beneath his ashen hair, but thankfully he's chosen a dark overcoat in place of his school uniform jacket or, God forbid, his hero uniform. His ungloved fingers tap against a bouquet of flowers in his hands in the same impatient cadence as his feet. Fuyumi can see the telltale clouding of heated condensation where the plastic wrapper coincides with his fingertips. Obscured in his other arm is a small white box.

"Well?" Bakugo asks at last, gesturing between them with the flowers as he trudges closer. "We still doin' this?"

Fuyumi realizes that, despite all of her practice, she forgot to smile. She remedies that.

"Of course," she says. "Thank you for taking time out of your schedule."

Bakugo hands her the bouquet. More precisely, he shoves it into her hands. It's a mix of white daffodils and chrysanthemums in bright green, white, and red wrapped in tissue and plastic. Fuyumi wonders if he has any idea what that means.

"'S Christmas colors," Bakugo blurts, defensively, as if in explanation, and Fuyumi realizes that, no matter what he pretends, he very much does.

His eyes burn into her like a challenge. Like the space they occupy is a warzone and he's desperate to hold his ground rather than be called a coward for running in the face of the enemy. Fuyumi gets the sense that, had he been given the budget and time to choose whatever he felt was most accurate, he probably would have found himself with a full chrysanthemum rainbow to puzzle out.

"And it's. Like. Your hair."

"Let me put these in some water," she says mercifully.

"I'll do it. I'm early." Bakugo counters, holding his hand out for the bouquet's return and then demanding it with curling fingers. "Finish puttin' on your clothes."

He's returning her mercy. Fuyumi realizes with pale-faced clarity that she'd rushed to the door before changing out of her robe. Her makeup is finished, but her outfit is still on her bed in a neat pile of gauze and silk lining.

This is hell, she thinks. She relinquishes the flowers and steps inside.

"D-do you know where the vases are in the kitchen?"

Bakugo raises an eyebrow.

"I'm so sorry I've made you wait," she amends instead, bashful as she shrinks into the genkan.

Bakugo only grunts, examines the three sets of men's slippers by the door, changes into her father's – again – and stomps down the hall so he doesn't slip in the oversized soles.

Meanwhile, Fuyumi retreats to dress, torn in two between gratitude for her family's convenient prior commitments and also dawning betrayal for her family's timely absence.

She had passed the week in a quiet daze separate from all anxiety or forward thoughts, but they plagued her now that Bakugo was in her home again; in her kitchen and probably making a racket of her cutting board and knives for a second time. The ashes left behind in the settled gloom of her inner life stirred at the entrance of a loud stranger into her home to swirl in dramatic whorls like snowglobe glitter.

This is her first date. Aren't her father or brothers meant to give their opinion on the person she's meeting?

Had Bakugo asked her father for the evening off from his internship, or did he already have it free? Would her father even say anything if he knew his mouthy intern was at his house to escort his daughter into town? Or would he stand there, flabbergasted and spurting flame but paralyzed by his own too-late realization that he'd missed most of his daughter's life – and now made the decision to make the separation symbolically more permanent than ever before? What would Shouto say? Did Shouto know? Had Bakugo told him in confidence, or callously grilled him for ideas of what Fuyumi liked? Would Shouto even know how to answer those questions?

Did Bakugo tell her father, formally, and ask for permission?

Did her father give it? Did he give anything? Did he have a right to say anything? Did he have a place to criticize or dissuade her? Fuyumi isn't sure what possible answer is worse or better, or if even having an answer is better or worse.

She dresses – tights first, dress next, necklace last. She ventures to the hallway to find her coat and hide it all before Bakugo can see, but he is already waiting for her in the genkan and replacing his shoes. He glances up at her entrance and catches her feeling underdressed for the second time that day.

He doesn't comment on it one way or the other, but he stands and grabs her coat off the hook to his left. Tentatively, she accepts it one arm at a time. Bakugo reaches for the door next while she slips her shoes onto her feet.

"I'll lock up," says Fuyumi.

He grunts and closes the door behind them both. She locks it. They're off. They exit the gate and turn right out of the estate.

It's quiet.

Their breath trails from their mouths like white smoke before fading into the parched air. They're headed to the station and, from there, likely into town. The sky suggests snow. Fuyumi cannot bring herself to ask for anything definitive.

"Bakugo-kun," she starts instead, "did you go to my father's agency today?"

His angry eyes pierce her, and the earlier timid tranquility evaporates in the dry winter air like mist under a furious sun.

"You accusin' me of slackin' off?!"

"I wondered what my father and Shouto are doing," she says mildly.

Bakugo's nose wrinkles in distaste as he releases another cloud of cold smoke from above his scarf; a dragon wearing a teenager's clothes.

"Who cares about them," he grumbles. "Waste of time and space. There's better shit to think about."

Fuyumi smiles despite herself. "And what are you thinking about, Bakugo-kun?" she tries.

He pauses like a car engine failing to turn over — like she froze him solid with a question as if by her quirk and he realized it too late to do anything in defense.

"Nunya," he mutters, finally.

"Hm?"

"Nunya business," he expounds.

It's stupid. It's so stupid and so contrived. Fuyumi sputters a half-shrouded snicker through her nose before she can stop herself. And, for a moment, she thinks she's made a grave mistake when he whirls around with bright, hellish eyes and crowds her space like a furious bloodhound on the scent of something vulnerable and hurt.

"Think that's funny?! Hah?!"

And then he grins. It's a horrible thing — smug and vicious and delighted. It gives a falsely incriminating context to the glazing of relieved light shining in his eyes through the sunset shadow. The white of it subsides as he turns his head to terrorize the road ahead instead.

"Can't believe I gotcha with that," he says.

He chuckles. Steam billows from his mouth in a relieving stream. Fuyumi notices his steps fall just a little closer to hers than before.

She shrugs. "Natsuo and Shouto didn't tell me many jokes. Usually, if I knew any, I was the one telling them."

"So you don't know any jokes."

Fuyumi cranes her face to him. She's almost offended. "Oh? What makes you say that?"

"'Cause Half-and," he clears his throat and starts again. "'Cause your brother don't know no jokes."

Fuyumi bows her head. "Maybe. I'll admit I had less of a chance to interact with him as his sister and not his distant caretaker until relatively recently."

Bakugo's answer is a low hiss.

"But I could tease Natsuo," she offers.

"Easy target," Bakugo mutters.

Fuyumi suspects she wasn't meant to hear that. "Hm?" she fishes.

To her surprise, he answers immediately. "Frosty's a big heart without the teeth to do shit about it. Pushover. Easy."

"Bakugo-kun!"

"Least he's got the balls to hold a grudge. Believe me, could be worse."

Fuyumi throws back her head and sighs. Natsuo was responsible, true, and stubborn. He was her father made over, only with a desire and inability to do right by his family rather than his career. And an ice quirk.

"He's my brother," she says.

"Yeah. And it could be worse." Bakugo's eyes flick to her as if in search of something. Like he's imparting a warning, almost, but she can't understand what it could be about. It's gone as soon as it appeared. "Could also have the traits of the other one — my dumbass classmate. Then he'd be a pushover and awkward as hell."

"Shouto's awkward?"

"Yeah, and everybody loves him for it. Like it's so novel." Bakugo rolls his eyes.

Fuyumi steps closer to him. Her new smile betrays her. "People like my brother? He gets on well in class?"

Her hand threatens to touch his arm. Bakugo's resting frown answers. Deepens. He looks to her face to her uncovered hands and then to the middle distance. It's almost shameful, or maybe even sheepish.

"Who cares. Toldja already there's better shit to think about than your brother," he says. "Half-and-Half's fine, he's boring, and he's the biggest airhead there is." Bakugo's eyes flick to her encroaching hands with a wary, renewed sneer. He takes a half-step back from her. "Don't tell me you forgot your damn gloves."

Fuyumi hides her hands in her armpits. Bakugo visibly relaxes.

"Half-and-Half," she says, pushing her luck. "That's what you call Shouto. Natsuo is Frosty. Midoriya-kun is Deku. Does everyone get a nickname?"

Bakugo tosses his chin in the air as if to reject the question. "Like I'm s'posed to be bothered with their dumbass names?!"

"So you're bad with names, Bakugo-kun?"

Fuyumi swears she sees a collision of thought, intention, and nerves happening in real time behind Bakugo's red eyes.

"No!" he splutters. "Shut up! Die!"

She points to herself, now with an open grin. "You want me to die?"

"WANNA FIND OUT?!"

She should be afraid of this angry young man and his nasty threats, but somehow, after watching Touya in action — Touya, who talked about death and killing with real intent and then tried to burn their baby brother to death — Bakugo's outbursts seemed friendly by comparison. This is the boy who looked relieved when she'd hit him for mouthing off, not the boy who shoved her away with a horrible scream and the assertion that stupid useless women in this house don't understand a damn thing!

Fuyumi tilts her head coquettishly. "What's mine?"

"TH' HELL?!"

"A nickname. What's mine?"

That gets him. Point-blank, that gets him. He's a bomb defused by the swift and sudden severance of his wick: his difficult scowl drops off his face to leave him wide-eyed and vulnerable with only the smallest of nervous, unsteady frowns nibbling at his lips.

Bakugo would be exceptionally popular if only he didn't make himself look like a demon at every possible opportunity.

Fuyumi pushes. "Is it something mean? Is it clever?"

"Fuck you," he says.

Fuyumi nods knowingly. "I see. So that must be how it is. Thank you for making your intentions clear."

"THAT'S NOT—!" Bakugo inhales. When he exhales, it's almost a snort as he chews his rebuttal apart in his throat. It's as if in his head he's ripping apart an unsatisfactory paper draft of whatever it is he wants to say and struggling to replace it.

He throws his nose in the air and clicks his teeth; a worked-up lighter flirting with the idea of producing a spark but doesn't have the fuel. He huddles into his scarf.

"I don't got one for you yet," he admits.

Fuyumi's eyebrows nearly reach her hairline. "Oh," she says. She feels warm, suddenly, even though Bakugo is the farthest he's been from her since they started their walk.

They encounter a half-crumpled coffee can. Bakugo kicks it. It skitters on the pavement in front of them before coming to a rolling stop a few feet away. Its dented edges are barely illuminated in the ambient low light and the emerging light of the awakening lampposts, but he finds it and kicks it again upon their reunion.

Fuyumi adjusts her hands so they rest in her pockets.

"May I ask where we are going?"

"You can ask," Bakugo says.

"Are you going to tell me?"

He kicks the can at his feet a third time. "Nah."

Fuyumi glances over at him. The curve of a smile peeks out at her from over the edge of his scarf. It's just as sharp and toothy as the first time she saw it.

Fuyumi steps in front of him and steals the can away with a scuffling kick before his foot has the chance to make contact a fourth time. If he thinks she can't be antagonistically childish, he can think again. She has an entire class of elementary schoolers to teach her and two little brothers she is desperate to win over.

Fuyumi is desperate to win the world over, including Bakugo, who knows but won't share details about her brother's life – and who has pressured her into a date and framed it as a favor.

"Hey!" he barks.

Fuyumi dribbles the can with a smile. She keeps the invisible leash on it tight so that it never goes far: given Bakugo's wariness to any sort of interpersonal touch, she assumes the immediate space around her person is a barrier. The can is as good as hers, she thinks, and any attempt he makes to play it cool or abrasively aloof is dashed. She should probably pick it up and put it in a bin when they find one.

What she does not expect is the nearly full-body shove that sends her off-course and almost to the nearby retaining wall.

"Gonna have to do better n' that!" Bakugo jeers. He kicks the can out of her reach and takes off after it.

She steadies herself and pursues. "Bakugo-kun!"

"Toldja to wear shoes you can walk in!"

She picks up the pace. Very quickly – alarmingly quickly – she realizes that he is not slowing down to wait for her in the slightest. If she wants the can, her approach needs to be just as physical and aggressive as his. Unfortunately, he is larger than she is and trained practically his entire life to be, apparently, a complete obstacle and adversary in the face of anyone and anything in his path.

No, Bakugo is nothing like her pushover brother Natsuo or her aloof-and-reserved Shouto. In fact, Bakugo is just an ass.

After her third attempt to go shoulder to shoulder with him rewards her with an elbow in the side and her butt on the pavement, she completely forgets she is supposed to be an adult woman on a pity date. She throws her hand onto the ground and wills the dry pavement to freeze – which is both easy in the winter and unsuspicious on a mostly-empty residential road.

And honestly, she only means to trip Bakugo, but he winds up for a full kick just as the ground beneath him crystallizes. When his foot hits the frozen pavement to deliver the spike, he skids forward in a dramatic slip. His arms come in front of him and his hands spark wildly, probably with the intent to right himself with the recoil, but either he'd not started the action in enough time or whatever powered his quirk hadn't the build-up to create an explosion of appropriate size. Instead, he lands in a heap face-first on the ground.

Next to him, the empty can clatters anticlimactically.

Fuyumi gasps and covers her mouth as he lays there stunned. She scrambles to her feet and runs to his side, mindful of the ice she just created.

"Dammit!" Bakugo curses. He lifts himself with an authoritative arm and growling groan, and then a violent shake of his ashen hair. It rises and falls with the motion like its own explosion punctuated by the breathy smoke of his exhaled frustration.

Fuyumi holds out her hands in a cautious approach.

"Are you alright?! Did anything break? Can you move?"

"Yes, I can fuckin'–" Bakugo's bright eyes shoot up in a contentious stare as he lifts his head to chew her out, but then he stiffens just the same as when she'd asked what he was thinking about, or when she'd reached for him in excitement moments before.

It is not simply surprise or pain or annoyance in his eyes, but fear. It's the kind of disoriented, confused horror Fuyumi sees in her mother's face when she looks at a tea kettle or a burner, or sometimes certain bits of Endeavor merchandise.

Fuyumi backs away and sweeps the empty coffee can to the side with a resounding clunk. It lands in the darkness some indeterminate distance away.

"Got it back," she says. It's unconfident even in her own ears.

But that must have been the correct approach, because Bakugo blinks and returns to himself. Or perhaps Fuyumi is damned no matter what she does because that means his scowl is back, three times as stormy as before, and the second he rises to his feet he puts distance between them again — only to crowd her with a threatening snarl in the next instant.

"You just use your quirk on me?! Hah?!"

Fuyumi endures the question with a blank face, though it doesn't matter since Bakugo examines the ground beneath him for an answer. When he looks back at her again, though, he's wearing another whiplash grin.

Fuyumi feels herself relax in relief. Bakugo, meanwhile, stretches his neck from side to side as if he doesn't notice how tightly he's coiled her – though she knows he does by the glance he throws over his shoulder as he trots into the darkness – and retrieves the abandoned can. He holds it out to her as if in invitation, but she can see the questioning, mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

"I think I've had enough of that," she says. "Besides, I know you're going to take it away the minute I reach for it. I'm not falling for that."

His disappointment makes him look like a bug flew up his nose, at first, before he snorts. It's a laugh, sort of.

"I'll be damned," he says. "You really do make chumps outta your dumbass brothers. What the fuck."

And then he holds the can away from her and all but vaporizes it in a single bright, smokeless blast and punctuated bang. Fuyumi's eyes and ears fail her for the instant during and after, but when she blinks the world back into focus, Bakugo is letting the remaining ashes trail out of his hands like sand blowing in the wind. They sparkle in the night air like glitter.

"Piece a' shit," he comments, and then wipes his hand on his pants before jamming them into his pockets. Fuyumi realizes that the reason he doesn't wear gloves is because he would probably set himself on fire with them. "Anyway, you hungry first, or d'ya wanna wait?"

"We aren't just going to dinner?" she asks.

"I mean, if you wanna skip the lights and the crowd of extras to go along with it, I ain't gonna stop ya."

Fuyumi blinks. "Lights? Which lights?" She covers her mouth. The answer to that question almost doesn't matter. "How did you get tickets for a Christmas Eve slot?!"

Bakugo rolls his eyes. "So we're doin' the lights, then."

He turns and saunters down the street. Fuyumi mirrors him, baffled in her silence.

Lights. Tickets to see the lights on Christmas Eve. From a money and resources standpoint, acquiring such a thing is hardly out of the question for Fuyumi's family, but the idea of going to see them with someone is still surreal to her.

She sneaks another glance at Bakugo. The sun has set definitively, now, and the ambient light from the rising moon and overhead street lights make him an illuminated profile cast in gold and inky black. The light catches on his eyelashes and the feathered spray of the edges of his hair and face. She cannot tell if he is bored or thoughtful, but he catches her looking at him.

They're at a street corner at the edge of the entertainment and shopping district — where the residential roads empty into apartments before transitioning to businesses and hotels. Around them, more and more couples slowly appear on the opposing sidewalks like nocturnal animals drowsily creeping out from their daytime hideaways.

"You got a mask?" Bakugo asks.

"Hm?"

He rolls his eyes. "You got a mask or hat or somethin', or are you small enough potatoes that the media don't care for things like this?"

Fuyumi shakes her head. "That's only a problem at press events, media events, or before and after big incidents involving my father. He's been back from his absence for a while and nothing exceptional has happened. I'm not particularly interesting to the rest of the world until he or my brother does something and the cycle starts all over again. Although," she tilts her head, "you're his intern. You're a person of interest."

She is not so foolish to say you've been a major subject of three media circuses, Katsuki Bakugo. Everyone in Japan knows your name and your face in and out of costume. Still, she can tell he digests her statement as if she had, though.

It's too bad. But she can't do anything to spare his self-sensitive intelligence.

Your awful attitude is even more infamous than you are.

"Like you said. Nobody cares yet unless you either win big or screw up. Besides, they may as well get used to seein' me." He grunts. "Or does it got your panties up in a twist?"

She knows that what he's really saying isn't that at all, though. It's one of several possibilities: Are you afraid your father will find out? Is this going to cause trouble for you? Are you under the impression that this is going to make you some kind of target? And, while less urgent, probably the most loaded of them all: Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?

Fuyumi shakes her head. "No."

Bakugo's face, perhaps because of the shelter of the low light or the shroud of his fogging breath, softens. Beneath his upper lip, his tongue coats his teeth in a single long, nervous swipe. He wipes a hand down his face a moment later, and then nods.

"Then hurry it up. Let's go."

—

Christmas Eve is beautiful — in the city. Particularly at the largest lights display in Shizuoka Prefecture.

It's a fairytale palace; a world made of lights and make-believe. She stands in a gold-white electric castle set as if for a party complete with tables filled with painted-silk lanterns made to look like desserts and tea sets, and of platters of food lit up from the inside. The seated guests are bears with bows; are dolls; are sequined nutcrackers; are crystal-studded sugarplum fairies and a rotund, three-faced Rat King commanding his subjects to pilfer the illuminated cookies and cake from the table before the enormous grandfather clock they're escaping through strikes midnight. A series of light-up gingerbread men in candy suits and tin soldiers pour the guests water, or wrap giant presents, or carry more trays of goodies above their heads. At the center of the hall is a massive tree — the only real thing in the room besides the people — trimmed with silver, gold, and a rainbow of ornaments all illuminated by a bright star topper.

She knows what she is looking at is little more than wire and bulbs, but everything feels so much more glamorous than it actually is.

The couples around her point at the lights and take pictures much like Fuyumi herself is, but otherwise remain completely enraptured in one another. It's crowded in the hall, but it doesn't matter much. Fuyumi is a nobody to them even in the off chance someone did recognize her. She feels like a child dressed for an event meant for adults — like a wedding or a networking cocktail hour — but allowed to wander unbothered so long as she leaves them to their business.

Bakugo follows beside her, glancing at surrounding crowds with a nasty glower when they come too close to either one of them. Admittedly, this means he's been glowering since before they got in line, but so long as he doesn't bite anyone, Fuyumi cannot possibly expect anything more of him.

The two of them journey through the hall at the pace of Fuyumi's slow wonder until they reach the end where a pair of grandiose light-up thrones overlook the rest of the dinner party set. A discouraging line of couples gluts the space in wait to take pictures of themselves sitting on the seats. Beyond that is the open entrance to an outdoor courtyard.

She bypasses the thrones in search of the outside, but an argumentative voice calls her back.

"Oi," starts Bakugo, to the surprise of every person, least of all Fuyumi, in the immediate area since he practically shouts it. "You want a stupid photo in the chair or whatever, or are we doin' a speedrun of the place?"

"I'm sure waiting is very boring," responds Fuyumi. Noncommittal. She snaps a photo of the couple currently occupying the seats and walks on.

It's sweet that he would ask, she supposes, but Bakugo is probably bored and tired of the crowds. Every time she spots him in the corner of her eye, he's wiping his palms against his pants or looking around as if in search of an exit simultaneously to willing the world around him to eat shit.

Bakugo doesn't appreciate her observations, apparently. His voice raises even higher over the crowd. "Hah? That ain't what I asked."

"Bakugo-kun," she tries. She even puts a finger to her lips and brings her other hand down as if to shush him.

He sneers, rears up like he's about to explode anew, and then relents with a dramatic exhale.

"Fine," he says, taking the lead outside where more illuminated lanterns brighten the night in shapes of horse-drawn carriages and fantasy creatures. Among them is a dragon shaped like Ryukyu.

But Fuyumi could care less about that: at the center of it all is the single largest lighted tree in the nation. Its light cascades down in waves of prismatic color like a conical fountain pouring down to the ground in a never-ending cycle. It's beautiful. She wishes she could somehow put it in her pocket and bring it home to her brothers, or even her mother. The aurora borealis on a tree.

Maybe one day, she might take them. Maybe she would come here with someone who wants to be here as much as she does — who wants to be there to see it as much as they want to see her.

"Oi," interrupts Bakugo. "Take a picture. It'll last longer."

Fuyumi starts and whirls around to face him. In his hands is a cup of steaming liquid. She must have been standing here and staring long enough for him to retrieve it and come back without her noticing.

"Oh, Bakugo-kun! I'm sorry. I hadn't realized I was standing here so long." She wipes at her face. She's not crying, exactly, but her eyes are damp. "We should get going, huh?"

"Oi," he repeats, somehow even more annoyed than before. "You really gonna give me that?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. I got — carried away. We don't need to stay here. There's one more section, right? The light-up Heroes hall? We can hurry through it and then—"

Bakugo's teeth clack together like he is one of the exhibit's giant nutcrackers hell-bent on doing what he was named to do. Fuyumi swears she can see sparks on contact.

"Don't you dare gimme that bullshit! I asked if you wanted a damn photo!" he roars. The immediate crowd turns to them; three dozen eyes full of judgement and social threat. "If you want the damn thing, we're gonna take it. So d'ya want it, or d'ya not want it? You're gonna tell me, for God's sake!"

And then he thrusts the cup into her bewildered hands so quickly she almost drops her phone. It's as warm as it looks; almost burning. She looks down at it. Tea.

"Oh," she says, feeling like a fool. "Oh. You were offering."

"Oh! Pfftht!" Bakugo smacks his own head and crosses his eyes at the contact in a mockery of thinking. "Duh-no-shit! What the fuck d'you want?!"

She sips politely and watches him over the cloud of steam sprouting from the tea — at least until the crowd looks away. Despite all his shortcomings, Fuyumi realizes she's not given Bakugo enough credit for what he has done right.

"I would like a picture," she admits.

Bakugo violently mutters something to the effect of "Wow, wasn't so hard, huh," in a single breath like it's some kind of curse, but Fuyumi pays it no mind as Bakugo fishes his phone out of his pocket.

"But I'd like it with you," she finishes. She produces her own phone from her purse.

Bakugo stiffens. For a moment, Fuyumi expects a fight or rebuttal, but to her surprise she gets neither — only a subtle shift of Bakugo's jaw as he obediently trots to her side. He shifts as close to her as he dares before looking into the camera as she captures them both in the frame. He doesn't smile, exactly, but Fuyumi finds his cautiously neutral expression a worthy enough compromise.

When she's finished, Bakugo straightens and skulks back towards the palace of lights - the way they came.

"Bakugo-kun? Where are we going?" she asks.

"The exit. There's one the way we came."

She furrows her brow. "Why? It's faster to go through the layout as directed. There's only one more section."

Bakugo turns around without a word; his shoulders hunched like an animal ready to bolt before someone either kicks him or scruffs him. His narrowed eyes hold some kind of meaningful question in them alongside some inane scolding, but Fuyumi can't for the life of her puzzle it out.

She holds out her hand before thinking better of it. Instead she scoops the air towards her in a "come here" gesture and points towards the tented entrance of the exhibit's last leg.

He exhales mightily – with some audible phlegm in it for good measure. "I'm not one of your damn kids," he grumbles, but still goes where she bids all the same.

She smiles blithely and follows after him into the tent – and then realizes what Bakugo's loaded look in the courtyard meant. The last leg of the exhibit is a tent dressed with oversized lanterns shaped like the most popular local Chubu Heroes placed in artificial sets and situations representative of their exploits. The centerpiece Endeavor figure glowers at the two of them with his neon-red flame above a bed of flames; a beacon of knowing judgement. Its features are eerily accurate, as he is almost a stranger both with and without the overture of his flaming shroud.

A pair of bright blue eyes cutting to the bone from within a wall of untouchable heat. That's her father.

And Bakugo seems to think he's the same, somehow, but if anything, he is a poor man's imitation. She can feel his stare as she takes a photo of herself with her father's artificial double over her shoulder. A mirror of the picture with Bakugo, she thinks. There's another unfortunate reflection.

"His flames make him a wonderful light-up display," she comments.

"Bitch-ass of a number one," he comments.

Fuyumi perks up at the prospect of knowing more. "Is he?"

"Makes a big fuckin' deal about bein' a hot-shot primo professional n' then shows his ass when he gets shown up at his own game." He grins. It's positively evil. "Yeah. Yeah, he's like that."

"So you've not learned anything at the agency?"

Bakugo crowds himself like she's somehow reached out to touch him without his permission with merely a comment. His tongue works furiously in his mouth before he finally says anything.

"Nothin' I don't already know."

There's a double meaning here, Fuyumi realizes, but she doesn't know enough to work it out.

Bakugo drifts to another display like he actually wants to see it. And he might – he's made the decision to become a Hero himself. He probably loves them.

He stops in front of one in particular – an All Might in gold, red, and blue. It's here to honor his service, most likely, since his retirement after the Kamino incident where he came to the rescue of –

– of Bakugo, actually. Fuyumi can see him sinking beneath the artificial stare and gleaming grin.

Fuyumi turns away in – respect, she thinks. She's not sure what she should feel in the face of someone else's personal grief. Doesn't know the best thing for someone just as likely to throttle someone else for offering help as they are themselves simply for continuing their own existence.

She's not sure how to help someone who wants to be punished. She never has known how to do that. If she did, her life would be different. If she did – if she could absorb guilt and purify it into falling snow – she would have done so. Her father would be wiser but at peace with his misdeeds, her mother would be certain and sure of how to navigate her own heart, Natsuo's discomfort as a kind young man caught underfoot would melt and wash away, and Shouto would be – whole. Shouto would be whole forever in a way their father's deeds could never threaten.

But no. Fuyumi can only freeze the water in the air around her. She can trap time in a crystal in which to sit perfectly still. Her power is her mother's, a yuki-onna; she is a figure trapped in water made glass.

Bakugo slams through the clear wall of her internal prison with a contentious huff. She turns to him.

"Let's get the hell outta here 'fore I kill and eat someone," he says.

"Yes," she agrees. "I'm starving."

—

Author's Note: Well, thanks for tuning in for this third installment! I've elected to split the Christmas Eve chapter into two because, well, it's kinda long and I thought this was a nice place to stop. I wonder if it's what you expected? No? Were you expecting more overt chaos? Yes? Maybe?

Thank you to all who read and even more to those of you who review and let me know what you think! I appreciate hearing from all of you.