Summer break. A time to unwind and have fun under the watchful eye of the blazing sun. A respite from the monotony of school and a chance to go on vacation.
But this year, that wasn't necessarily the case.
As soon as finals were over (luckily, no one had failed them), Class 2-A went straight to work. Each morning at seven, they marched out to their assigned spot on campus to train and did various things to exercise their quirks.
On Monday, Present Mic guided them to their individual areas, and Kuri was brought to the school building.
"Try to jump to the top," he said, pointing at the building. Kuri's head tipped backward, squinting at the structure as she gauged just how much power it would take to get her up there. She shot her teacher a glance as she adjusted her footing in preparation to jump. She lowered herself to get a better spring effect. Then, lift. Her body rocketed up, higher and higher until the arch reached its peak and she landed on the building's roof. It was a cool view from there. Off in the distance, she could see the coast, and not so far off, she could see the dorms.
"You can come down now!" Present Mic shouted, causing the building to shudder. Kuri worried about its structural stability as she peeked over the side. It was quite a drop, but Kuri could handle it. She rolled her ankles around twice for good luck before hopping off of the ledge. Her bangs flew up, and her shirt would've too if Kuri hadn't thought to tuck it in earlier. After a few seconds, she made contact with the ground, the impact sending a shock wave through her.
"Okay, now do that 2,499 more times, and you're done for the day," Present Mic said before handing her a tally counter. Kuri's eyes widened, but he turned and left before she could even voice a complaint. She sighed. All Kuri had with her was a water bottle and the little tally counter in the palm of her hand.
Nearly eight hours later, Kuri had confirmed for herself just how monotonous this activity was. Well, she'd confirmed it after the first five times. That exciting rush of going up, up into the air, and landing gracefully on the roof dulled very quickly after the sloshing feeling in her stomach started. And after every jump and landing became less graceful due to debilitating leg cramps.
She had gotten a half-hour break for lunch, during which she sat up against the wall and refused to move. Muscle fatigue was settling in throughout her body, which had made it hard to feed herself, but she got by.
But her main gripe wasn't about being in pain; she was unbelievably bored.
Jump, land, hop, land, click the counter. Over and over again. Nonstop. Sure, Kuri now had the movement down to a science, but she'd also lost her sanity long ago. Well, she was half-kidding about that.
The repetitive action and the amount of time to do it had given her an ample opportunity to ponder some of the things plaguing her mind as of late.
For example, no matter how much she tried to think of literally anything else, Kuri's brain always ended up circling back to the issue of her tattoo. It was supposed to come off the next week. Thursday, to be specific.
Her kidnapper's quirk was a bit weird in regards to its timing. Though the information had been buried far back in her head, she still remembered the technicalities: at midnight, 365 days after the tattoo had been applied, it would disappear. It didn't matter exactly when the tattoo had been applied because it always disappeared at midnight of the 365th day. However, she had received the tattoo in California, which was 17 hours behind Japan. So if Kuri's calculations were correct, she'd be free of her tattoo on July 29th at five in the afternoon.
Not that Kuri completely trusted that it would be removed, considering her kidnapper was dead, thanks to those vigilantes. For all that talk about closure, they sure had a knack for prolonging Kuri's anguish… Still, she let herself hope that things would all be over soon.
Also, she'd been reflecting on that unsuccessful mission. Not just during the crazy jumping assignment but the prior week as well. Kinda just looking back on how she acted and her extremely complicated feelings towards all that happened. Perhaps blaming herself might've been a bit of an overreaction, considering everything that occurred came completely out of left field.
It wasn't her fault that she didn't catch the vigilantes. The investigators, including Kuri, had underestimated them, and they had to pay the price. Kuri wouldn't make the same mistake again, so she decided to put a bit more effort into the case. Kuri had been kind of half-assing it before, only doing the bare minimum. Now, she would go all out. Before the training camp started, Kuri had compiled her own file of information on the two, focusing on their quirks to prepare for whenever they would reunite. After all, Hayami had promised that they would see each other again. And Kuri was determined to be ready for that day. She wouldn't let them get away again.
Focus on the present, forget about the past; that had always been her mantra regarding everything kidnapping-related. She was following that exactly, even now. Forget about her past failings, focus on how to improve in the future.
Kuri couldn't quite describe what was driving her to try so hard for this case, though, especially since the agency wasn't actively working on it. Bakugo had been pretty shocked when she told him about her research.
"Cool, but I thought you were upset about all that shit?" he'd said when she showed him her many detailed notes.
"I am," she sighed, crossing her arms. "But I just feel like I need to do this. We didn't catch them the first time, but I'll do it the next chance I get."
"Bunny, this isn't like you. You've never given a fuck about hero work, so why now?" he asked. Kuri chewed on her lower lip. Why would he even bother to ask… it was obviously because it directly involved her. "It's not like catching them will get rid of your tattoo."
"Shut up," she mumbled, keeping tears back. "I need to do this. Or I'll never feel better about it."
Kuri snatched the file back from Bakugo and thumbed through the papers to distract herself.
"Don't do anything rash," he said.
"Do you think I'm planning on killing them?!" Kuri exclaimed. Bakugo looked surprised and vaguely apologetic for suggesting such a thing. "Because I'm not going to. I just need to catch them, and then—"
"And then what? It'll change the past?" Bakugo said. "Look, I know you're upset. I'm fucking furious too, but nothing either of us does will be able to make up for what happened. Yeah, you may catch them, but so what? That doesn't bring back the people they killed—"
"What right do you have to be angry?!" she shot back, throwing the file down onto the table. "You're not the one who was kidnapped!"
A few seconds passed as Kuri processed what she had just said. Bakugo sighed.
"I'll let that one slide," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I said some fucked up stuff too."
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, crouching down to pick up the scattered papers. "Shouldn't have yelled at you. Honestly, I don't get why I'm doing this either."
"Will you just promise me something?" he said, kneeling to help her.
"Sure, what?"
"Don't leave me out of this payback scheme," he grinned. Kuri laughed.
"It isn't payback… Just a second attempt," she said. "And we're not gonna fail this time."
Bakugo was worn the fuck out. The term "quirk overuse" didn't even encapsulate how far he had been forced to push the limits of his quirk in the past two days. He fired off explosion after explosion continuously for hours, leaving a dull ache in his arms and a slight shakiness in his hands. Not to mention how hot it was during the day. Like super fucking hot. It made him sweat like crazy, which only made for bigger, more painful explosions.
Still, he persevered. Otherwise, he'd have no way to feed himself. And he really needed to feed himself. The over-the-top quirk workouts (quirk-outs, as Nakano had called them) depleted his energy and left him insatiably hungry. Luckily, their class was provided with more food than usual to compensate, including an abundance of popsicles.
Nakano grabbed two, giving one to him and leading him out to the dorm steps to eat. It was a lot cooler since the sun was setting, staining the sky orange.
Nakano plopped down onto the steps, sprawling out her legs. He joined her, being careful not to drop his stuff since his hands were being a bit unreliable that day.
"Feels nice to sit down," Nakano said, sighing. "My legs hurt so bad. Every time I have to walk somewhere I feel like they're gonna give out."
"If you fall, I'm not catching you," Bakugo said, biting his popsicle.
"How rude," she said, feigning offense and putting a hand to her chest. "But, that's fine. Worst case I just crawl my way back to my room like a worm."
Bakugo chuckled. It was nice to see her happy and saying silly stuff again. He wanted to be able to keep her like that all the time. He didn't think that was something within his power, though. Well, maybe she gained a degree of happiness by hanging out with him because he was her crush. Supposedly.
Recently he had been beginning to doubt if she actually liked him or not. Maybe because he'd been reading a bit too deep into their relationship to discern how he felt. There was no guarantee that Nakano still felt the same way she did back in February. And there was no guarantee that Kirishima had even been telling the truth. In the process of determining if all of these feelings of his really were just platonic, he'd begun to wonder if that meant Kuri only saw him as a friend as well. It wouldn't matter if that was the case and would make things much simpler. But why did that upset him?
"Apparently our training is supposed to change tomorrow," Nakano said. "I hope it involves my arms instead."
"Trust me, you don't," Bakugo said, taking another bite from his popsicle. He was trying to finish it as fast as possible so he could rest. "I doubt that anything'll really change, though, considering your quirk has nothing to do with your arms."
"It could if I tried hard enough," Nakano said, taking two bites of her popsicle. She winced, likely from the shock to her teeth. He took another bite as well. "Doesn't it hurt?" she asked.
"Not really," he said, taking another bite. "You get used to it."
"I mean to hold the popsicle. Aren't your arms sore?"
He shook his head. It was nice of her to be concerned, but why would he own up to that?
"I'm not that weak."
Except he was. He'd failed during that mission, and that's why Nakano felt the need to do all that research on her own. She hadn't even blamed him at all, and that fucked him up a bit. He should've been able to capture them, but he couldn't because he was too distracted. He was too focused on her.
"Well, I certainly am," she said, biting off a small piece of her popsicle.
"Why would you say that?" he asked in an almost accusatory tone. He wouldn't call Nakano weak. She was quite the opposite, actually. Though he never would've admitted it before, she was strong. Both physically and mentally. And he admired that.
"Because if I were you, I'd make you hold my popsicle for me," she grinned. "I can if you'd like." She offered her hand, smirking. Something in her expression looked so enticing, but Bakugo couldn't describe it. He eyed her hand for a second wondering if he should just give in to her whims. He considered the prospect of doing so, then ate the rest of his popsicle in one bite.
"I'm fine," he said, mouth full.
"Aw, too embarrassed?"
He protested strongly, causing Nakano to laugh. Her amusement was contagious and he smiled as well. Bakugo couldn't help but smile when he saw her, which concerned him a bit. But in that moment, he didn't care. As a warm breeze blew by, and the last rays of sunlight washed over Nakano's content face, he had a single thought in his mind.
She's beautiful.
