April 30th, 198X

"Hey, you shouldn't do that."

Those were the first words Mitsuki had ever said to Inko Terasawa.

The girl sat right next to her in Homeroom and they hadn't exchanged two words with each other.

Not because Mitsuki disliked the girl, no. As said before, she didn't even know her all that well.

Terasawa just seemed so… closed off.

Cold, one might say.

She had transferred in alongside another boy, about two weeks into the new semester.

In class, she only spoke when spoken to, and even then, that was only when she was addressed by a teacher.

The green-haired girl made no attempt to get close to any of her classmates, despite all of her peers' attempts to do so for several months.

All of her peers, sans Mitsuki.

She had a friend already. One that she liked to hang out with and who liked to hang out with her… and who she was pretty sure didn't want to bang her.

… At least sixty percent sure.

The same friend who had sent her to grab drinks for lunch.

Unfortunately, the only vending machine that had drinks that fit her friend's niche tastes was across the school.

Which led to Mitsuki's current situation.

She had fulfilled her task with no issue and was all set to return to her friend when she smelled it.

The stench of cigarette smoke.

It hit her like a freight train, her nose wrinkling as she searched for the source.

She found it against the wall.

There, clad in the sailor fuku common amongst most junior high uniforms, lit cigarette held loosely between her lips, was Inko Terasawa.

The girl who always seemed so far away in the classroom was right there in front of her and she just seemed so… open.

She grabbed the stog between her lips with two fingers, taking a nice, long drag, and then pulled it out, exhaling a puff of smoke right after.

Terasawa just seemed to be so… at peace. Almost in a trance as she indulged in what had to be a secret habit, considering the school's hardline against tobacco.

And Mitsuki just had to say something.

Though only five words came to mind at that moment.

"'Hey, you shouldn't do that.' Really?"

"Yeah…"

"Pfft!"

"It's not funny, Mika!"

The purple-haired girl sitting at the piano begged to differ, already so deep into her gut-busting laughter that the words of her ashen-haired friend fell on deaf ears.

So Mitsuki just drank her Pocari grumbling about 'asshole friends and their unwillingness to be sympathetic to someone's plight.'

When the bespectacled girl's laughter finally died down, she cleared her throat and took a few deep breaths, before turning her attention back to the unamused crimson stare of the blonde in the room.

A moment of silence, one broken by the irate tone of one Mitsuki Tengan.

"You know this is your fault, right?"

"What?! How's it my fault?"

"It's that damn drink of yours! I don't even get how you can stomach it! It's way too sweet!"

"Hey, you watch your mouth when you're talking about Habu! This miracle drink's the only thing that keeps me going during the day!"

"You only need it because you stay up all night playing guitar!"

"Oh, so you're coming for my passion now?"

"I'm just saying!"

"What? What are you saying?"

Mika had stood up at this point, the pluglike jacks on her earlobes had risen with her.

Mitsuki, not being one to back down, especially against someone younger than her, stood up and stood her ground.

"Look, you practice a lot! You practice so much that I'm worried when your kid's born it'll come out with six strings!"

"And when that happens, I'll invite you to the delivery room and play you a ballad!"

Another beat of silence, once again broken by the older girl in the room.

It started as a little giggle into her hand.

Her giggles got louder and louder until they transitioned into full-blown laughter. She started to laugh so hard that she was bent over at the waist, tears in her eyes.

Mika wasn't much better seeing, as she needed to lean on Mitsuki to keep herself off from tumbling to the ground and rolling.

This went on for some time.

When the two managed to collect themselves, they sat back at their places and Mika asked a question.

"So what's the problem?"

"Huh?"

"Well, the way you tell it. You found her smoking on the grounds and said she shouldn't do it. What's the big deal?"

"Well…"

Mika gestured for her friend to go on, Mitsuki obliged after finding the right words.

"I guess I just felt like I came across something… personal, y'know? Like I shouldn't have seen it. She usually seems so cool and distant in class, but when I saw her there, she just seemed so close and… small."

"You sure you're not just freakishly tall?"

A dirty look was all Mitsuki had to give in response to that.

"Right, my bad. Continue."

She did.

"So yeah, I guess I just feel kinda bad. She doesn't seem like a bad person, and she took off so quick when I called out to her… I guess I just feel awkward about it."

"Well, you sit right next to her in class, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well there you go, just talk about it."

"…You know, for someone who's quirk includes super hearing, you don't listen well, do ya?"

"Hah?!"

When classes resumed after lunch, Mitsuki noticed that there were eyes on her.

This wasn't new. She was a pretty girl and she was in junior high, stares from teenage boys were to be expected.

The new factor in this situation was the fact that Mitsuki was not being stared at by a teenage boy.

No, instead, the one boring into her soul was her seat neighbor.

After running out of time to find her during break, the blonde had hoped to speak with the greenette during the study period that they had right after, but-

Staaaare…

There was just something that made her not want to do that.

And so, Mitsuki spent half of the class period not ignoring, but totally not looking in the direction of Inko Terasawa.

A good ten minutes before the period ended, though-

"Psst."

Hm. People telling secrets? Good for them.

She absolutely refused to look to her right, instead focusing on a particularly difficult equation that had come up earlier in Algebra.

"Psst, ahem."

Man, you guys are just sharing willy-nilly today, huh? Alright, so x equals minus b-

She was not going to look over to her right, the side where only misfortune lay.

"Oi."

Her attempts to ignore the existence of half of a room were foiled by a thrown folded piece of paper that landed right on open her notebook.

She looked to her right.

The only possible culprit was staring at her own notebook.

She turned back the paper, grabbing it and unfolding it carefully.

It read:

Tengan-San,

I'm sorry for running from you earlier, I got freaked out. Please don't tell anyone what you saw.

-Terasawa

Mitsuki looked back over at the green-haired girl, who was still looking at her notebook.

Looking closer though, she could see that the girl's cheeks had colored slightly.

She smiled, before grabbing her pencil and writing a response.

April 9th, 201X

"What are you smiling at?"

Mitsuki Bakugou was snapped out of her trip down memory lane as her friend walked out of the bathroom and sat down next to her on the couch.

"Oh, just thinkin' about the day we met."

"That so?"

"Mm, I remember it like it was yesterday. You were so cold, distant, but cool too."

"Uh-huh. And you were… there."

Mitsuki took a sip of her wine.

"I was just an innocent maiden taken in by your charms."

"You pointedly ignored me for a full thirty minutes. How is that being 'taken in'?"

A beat of silence.

And then, Mitsuki pounced on her friend of twenty years.

"Inko-Chan, Shuki! Chu!"

"Ah, Mitsuki! Hold on, hold on! You're gonna be 40 soon, why can't you act like it?! Masaru, help!"

And so a friendly little scuffle ensued.

Yeah, I took some years off of some lives for the sake of my story, whatchu gonna do about it?