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Because the park only offered expensive soft pretzels and popcorn as their only food options in every snack stand, the pair of high school students ended up leaving the zoo in order to find a nearby restaurant to eat lunch.

[____] searched for a nearby restaurant through her phone while walking behind her crush. "It says here that there's an Italian place about 12 miles away! Katsuki, do you want that? Or something else?"

"Pick whatever you'd like. Just get us there, already. We only got one more hour before the zoo begins to close for the day and they won't let anymore people back in."

Given that she didn't do very well under pressure, [____] used her quirk instantaneously. She gestured to him to walk inside her portal before she could take a step forward, too.

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"Let's see....Hm..." [____] scrunched up her face to concentrate on the board menu the moment they appeared out of nowhere inside the eatery; some customers were surprised to see them show up through a portal, others not so much. "Number ten looks good..."

"When you said Italian, I thought you meant like a real restaurant, not a fucking pizzeria!!" Bakugo tried not to facepalm at the girl's poor choice of words.

"Don't you like pizza, Katsuki?"

"That's not the point..." He crossed his arms. "Well, what do you want to get? It'll be on me since you paid for the tickets."

"No, thats okay! Katsuki, you shouldn't have to pay for anything when you're with me—" She tried applying the exact same words Shoto had used on her earlier to their conversation since she thought it would make Katsuki feel nervous.

Though unlike her, with fluttering emotions; Bakugo remained silent and showed no reaction other than giving her a single hard pat on her back. "Oi, fat cheeks. Are you for real deaf?! I said I'll pay and that's that!!"

He grabbed his father's credit card from his jeans' pocket (that he 'happened to find' near the kitchen table on that particular morning) and slammed it on the counter as the cashier was getting ready to greet him. "Take this and swipe the fuck out of it after she's done ordering, understand!?"

"Ma'am..?!" The guy seemed to be a little afraid of the blond, so [____] helped him relax by lightly pushing Katsuki aside so she could speak.

"Sorry about him... I'll have two slices of pepperoni, and a medium sized cup of lemonade, please."

"Anything else?"

"Um...Katsuki?" [____] looked at her crush for his answer.

Bakugo wasn't pleased to hear her choice, but he was biting the inside of his cheek to distract him from not saying anything that would upset her. "...I'll custom order mine."

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[____] agreed to meet Katsuki at a table booth of his choice after they separated to wash their hands inside the public restrooms.

She had finished drying her hands with a paper towel when she heard her cell phone's cute ringtone coming from her bag. "Hello?"

"[____], will you be busy tomorrow?" Shoto was on the other line.

"Todoroki...I don't know, probably. Why?"

"I was hoping we could meet up at six in the afternoon, there's a place I'd like to take you for more training."

[____] let out a small sigh of relief when he added the 'training' part to his words, she was thinking he meant a date. "Okay...I will let you know later then, yeah?"

"That's fine..." There was an awkward pause after he said that; [____] was thinking of a way to end the call before he asked, "[____], what are you doing right now?"

"Right now..?! I'm...I'm out, eating...I guess..." The question caught her off guard, so she spoke softly.

"I'm doing the same thing." He informed to her as if she had asked, "[____]...are you alone?"

"No..."

"Who are you with?"

Instead of telling him, she wondered out loud. "Todoroki...Why are you asking me these questions? Is everything ok? Do you need my help with something?"

"Oh...I just thought that's what others do when they call somebody. Aren't we supposed to ask questions like that?"

'Was he just trying to have a conversation with me through the phone?! Why did it feel like I was being interrogated or something, instead?!'

[____] laughed a little. "Well...Yeah, I guess that's true—"

Shoto didn't even let her finish her sentence; "[____], what are you eating?"

"Im not eating yet, but I just walked into a pizzeria...H-How about you?" She decided to play along for a little bit just because she didn't want to be rude to one of her teammates.

"I'm at the same soba shop we dined in, last time. The old lady that runs this place...She asked me about you."

"Oh, d-did she...?"

"She thinks you are my girlfriend."

'Aaahhhh! That's weird!' [____] covered the bottom part of her phone and gave herself some distance from it to process the idea. 'No way! No way, no way!! Does Todoroki actually like me?! Why would he tell me all of this?! Why is he even calling me right now?! Katsuki is waiting— I should hang up!!'

"Todoroki...D-Did you tell her, otherwise?" Before she could try to say goodbye, [____] was determined to figure out if Shoto was attracted to her, somehow. "That we're not dating, I mean..."

"Do you want me to correct her? I just find it funny, I didn't see the appeal on making an old lady feel like she was wrong by saying something about it."

"I...I see your point, I guess. There's no harm in having her believe that, if it brings her joy..."

"Exactly."

[____] nodded to herself before covering her phone again.

'Wait!! YES THERE IS!! There's harm coming my way if I keep thinking like that!! What am I saying?! I don't want to be called Todoroki's girlfriend!! I want Katsuki, not him!"

"Todoroki!! I think you should tell h—!!!"

"[____], I have to go." Once again, he interrupted her unintentionally, "Can I call you later tonight? Will that be alright?"

"W-What is there to talk about, anyway...?"

"I don't know..." He replied honestly; "It's fine though, you don't have to agree if you don't feel comfortable doing that."

"Thanks, Todoroki...It's not that I feel weird about it, it's more like...I'll probably go straight to sleep when I get home, so I might forget to call you back..."

"Okay, just text me then, if you'd like to practice some more tomorrow. I'll see you later."

"Yeah, you too..."

She hung up first, staring at her lock screen in incredulity after the call.

'What a weird call...But do I only see it that way, because he's more quiet than the rest of the guys? I can never tell what he's up to...'

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It took a few more minutes before she finally left the restroom to search for her date.

'That talk with Todoroki gave me a little bit of an anxious feeling...I ended up having to use the bathroom, for real...I hope Katsuki isn't upset."

She was able to spot Bakugo immediately since he was the only blond guy sitting confidentially in their booth; his left ankle rested on his right thigh and he had his arms stretched apart, placing them on the back of the two seats next to him.

He had a rather calm tone than what [____] was expecting as he lifted his chin to call her over. "Fat cheeks, over here."

"Katsuki, I'm sorry I took a while..." She sat on the seat in front of him.

"It's not a big deal."

[____] blinked twice, then questioned her whole existence thanks to that comment. "...Are you Katsuki?"

"I'm gonna kill you."

With just those four words, [____] heaved. "Okay, I thought you were sick again or something...So, you really don't mind that I took this long?"

"I do fucking mind. But yelling about it isn't gonna solve anything, so..." He cleared his throat. "You owe me those 30 kisses back since I didn't snap at you."

"So you can be calm like this all the time, if you wanted to be..." [____] teased him for a little.

Because he was serious about his declaration earlier; Bakugo didn't say a word. His goal by the end of the night was to get at least 300 kisses from [____].

"Whatever...We made a bet, remember? As long as I'm nice today, you'll give me what I ask for."

[____] gulped her nervousness down and gave him a nod. "Okay...30 kisses...Thank you for waiting patiently for me."

"That's more like it. Next time, I won't be this generous, I hope you know that. Also— You're gonna have to work harder to lose all the calories you're about to consume, but...Still, I got you this." He was hiding a small brown box next to his seat, he secretly couldn't wait to see her reaction to the surprise so he handed it to her, even before they would begin to eat their meal.

"A slice of cheesecake...?" [____] inspected the pastry outside of the box's clear lid. 'It's so pretty...It even has fruits and small flowers glazed around it...'

Katsuki already knew he did a good job in choosing which dessert to get from the sweets menu, but seeing her act so amazed over food was making him want to mock her. "Heh, you like it, don't you?"

"Is this for me, really?"

"Well if you won't eat it then who will? Of course it's for you, fat cheeks."

".....I love this. I don't know how to thank you, I'd never would of expected you to be this kind. It's like if we're actually a c—"

"You can add 100 kisses as payment." His true intentions began to show when he smiled and cut her off.

'100?! For just a slice of cheesecake?! It's so pretty, though....100 sounds like a lot, still...Never mind that, he's totally just doing this to get the most out of it, not because he likes me! I mean...He does, though...

He likes me just enough so that he'll go this far for some kisses...It's twisted, but..It kind of makes me happy. Well, might as well make it a little harder for him...'

[____] stuck her tongue out in a playful way just to tell him. "I'll give you 5 kisses for the cheesecake."

"HA?! 5?! Give me this shit—!!" He tried taking the small box back, but [____] used her quirk to make it disappear back into the refrigerated dessert display to keep it cool for a while longer. "I'm not gonna be nice to you anymore, what a fucking rip off!!"

"Hey, wait...Let me explain; it's not that I don't wanna kiss you whenever you ask me to, Katsuki. It's more like...I'm afraid that you're going to stop being nice to me after you reach whatever number you want me to owe you...Now that I'm saying this, I probably should of thought more about how self degrading this is...I'm embarrassed to be this stupid, in front of you..."

Her sincerity helped him calm down. He combed part of his hair back with his fingers as he thought about how to word his response properly. "Seriously, what's with you today? It's like if you're not confident enough to even see things my way, it's starting to piss me off..."

'Self-degrading?' Katsuki thought. 'What's more is that I'm going out of my way to be fucking kind to you...and you're telling me you feel like this...I'm not trying this hard just so I could receive some half-ass kiss from another girl besides you!!'

[____] looked down at the table; their food and drinks were already set and getting cooler by the minute, if she spent anymore time dwelling on how to tell him what she was thinking about; they might not have enough time to eat and make it back to the zoo park.

So she caved in, "It's just that...I recently found out that another girl likes you, Katsuki, and it's making me feel kind of uneasy...The thought of you liking someone else back, that's not me... I wanna say, perhaps...it's jealousy? I feel like I can't compete to someone who's been knowing you longer than I have, actually..."

Bakugo felt like threatening somebody at that moment. His pride was already down by playing a betting game with her. He couldn't bare to let it sink even lower just because [____] was feeling insecure over an invisible girl.

"Fuck this other person!! Why in the world should you or I care if another girl likes me?!"

[____] shut her eyes closed to explain herself. "Because!! What if she's kind of like me...? She likes the same stuff I do...We have the same taste in—"

"Liking the same shit doesn't mean you're exactly like that person. Everybody is fucking different— Plus, I doubt there's another girl who's as dumb as you, hanging by and waiting for me to look at them, instead."

"D-Do you really think I'm dumb?" [____] unlatched her view to look at his face. He seemed a lot less mad than what she had predicted. "Am I dumb...because I like you this much?"

"No, you're dumb because you think there's another girl in this fucking world who's as cute as you."

'As cute as me?!' [____] could feel her cheeks burning up from unsettledness. 'Katsuki thinks I'm cute...He's said it before, but this time...It's just making me feel all emotional...I don't wanna cry but I feel like I just might, from all this sweetness...'

While she was hung up over his compliment, he continued to verbalize his thoughts. "I'm on a date with you, 'cause you're the only girl I wanna be around with, isn't that obvious?

I said it once already; I like you, too, dumbass. So stop worrying about an extra falling for me, as long as they're not you; I'm never gonna give a shit about them."

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[an; helloooooo — i decided to take weekends off from writing so I'll only update 5x a week daily Mon—Fri. hope that's okay 🙃 I've been frying my brain with work (I got a full time and a part time job) and I'm done with school for now but I still come back home to a teething toddler I need a gdamn break ahhhhh

although I really love writing this story and have so many plans for it, two days off per week will really help me make it better :3 hope u guys will still stan this book lol

Also sorry if this chapter was fucking shit I reached a very minor writers block atm and I'm trying to pull through it, I've been meditating and also punching my bed pillows late at night to clear my head hahahahaha (I may or may not have some unresolved anger issues we shouldn't talk about it tho)

still here? Comment your favorite color for your new hero costume ideas lol]