Flames of the Phoenix

Chapter 29: I'm Only Quoting You

"Alright! We get the gist, and we are leaving now!"

He laughed. "What? I was going to say seven cookies."

Everyone rolled their eyes. Harrison laughed and waved as the car pulled away. Shoto stood outside the dorm, waiting for us. I wrapped my arms around him, and we stood there, just hugging for a couple of minutes. I was about to enter the building when he gently covered my eyes with his hands.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

Izuku and Momo giggled as I waved my hands around. "While we were at the trial, everyone back at the dorms was setting up for our party tonight." Both of them took one arm and helped lead me through the commons, where I heard multiple laughs and giggles as we passed. They didn't release me in the elevator, or even once we were on my floor, they took me all the way to my bedroom.

Opening my eyes, I turned to face Shoto. "What's so secret that I can't even see the hallway?"

He smirked and twirled me around the room. "You will see. Just put on your costume and wait for me to retrieve you."

Slipping into my dress, I was grateful that Mom was willing and able to help me alter it to fit me better. Shoto told me that his mom and sister had helped him with his costume. I adjusted the spiderweb necklace in the mirror and then moved on to mess with my hair. I pulled it into a ponytail, then a bun, then a braid, then a low bun, a low ponytail but nothing seemed to look right.

Shoto entered my room again and gently took one of my curls in his hand. "You should leave it down." I pulled the hair band out of my hair and let my hair fall around my shoulders and down my back.

"I should probably get a trim soon. My hair has grown a lot since the start of the school year."

"Oh." Shoto sighed. "But I think it's kinda cool that the ends of your hair are yellow and then fade to orange then red."

This made me laugh. "You don't need to worry about that. Do you really think that I would take the time to dye these," I gestured at the hair around my face. "at the same color gradience as the rest of my hair?" He shrugged. "My hair does it naturally. Look."

I went to my desk and pulled out a pair of scissors. Snipping a tiny bit off the end of one of my curls, I held it up and showed him that the color traveled up the hair the same amount I cut it. "It's nothing like your Dad's beard made out of fire, but it has always done that since l got my quirk."

Shoto wrapped his arms around me, making me feel like a caterpillar safely inside a cocoon. We sat there, enjoying each other's silence until Mina slowly opened the door. "It's time for the party!"

"I love your costume!"

She grinned and twirled, showing off her Hogwarts uniform. "Thank you! I was having a hard time choosing, but this one was easy enough to pull off last second. But, the two of you are so cute!"

I shifted nervously and fiddled with my nails. "Thanks. So, what did you guys set up?"

Mina laughed as she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hallway. The roof and doors were all lined with fake spiderwebs, and cute ghosts poked out of them in multiple places. She pulled me into the elevator, and I smiled at the spiderwebs that hung in the elevator.

The doors opened, and Momo smiled, waving to us. Mina dragged me out of the elevator, with Shoto trailing behind us. "Surprise! We looked online at what Americans do for Halloween and tried to replicate some of those things!"

I hugged Mina and looked around the room. "Thank you so much!"

"I hope we recreated your favorite activities!" Momo led me toward the commons, and my eyes widened as I realized they had taken all of the furniture out of the room so that there was plenty of space. "We have bobbing for apples. Mini pumpkin decorations. I didn't want anyone to get their costumes messy, so I bought mini pumpkins and lots of markers, glue, etc. We made something called cornhole as well as a bean bag toss. I hope it's enough. What do you think?"

"It's perfect! I wasn't expecting much more than dressing up and maybe having a movie night. So, thank you!" I wiped the condensation from the corners of my eyes. Harrison and Dad took me to a Halloween party most years. We played the games together and had mini rivalries. When I was younger, I would ignore the other kids my age to hang out with my family. In my defense, kids my age at those parties were stuffy know-it-alls like Iida. Thinking about it, I guess it makes sense that I would have fallen for him, as his attitude is what I was used to from others.

Dad always had better luck with bobbing for apples than I did, but I had better aim at all the throwing games. Harrison was often busy taking pictures of us, but we managed to convince him to play cornhole a couple of times, and I mediately regretted it because he had pretty good aim.

Momo adjusted her nurse hat as Jiro walked over, her angel wings and halo shifting as she walked. "Oh, I like both of your costumes."

Jiro flushed and wrapped an arm around Momo. "Thanks. I was nervous putting this on."

Momo grinned. "Well, I'm glad you did."

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as Shoto leaned into me and his breath gently tickled the side of my neck. "What do you want to do first?"

"I'm gonna destroy you at cornhole!" Shoto's hand was trapped in mine as we walked around and played the games that everyone had spent today putting together. Shoto glared at Uraraka as she and Hagacure jabbered away, pointedly ignoring us. "She sure did choose a costume that matched her personality. What a bitch."

I snickered and gently brushed a fallen spiderweb off his cape as we stepped outside to cool down a little. "Well, are our costumes accurate? I mean, we will live forever and spend the rest of our days together, won't we?"

A smile that once was rare lit up his face. "I think so." He took my hands, and I marveled for a second that even though I'm taller, though only half an inch, his hands were bigger than mine. Both of our hands were rough and calloused from training with our quirks. Our nails were also the same, cracking at the ends from not taking as good care of them as we should. "Cyra, I lo..."

The door opened, making Shoto and I take a step out of the way of an oblivious Denki and Shinso. They gripped each other tightly and almost fell down the front steps when they saw us. "HEY! Yo! What's up?" 

I stifled a giggle. "Oh, just heading in. Nice costumes though!"

Shinso flushed and nervously adjusted the cat ears perched on his head, while Denki puffed up and held up his pitchfork for show. "I know! They are pretty amazing!"

Shoto and I did another loop around the room to see if we missed anything, before stopping in the kitchen, where Bakugo stood huddled in a corner wearing plaid and wolf ears. "Fuck off, Shitty Hair. I only wore this because you asked, but I never said I would let everyone see me in it!"

Kirishima adjusted the red hood that covered his hair. "Come on, dude. Please just hang out a little bit! You don't need to tell anyone that we matched! I doubt anyone would even notice. You could say that you're a werewolf or something. No one would question it."

"Aye, Kirishima, make sure to keep your hands off my brother."

Both of them flushed as Bakugo shoved past Kirishima and made a few small explosions. "What the fuck did you say?"

"What?" I shrugged, "I'm only quoting you."

Shoto's brows furrowed as we ate a small slice of pumpkin pie on our way to our rooms. "You still aren't siblings."