Saturday morning came with an icy blue sky peeking out behind a haze of low clouds, as picturesque as a mid-November day could be. The air was crisp and clean with the occasional burnt orange leaf fluttering by to catch on unaware passerbys' hair and blow into large piles by the curb. It was calm. It was beautiful.

It was the day of Ochako's date with Bakugo.

The nervous brunette stood outside in her leggings and pink jacket with a puffy vest layered over it. She never would've chosen this for herself as a first date outfit, not that she was taking this date seriously, but when Bakugo stopped her last night before turning in for bed and said to wear comfortable shoes, she figured they'd be working out or something. That seemed the most likely out of all the date ideas she could imagine him coming up with. She sprung the whole thing on him suddenly, on both of them really, and she couldn't fault him for wanting to do something he enjoyed. But, god, she really hoped they weren't running.

Ochako groaned into her hands. How did this even happen? She never meant to let it get so far. Even after the auction, she tried to explain they didn't have to go through with it, but he interrupted her with a "Saturday. 9am. Outside the dorms."

How could she say no and reject him when she just bid ridiculous amounts of money for the exact opportunity in front of hundreds of people? The whole reason she was in this mess was because she couldn't bear to see him so sad at the thought of no one wanting him.

So there she was. 9am. Right outside the dorms.

She lifted her head and whirled around at the sound of the door opening to see Bakugo emerging from the building. He also wore a light jacket and running shoes, though paired with some comfy looking shorts. The only indication that he was there to meet her rather than go out for a typical jog was the tightly knotted rectangular-shaped bundle in his hand.

"Let's go." He said in a low voice like he was entering battle and walked ahead of her.

"A-ah, ok." Ochako sped up to catch up to him and fell into pace by his side, the awkward silence physically weighing down her shoulders. She only dared to interrupt it when they came to a bus stop on the street across from campus. "Where are we going?"

"The zoo."

That was a surprisingly normal plan for a date.

"Oh."

"What? You like animals and cute shit, don't you? You're always doodling them on everything." Bakugo added gruffly as he boarded the bus and touched his student ID card to the sensor in order to pay for the ride. Without a look back at her, he went to find a seat.

In a daze from that extra piece of information he threw out, Ochako absentmindedly followed suit and shyly sat in the seat next to him, their shoulders touching from the cramped space. She wished they could've talked about what this meant and what they were doing, but she could already imagine how unwilling he'd be to engage in such talk.

So she settled on the next thing that came to mind.

"What's that?" She pointed curiously to the parcel in Bakugo's lap.

"Our lunch." He was an awful conversationalist, effectively shutting down the flow of dialogue with his curt answers, but Ochako was actually kind of grateful for it because then she wouldn't have to explain her sudden tongue-tied state.

She was actually quite flustered by how thoughtful he was about all of this. He not only came up with a more than decent activity for their forced date, he also prepared food for the both of them.

A strange flutter came to life in the space between her heart and stomach. It wasn't quite nausea, she'd experienced that plenty of times and would be able to name that right away. No, it was much closer to… giddiness.

Pushing through the strangeness of it all, Ochako thought she had it under control when the nerves exploded into a full on heart attack when Bakugo grabbed her hand and pulled her off the bus at their destination.

"Wha-what are you doing?" Ochako stammered out as she almost tripped over the ledge, her brain was pretty much shutting down and forgetting how to send the proper signals out to the rest of her body.

"You're supposed to hold hands on a date." Bakugo explained like he was imparting some kind of exclusive knowledge upon her. "Unless Shitty Hair lied to me, that fucker." He muttered just loud enough for her to hear and his face darkened murderously at the very real possibility.

"… Was she understanding this right?

Did he actually ask Kirishima how to behave appropriately on a date?

Ochako supposed she shouldn't have been so surprised. Bakugo was fiercely competitive and was always striving to be the best at everything, she just didn't realize that extended to the area of romance. It was actually really sweet, he was trying so hard, and she wasn't going to be the one to discourage it.

"No, no! He was right." She smiled up at him and tightened her grip to keep him from ripping his hand away. "Although, it should be something more like this."

Bakugo pressed his lips together in a thin line as he watched her rearrange their hands so their fingers were laced together, excluding her hovering thumb to keep from sending him off into space. When she was done, he held their joined hands up to his narrowed line of vision for inspection. "How do you fight if you're holding onto someone like this?"

Only Bakugo would care about a split second delay in entering a brawl.

"Ochako shook her head in amused disbelief. "How about we just agree to let go at the first sign of danger?"

He gave an imperceptible nod in response, taking it much more seriously than she, and continued to drag her to the admission stand.

"I can pay for my ticket-"

"Shut up. I'm supposed to pay." Ochako let him carry out his duty and wondered just how much Kirishima had advised him on, and whether she should be worried.

"With their entrance wristbands now on, they walked through the gates together. Overriding her earlier nerves, Ochako found herself getting genuinely excited.

Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she was so ready to dash off and start enjoying the first exhibit she reached, but Bakugo was having none of it. He picked up a map and immediately began to draw out the most efficient plan for visiting as many animals as possible.

"Listen up, cheeks. The only way to see both the baby giraffe at 10:15 and the hippos playing at 10:30 is if we split up and then regroup to report on 'em."

"This isn't a mission." She laughed. "There's no need for all that. Just enjoy yourself!"

"That's what I'm fucking trying to do, woman!" He growled out and studied the paper for a better route.

"Right. Because that's the face of a person having fun." She teased and then tugged at his hand to try and get him to follow her to the path on the right. "Just follow me."

"Do you even know what's over there?" His feet moved reluctantly.

"Nope! That's the fun of just walking around!"

"What's so great about going in blind?"

"If you would just chill your Baku-rage for a second and come with me, maybe you'd find out." He scowled at her choice of words and was about to argue back, when she stopped him with a, "Or I guess I could always just float you and carry you around like a balloon?"

Vehemently hating the thought, Bakugo begrudgingly let her lead.

Though he sulked for the first couple of minutes, going on about how they really should've turned into the Safari Zone instead of the Aviary, he stopped once they started to feed the birds. Not because he came around to ditching the plan, but because he got caught up in trying to attract more of the tiny things with his cup of nectar compared to her.

She won despite never having formally agreed to the contest.

"We're not going until every one of those fuckers come to me!" He seethed as they threw away the empty containers. Well, she dropped hers in the designated garbage can. He crushed and exploded his.

"S-sir. We're going to have to ask you to leave... You're scaring the birds... And the children."

"Ochako laughed and pulled a glowering Bakugo out of there before he committed to any irreversible damage.

They saw elephants and snakes and penguins, all the while still holding hands. If any outside observers noticed any sort of awkwardness between the two of them, it didn't show. In fact, the two high schoolers joked and bickered like a long-term couple would, such as when they ended up spending an inordinate amount of time watching the sea otters floating on their backs, much to Bakugo's annoyance.

"Can we go already, cheeks?" He huffed.

"But they're so cute! Look at their adorable, fluffy faces!" Her voice went up to octaves she didn't think was possible.

"Do you spend this long staring in the mirror everyday? Your face is just as round as theirs. Let's go."

Though she was thoroughly glaring at him now, Ochako had to admit she was actually having a lot of fun. Like way more than she ever imagined she would in a casual setting with him. They never really had a reason to hang out one-on-one before.

Ochako found that she didn't really mind it.

And she hoped that he felt the same. He was no longer grumbling about how they should really be following a schedule and even showed interest in some of the animals, if a feral grin at the prospect of a showdown with a gorilla could count as interest.

Time flew by quickly with just how easy it was to be around him.

"Bakugo, everything looks so delicious!" Ochako's eyes practically doubled in size and sparkled as she salivated over the meticulously packed bento in front of her.

The contents of the box lured her in easily, especially since it was her audibly growling stomach that made them stop for a break in the first place. Luckily, there were picnic tables not too far away, according to Bakugo's handy map. He just had to point out how he was right for grabbing one in the first place.

"You think I'd subject myself to shitty food? Hell no!"

"Well, no. But it's incredible that you made it all!"

"If you're just gonna insult me, don't eat!"

"Only you would take offense at a compliment." Ochako laughed teasingly and swatted his hand away from taking the food back. "Thank you for the food!"

She swore she saw a look of pride on Bakugo's face as she hummed in content at the first bite, but it was gone by the time she took notice.

It was moments like those, the lingering looks, that made Ochako stop and wonder what exactly was going on. Was this an outing between two friends? A social obligation due to the nature of the auction? Or… could it be...

If someone were to ask what she thought of Bakugo before that day, Ochako would've described him as an admirable peer and a pretty unobtrusive dorm-mate. She certainly never considered him as anything but a platonic friend, if even that. But as a potential boyfriend?

No, no. She was getting ahead of herself. Nobody asked such a thing and Bakugo was just fulfilling his part of the deal. Re-orienting herself in reality, Ochako chose to focus on the present. Just enjoying yummy food with the surprisingly good companionship of the blonde across from her.

They finished eating in a comfortable silence in the bright shine of an autumn sun and rewrapped the bento boxes to go off onto a new path with spindly insects and a petting zoo, where they found a spiky-haired llama that Ochako could not stop laughing at.

"Why're you losing your shit over that thing?"

""I-It- HAHAHA! It looks like you, Bakugo! PUHAHAHAHAA!"

""Like HELL it does!"

"Go stand next to it!"

"FUCK NO!"

He practically had to pick her up off the ground and carry her away from the farm animals when she doubled over from the side-by-side resemblance.

Clutching her stomach in laughter and wiping her eyes from the tears that beaded in the corner of her eyes, she almost missed it. "Look, Bakugo! A photo booth! I bet we can choose the borders to look like different animals!"

"Ugh. You would." He rolled his eyes, but nevertheless followed her into the curtained enclosure.

Once inside, Ochako picked out a panda bear frame and posed for the series of pictures.

When she saw that Bakugo wasn't making an effort to smile, she used her fingers to manually quirk up the corners of his lips into one, timing it perfectly to let the second snapshot capture the moment. The third picture ended up showing her laughing and pointing as Bakugo's hair stood up from its roots to portray his uncontainable rage and the fourth came out slightly blurry from him grabbing her cheeks in retaliation.

In all, it was a pretty good way to end a date.

Their date.

Ochako giggled at the bookmark-sized strip of photos in her hand while Bakugo walked next to her with a crease between his eyebrows.

"You satisfied?" He grunted out as they neared the dorms. Ochako could see why he suggested, instructed, she wear appropriate shoes for their outing. They'd walked for nearly 5 hours.

"Yep!" She fingered the corner affectionately before slipping it in her pocket.

"I mean with the date. Did you like it."

The question caught her off guard, but once the words sunk in, her heart swelled and filled with a warmth that radiated out to her limbs. It was too bad other girls didn't get to see this side of him.

"I took you out, made sure you were fed, I did all the things." Ochako bit her lip to stop herself from laughing at the sight of him reading off from a list of, what she assumed to be, how to plan a great date. He was really diligent, wasn't he? At this point, she was surprised he didn't ask her to grade him or fill out some kind of survey.

"Yeah, I liked it." She stopped in front of the entrance doors and affirmed his efforts. "I had a lot of fun, Bakugo. Thank you."

"Good." He stuffed the list back into his pocket. "Now don't bother me again. I don't have time for a relationship."

The conversation turned so abruptly, her head spun like it had just experienced whiplash. "What? W-why would I bother- I'm not looking for a relationship either." Her mouth frustratingly refused to cooperate in delivering her thoughts coherently.

"Bullshit. You were screaming your head off, jumping up and down at the chance to go out with me." Bakugo pointed out and crossed his arms.

Ochako could feel her face turning redder with each passing second. "I-I mean, I can see why you'd think that, but-"

"Don't bother saving face, cheeks." He interrupted her stammering. "Of course you like me. And now that you got your date and the picture and all that other crap, move on." Then he went into the dorms, leaving no room for argument. No chance for her to explain her side.

More shocked than hurt, Ochako stood frozen on the sidewalk with her mouth wide open.

Did… did she just get rejected?