𝐖𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇 || ᵇ.ᵏᵃᵗˢᵘᵏⁱ

XXX

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Aeri had a wide smile on her face for the rest of the day. It did not drop once and Jungwon found it wildly suspicious. He even tried purposely pissing her off more than once just to test his theory.

Nothing worked.

He tried rubbing dust on her golden dagger; all she did was wipe it off, smile still present. He tried aiming for the face in training; she dodged and didn't even berate him, Bakugou did though, shouting about the sparring etiquette that Aeri obviously had to teach him. His last attempt was deliberately stepping on the toe of her brand new white Steve Madden heels with the shoes he'd spent the last 10 minutes purposely trudging around in the mud.

She didn't shout at him like she normally would, didn't even click her tongue in annoyance. She told him it was fine and went to clean them without another word and with that unnerving smile still on her face.

It was starting to annoy him that she was so happy and he didn't know why, but he'd already asked her why she was so smiley and she brushed him off, giving him so half-assed excuse about the weather and the end of exam week. It bothered him. He was itching to know... so he went to his dad and Hyunjin, interrogating them on Aeri's suspiciously good mood.

"Leave her alone and stop trying to purposely annoy her. If she's in a good mood just let her be in a good mood." His dad told him, grading papers at the dining room table.

"But it's a suspiciously good mood! And she won't tell me why!"

"You don't always have to have a reason to be happy y'know!" Hyunjin called from the living room. "And she did tell you why, she said because exams are over so she doesn't have to worry about studying anymore! She can chill out in the sun!"

"That's a terrible excuse and you know it!" Jungwon scowled. Aizawa sighed from beside him.

"Jungwon, your sister is outside sunbathing with the cats right now. You know she likes summer, of course, she's going to be happy if the sun's out. It's not an excuse if the answer is something genuinely makes her happy." His dad said, his brows knitting together as he worked through the stack of papers. "Now leave me alone so I can grade these in peace."

"I will find out what's going on!" Jungwon said finally, before stomping upstairs and slamming the door to his room for dramatic effect but really all it did was make Aizawa angrier.

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Aeri laid on her stomach on top of the blanket she'd put down on the grass for herself and three cats. Nari, the ever-affectionate ragdoll that she was, chose to lay directly on Aeri's back, snuggling into the fabric of her sundress. Her father's two black cats, Makkuro and Yami, sat grooming each other by her head. She was watching TikToks on her phone when Hyunjin slid open the dining room glass door, wandering out into the garden to sit with her.

He plonked down onto the blanket next to her, closing his eyes and angling his face up to the sun to soak up the warmth. "Jungwon's planning something to get information out of you," He chuckled, reaching forward to scratch under Makkuro's chin.

"There's no information for him to get, 'm just happy and that's the end of it." Aeri shrugged. She felt bad lying to them, but Jungwon didn't like Bakugou, it would be weird if her dad found out since he's still Bakugou's teacher and her elder brothers would go apeshit and try to scare the poor boy away from her. Telling Hyunjin was the safest option but even then, he tended to gossip a lot and people would find out.

"That's what I said! He admitted that he's been trying to piss you off all afternoon right in front of dad too."

"Yeah I noticed, he tried to hit me in the face and got my new shoes and dagger dirty." She said, looking up from her phone and at her older brother. By now, reality had set in and she'd calmed down. She was still happy, very much so, but her smile wasn't as wide and her heart wasn't beating as fast.