Katsuki hadn't expected much from fourteen-year-old Mayu, who had previously only emerged from his room whenever food was ready or if Kuri dragged him out for a walk. He thought the boy wouldn't lift a finger to help Katsuki while his sister and parents were out of the house, but to his wide-eyed surprise, Mayu actually exerted some effort.

After a morning of playing video games and chatting about trivial things, Mayu took Katsuki out to get food a couple blocks away before walking to Golden Gate Park, where Mayu said there were picnic areas to sit. Katsuki only knew about the park's museums because Kuri took him to see art a couple days before, but it made sense that there was also normal stuff.

Katsuki and Mayu sat at an empty picnic table and enjoyed the green scenery and mild breeze while they ate. Kids ran around while adults barbecued, and Katsuki thought of coming here again with Kuri. Mayu was alright company, though.

"You know, you're pretty independent," Katsuki said in between bites of his sandwich. "I thought I'd have to take care of you today."

"Dude, I'm not a baby," Mayu chuckled. "But I guess I'm still better than some people. My parents come home late, and Kuri doesn't live here anymore, so I have to do something unless I wanna starve."

"Did Kuri take care of you before?" Katsuki asked, though he could assume she did, because Kuri never mentioned them having a babysitter.

"Kinda," Mayu shrugged. "When she wasn't busy, she picked me up from school and made snacks and told me to do my homework."

The mental image of Kuri nagging her brother was so vivid in Katsuki's mind that he found himself laughing under his breath. But when he continued to imagine what it was like for Kuri to care for her brother, the loneliness and looming responsibility of the situation overshadowed the humor of their sibling dynamic.

Through getting to know her over the past couple of years, Katsuki found Kuri to be stubbornly self-reliant. She rarely conceded her burdens to others, electing to do it all on her own, like with directing their class play. And she'd bottle up her emotions, acting like she could cure her trauma without anyone's advice or encouragement. Ever since Kuri confessed her troubles to him that night a few weeks prior, he'd wondered if her tendency to not rely on others could be the fault of her parents and her lack of trust in them to care for her.

Katsuki glanced at Mayu, who continued eating his sandwich without a care in the world. He hoped this young boy wasn't going through the same thing as Kuri. He hoped that her nurturing had saved him.

They didn't talk much for the remainder of their meal, but it wasn't awkward. Katsuki and Mayu, though polar opposites, seemed to match wavelengths simply because they both knew Kuri. Without her influence, Katsuki would definitely be more of an asshole to Mayu whenever he told a targeted, though lighthearted, joke. He assumed Mayu would also be more of a problem child if Kuri had never been there to help raise him. She was present in their lives in completely different ways and times, but her love had the same impact.

In the late afternoon, when he and Mayu had returned to their respective rooms, Katsuki glimpsed Kuri's elusive tuxedo cats as they wandered the hall. Just when he was about to sneak over and try to coax them to him, a car pulled into the garage below, and the startled cats ran upstairs. Katsuki buried his disappointment, hoping for another chance once Kuri was there to catch them for him, and walked out of the guest room to see Kuri's dad coming up the stairs.

"Hey, Katsuki!" he said in Japanese before heading for the entryway to drop off his bag and shoes. "Kuri's still out, huh?"

"Yeah, she said she'd be back after dinner," Katsuki said, moving to sit on one of the stools lined up by the kitchen counter.

"Well, that's too bad, we're having her favorite—curry!" Kuri's dad beamed. His wide smile was just like Kuri's. "My wife is still back at the agency, but should be here in an hour or so. I came back before her to make dinner."

Kuri's dad shuffled over to the kitchen and started washing his hands. Katsuki flexed his fingers and considered how he could show his good qualities in this situation. Kuri's parents had turned down his efforts to help with dinner before, but it didn't hurt to ask again. Perhaps they would view his persistence about serving as an admirable trait.

"Would you like me to help you cook?" Katsuki asked.

"Oh, you don't have to—you're our guest!" he said over his shoulder as he moved from the sink to the refrigerator.

"But I want to," Katsuki insisted, which got the man's attention.

Kuri's dad swiveled his head to look at him, then cracked a smile.

"Alright, then, get over here," he waved his hand to beckon Katsuki into the kitchen.

Katsuki smirked in satisfaction and immediately moved to wash his hands and follow any instructions Kuri's dad gave him. First, they prepared the vegetables.

Standing next to Kuri's dad, Katsuki felt slightly intimidated. The man had been nothing but kind for the duration of his visit, but his broad shoulders and looming stature struck the tiniest bit of fear in Katsuki. At least his kind eyes and ever-present smile made him more approachable than Kuri's mom.

"You're a better son than Mayu is," Kuri's dad said abruptly while peeling a potato. Katsuki was so surprised by that string of words his hand slipped, and he nearly cut himself. "He refuses to even set the table, yet here you are!"

"Hah, I see," Katsuki nodded awkwardly. It was messed up to compare his kid to Katsuki, but he didn't say anything and just kept peeling the carrots.

"You cook much at home?" Kuri's dad asked.

"Yeah, my parents made me help out a lot," Katsuki answered. He could relate to Mayu because he hated chores, but he did them to avoid his mom's wrath. At least all that work gave him handy life skills.

"Kuri's a decent cook herself," he continued. "The summer before she left for UA, when she was weaning off all her extracurriculars, she got into a real cooking phase. Baked a lot, too. We ate really well up until she had to leave."

"Really?" Katsuki raised an eyebrow. "The only time I remember her using the kitchen was to make cupcakes for her birthday."

"Were they good?" he asked with a smile.

"Probably," Katsuki shrugged. "She ate mine before I could."

"Ah, Kuri… She's always loved her sweets. She used to steal from Mayu all the time, too."

For the next minute, they finished peeling the vegetables, and Kuri's dad handed them off to Katsuki so he could prepare meat from the fridge. While Katsuki got to chopping, he realized he had an opportunity to hear stories about Kuri as a kid.

"What was Kuri like when she was younger?" Katsuki asked.

Kuri's dad hummed in thought before he answered.

"She was very friendly. I remember she used to have playdates almost every day!" the man laughed. "That changed around middle school, though, because there were some issues with bullying."

"What happened?" Katsuki asked, his eyebrows drawn tightly together. His other question, which he withheld, was which assholes dared to hurt her.

"Oh, you know, kids get jealous of the ones who have it all. And the ostracization really got to her. Kuri was so shy by ninth grade that I hardly recognized her. Luckily, a couple girls stuck with her through everything."

Katsuki stared down at the cutting board as he chopped the carrots. He wondered why Kuri hadn't told him about this before. Was she embarrassed? Or was it because he had been a bully…?

Immense guilt washed over him, and Katsuki briefly squeezed his eyes shut as pain struck his heart. He needed to apologize to Deku already. Make up for the years of treating him like shit. That dumb nerd never talked about it because he was always too busy praising Katsuki, but he knew his actions deeply hurt Deku.

At the very least, Katsuki was glad his antagonism towards Kuri when she first transferred hadn't kept her from making great friends in their class. That made him wonder if there was more to her past loneliness than a lack of acceptance. Could her busyness have played a part in isolating her?

Katsuki shook himself out of his thoughts to focus back on the conversation just as Mayu walked down the stairs and entered the kitchen.

"When she got the recommendation to transfer to UA, I was ecstatic but worried," Kuri's dad continued. Mayu wordlessly squeezed behind his father to grab a drink from the fridge. "Would she be able to make new friends? Would the culture shock be too much? But it all turned out fine in the end."

"Things are probably better than fine if she could get a boyfriend," Mayu said as he took a sip from his can of soda and proceeded back up the stairs.

"Kuri has a lot of friends at UA," Katsuki blurted, quickly moving the conversation along so Kuri's dad wouldn't notice his acute embarrassment. "But she's told me about how many activities she did before. Didn't she make friends through those?"

"Just a few, here and there, but she didn't take many group classes," her dad said. "Sometimes I wonder if it was the right thing to train her so much; I didn't do nearly as much when I was young. We thought it would be better to prepare her as best as we could, but maybe she should have had more time to play and enjoy being a kid."

Katsuki nodded pensively, and they both let their conversation fade away until Kuri's dad no longer required help. He returned to the guest bedroom and laid on the bed, hoping Kuri would come back soon.

After talking to her dad, Katsuki understood why Kuri preferred him over her mom. He was undeniably more open and affectionate, and he seemed to have a degree of understanding that Kuri's training hadn't been entirely beneficial. Meanwhile, her mom kept asking Kuri about what she was doing at UA to strengthen herself.

Katsuki pulled out his phone and looked at his wallpaper—a photo of Kuri from their first date. She was walking a few steps ahead of him, and she looked so pretty with the wind tossing her hair and skirt as she walked along the shore that he needed to immortalize the moment. Before he snapped the picture, Kuri happened to turn her head to look at him and beamed. Now, he could see her wide grin even if she wasn't near. Thanks, modern technology.

An hour after finishing dinner, Katsuki's phone lit up, and he immediately pounced on it to read a text from Kuri saying she was a few minutes away. He hurried out of the guest bedroom to the front door and slipped on his shoes.

"Is Kuri back now?" her dad asked from the couch.

"Almost. I'm gonna wait for her outside," Katsuki answered before heading out.

San Francisco was a lot different from Musutafu in terms of weather. Back home, Katsuki could definitely get by in just a t-shirt and shorts on a midsummer's night. He seemed to have forgotten that climate patterns vary drastically on the other side of the globe, and walked out without a jacket into the chilly night.

Katsuki stuffed his hands in his shorts pockets and stood next to the driveway, peering either way down the street in search of the silver car from earlier. He shivered under the pale light of the crescent moon and looked up at the darkness above with its sprinkling of stars. Even if the temperature was different, the night sky was the same everywhere. To think that he and Kuri had seen the same stars before they even knew each other…

After an eternity of freezing, a silver car blasting music pulled to the curb in front of Katsuki. Four faces immediately turned to look at him with varying expressions, from surprise to excitement to the familiar sparkle of love. Kuri opened the car door, and the driver turned the music down so all her friends could bid her goodbye. They loudly and tearfully parted ways, waving and reaching arms around the car seats to hug her until they realized it'd be easier to bid her farewell outside the vehicle.

Katsuki watched with a small smile as Kuri's friends gave her the most heartfelt of goodbyes. They were talking too fast for Katsuki to catch their conversation, but he understood that time apart hadn't weakened their bonds.

Suddenly, Kuri turned around and beckoned Katsuki into their huddle. He felt a bit apprehensive but approached Kuri's side nonetheless. She took his hand, and one of her friends whistled. Another friend scolded the whistler, which led to a chorus of laughs.

"This is Katsuki," Kuri said in English before turning to whisper in Katsuki's ear. "I already told them all about you, so just say hi, then we can go inside. Your hand is freezing!"

"Hey," Katsuki said to the group. "Nice to meet you."

"You sound so polite. It's a little unnatural," Kuri muttered to him in Japanese.

"What, am I supposed to call your friends extras?" Katsuki asked, raising an eyebrow.

Her friends, despite not knowing what he and Kuri were saying, began to giggle amongst themselves, and Kuri started telling them not to tease her.

"We'll leave you two alone now," one friend said, pushing the other two back to the car and waving goodbye.

"Bye!" Kuri called, grinning widely despite the sadness in her eyes. "I'll come back soon!"

"Wait, kiss first!" another friend shouted at Kuri and Katsuki before her other friend tugged her into the car.

Katsuki laughed at the request and turned to his girlfriend, planting his hand on her cheek and raising his eyebrows for permission.

"You're making my face cold," Kuri laughed, placing her hand atop his and tiptoeing to kiss him. Katsuki could hear her friends' excited screams from the car.

After pulling away from the kiss, he and Kuri waved goodbye to her friends as they reluctantly drove back into the night. Katsuki gazed at Kuri, who didn't mask her disappointment at their departure. He squeezed her hand, which he was still holding, and leaned in closer to her.

"You have good friends," Katsuki said.

"I do," Kuri smiled, still looking into the distance. "They've been with me through it all."

"I learned a bit about your childhood today," Katsuki said. "Your dad told me stuff."

"Oh, really?" Kuri said, glancing at him with a raised eyebrow. "How much did you hear?"

"Not enough. I still want you to tell me your side of the story," Katsuki smirked.

"I guess I am overdue to tell you all about my old friends," Kuri said, pulling him back to the stairs to the front door. "But let's go inside first. I'm freezing my butt off!"

The two of them laughed and walked hand-in-hand to the front door. Before Kuri opened it, Katsuki glanced over his shoulder at the inky black sky. The brightest star glittered brilliantly and grabbed Katsuki's attention immediately with its familiarity. He'd seen that luminosity before—it shone in Kuri's eyes every time she looked at him. Katsuki hoped that nothing could ever take away his star.