~*~ Lightning Serenade Christmas Special ~*~
A/N: Hi guys! Here's the Christmas Special literally nobody asked for! I was going to skip it, but because these Christmas songs are so important to this fic, I figured I better pay tribute. Not my best work, but I think it's lighthearted and fun. It's about to get pretty heavy in this final arc of Lightning Serenade, so I think this is a great way to kind of lighten the mood before we get into it! This has no effect on the timeline of Lightning Serenade, but it is a numbered chapter just to keep it consistent across all the platforms I post on. Feel free to skip it if you want! You won't miss anything relevant to the main storyline!
"You can stand to spend one fucking night away from your boyfriends," Bakugou grumbled as he forced his way into Denki's apartment, throwing him his outfit of choice for the night and glaring at him until Denki conceded and started getting ready. "It's not like we're taking you away for the actual holiday or some shit. Besides, the Class B extras are doing something else that they'll be invited to."
"That's not what I'm worried about," Denki muttered to himself under his breath, but Bakugou didn't hear through the bathroom door as he quickly got changed.
Besides, based on the outfit of choice Bakugou had shoved in his hands, he was going to have an absolute blast. It seemed like he might not have to sit and mope about in jealousy after Tetsutetsu had come knocking, pulling Neito and Hitoshi out with him after forcing them to get bundled up for a day of snowboarding and skiing on the mountains, sending a rushed apology to Denki for not allowing him to tag along.
"Class B only, dude! You know how it is! I know Class A is doing something, though!"
Denki only had time to sulk for about five minutes before Bakugou was threatening to blast the door in if he didn't let him in.
The door was already unlocked, but Bakugou was in one of his moods, so it was sure to be a fun adventure.
Denki wasn't protesting, but Bakugou was rushing him around and throwing demands at him like he was. Denki didn't care. It was kind of nice to be back in the swing of things, actually. He had to laugh when he imagined Neito dealing with this kind of thing every day as he worked right with Bakugou at his agency, but he knew that Neito could give it right back.
Denki made a mental note to request to shadow Bakugou's agency soon, preferably a patrol with both Ground Zero and Phantom Thief. Oh, how fun that would be! He could already imagine Bakugou mouthing off to a civilian only for Neito to really lay on the charm thick. Bakugou would get angry that Neito would dare think that he could do anything better than he could, and the very aggressive civilian fanservice would begin.
"The fuck are you smiling at?" Bakugou barked.
"Nothing, nothing," Denki soothed, rushing to catch up with him, eager to get to their destination.
He beamed up at the building.
"Denki!" Sero blared, throwing an arm over Denki's shoulders. "Roki's got the place rented out for the day, so it's just us! No huge lines to worry about!"
"Or ticket takers to try to deny you entry based on your quirk," Todoroki added, joining the group in front of the entrance to the indoor waterpark.
Denki smiled cheekily and shrugged. "Oh, they wouldn't have succeeded, anyway."
"It's dumb that they still try, though," Sero complained with a frown before moving forward, shoving his way through the doors.
The humid air carrying the smell of chlorine hit him, and he was hot on Sero's heels, whooping and hollering to get the party started. He threw his outerwear, phone, and keys in the changing room and joined his former classmates in the water.
It was very fun riding water slides and floating on the lazy river with a coconut drink in hand while "Frosty the Snowman" played over the speakers.
When Mina and Jirou gathered everyone for karaoke caroling, Denki tried to mill around the back of the group.
That did not go well.
"You have to get into the Christmas spirit!"
"Please join us! We don't care if you can't sing well! Look at Mineta! He can't sing and he just belts it out anyway!"
"Hey!" Mineta objected. "I resent that statement! My voice is the voice of angels!"
"Besides, your soulmates will know that you're having a good time when they hear you singing!"
Denki opened his mouth to object, to explain, but he did miss his soulmates, and so he agreed, wondering if the stars would align for them once again.
When the microphone was pushed into his hand and he was ushered to the front of the group, Denki couldn't control his smile when the familiar tune of "Jingle Bells" came on.
-.-.-
Neito and Hitoshi were standing in line to go back up the lift, opting for a more challenging mountain this time. Everyone had been picking on them for sticking together, but when Hitoshi jokingly said that he opted to pass the time making out with whoever he rode the lift with, his former classmates backed off and allowed Neito the honor.
They weren't sure if it was because no one wanted to make out with Hitoshi, or if they didn't want to face the wrath of Neito. Either way, it worked in their favor.
They had plenty of time while waiting in lines and sipping hot chocolate in the lounge to catch up for them to be split up. Besides, being split up was dangerous. They knew that a few of their classmates would try to get some sort of hot gossip from them, seeing as Hitoshi was heavily involved in underground heroics and had a lot of confidential information locked away in that brain of his that they believed would be beneficial to their own heroic deeds.
It was all in good fun, of course, but it was more tolerable when they stuck together. They could easily deflect and move the banter along. When one would get stuck, the other could take over, moving the conversation along effortlessly.
When the class all wandered back into the lounge to warm up again, Hitoshi and Neito allowed themselves to drift apart and mingle about the room independently from one another.
Dashing through the snow…
That was all it took.
Hitoshi and Neito whipped around to look at each other, eyes wide and alert before scrambling into action. Neito had catapulted himself over the couches to get to the locker rooms, Hitoshi trailing right behind him, pulling out their phones to find Denki's location.
Their class was right behind them, never one to let their friends run into a fight alone.
"Denki's singing his alert song," Hitoshi explained as they all ran to their cars and gave out the address of the location of Denki's phone at least, if not Denki himself.
Too bad the only fighting they would be doing would be against the frizz the humidity was causing their hair.
"The fuck are they doing here?!" Bakugou shouted from his very threatening position of floating in a tube down the slowly moving lazy river.
His swim shorts had rubber ducks with Santa hats on them.
"You guys had me sing my alert song during karaoke caroling! This is all on you, practically an open invitation!" Denki said, skipping forward to greet his soulmates and smiling sheepishly at the rest of the former B class.
"More like an urgent demand," Hitoshi corrected, but he was smiling.
"What kind of Christmas party is a pool party?" Neito sneered. His sneer was softened exponentially by his inability to look away from his soulmate, standing there with his hair dripping, Christmas lights on his swim shorts that could probably actually light up with the use of his quirk if he so chose.
"What kind of alert song is a Christmas song?!" Bakugou retorted right back without a second's hesitation, floating further away, yelling louder to make up for the increased distance.
"I have extra swimwear for everyone in the locker rooms!" Mina said to redirect the conversation and move things along, pointing in the direction they should go.
Denki's jaw dropped as he turned to look at her. "Did you plan this?!"
"Guilty!" she sang shamelessly. "I thought that we've all been through so much together, why not celebrate together, too?"
"My vines were freezing on top of that mountain," Shiozaki muttered, inching toward the changing rooms.
"Gloves make me feel a little claustrophobic," Kendou conceded with a nod.
"I just want to swim!" Kinoko yelled, running past her classmates toward the locker room.
That seemed to tip the scales in the favor of staying as they all raced each other to get changed.
"This was supposed to be Class A!" Bakugou objected, hauling himself out of the side of the river to make it harder to ignore him, no lifeguard around to yell at him for not following the rules.
"This is what you get for making Denki sing!" Neito sneered as he remerged from the changing room. "You can't expect him to sing his alert song and not have us come rushing in."
"Why is his alert song a Christmas song?" Bakugou asked again. "That's so stupid!"
"It was my fault!" Mina interjected, trying to deescalate. "I wanted Denki to sing to get everyone here! I know I could have gone about it a different way!"
Denki shrugged. "I didn't object, though. Did I?" He walked over to the karaoke machine and picked up the microphone. "Now that everyone's here and there aren't going to be any more rescue attempts," he started with a pointed glace at his soulmates, who in turn shrugged shamelessly at him, "should we get started with round two?"
"Take it away, Mineta!" Denki howled, tossing the microphone in his direction.
Mineta got up and took a bow, ignoring the disgruntled noises of distress as he started the opening line of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Despite the lack of singing skills among the classes, they had a great time, and echoed "reindeer" after Mineta after the first line.
Denki felt extra happy as the line echoed in his mind a millisecond after, feeling a little distorted as he felt the reverberation of his soulmates' additions.
"Bakugou seems extra pissy today," Hitoshi remarked as they climbed the stairs to the tallest water slide.
"That's my fault," Neito chirped, not remorseful at all.
Sero gave him a long side look before hesitantly asking, "what did you do?"
"I had him for Secret Santa at the agency," Neito said vaguely with a shrug, continuing to climb.
He wasn't giving anything away for free, making them dig for every detail.
Kirishima took a deep breath before daring to ask, "what did you get him?" He physically braced himself for the answer.
"Just a pair of mittens," Neito said simply.
The group was silent for a few steps before Kirishima asked, "quirk-resistant?"
"Nope," Neito answered immediately, his grin growing over his face. "Just plain old cotton. They didn't last five minutes."
Kirishima groaned, knowing that the next sparring session was going to be brutal. Sero laughed loudly.
"Who was you Secret Santa?" Denki asked.
Neito laughed, then. "Bakugou! He got me this cat whisker temporary tattoo set. He's creative, I'll give him that! I think he thought it would make me mad because it would clash with the sophistication of my hero costume, but I have a better idea for it…"
And damn it all to hell, because Denki would have to keep the secret to his grave that Neito wore that Secret Santa gift, and only that gift, for Hitoshi and Denki that night.