PAPER FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

chapter 27

' surging, unto skies of ice and fire '

━━━━━

She sees Shouto first.

Just like when everything was not breaking and she wasn't a monster of a girl. Late nights, a cellophane bag in his hand containing cold soba. The bag falls to the pavement in short seconds, she's too overwhelmed by the happiness in seeing him that she fails to count.

Todoroki Shouto. Her Shouto who always told her that she can do better, her Shouto with awkward hugs, that rare smile, hands enveloping hers and that unconditional concern and love no one else had given her.

She misses him greatly, not his physical entity, but his presence that comforted her more than it should. She doesn't know what to say. Kaede became Yuko for two years, eleven months, twenty nine days, ten hours, fifty-two minutes and twelve seconds now. During that time, she became a blabbermouth and the rarest of rare was when she had nothing to say. But now, Kaede doesn't know what to say, she doesn't know what to feel and it would have been easier if this [stupid] life came with warning labels and an instruction manual.

Like warning: prone to headaches and just about any illness in this planet, and oh, you're also prone to mental exhaustion and wait, you get heart broken too. Not once or twice or thrice, four, five six, seven ad infinitum.

And yeah, endless awkward moments. Smile, she thinks to herself. Smile, because that's just about the only thing you can do instead of crossing that street, seven paces or so, and wrapping him in an embrace. Bursting to tears or begging for forgiveness on bended knees.

"It's you," he says, recognizing her and she probably looks like a lot different, but they've probably found out the truth about her identity, so it makes things more complicated, but in a way, easier.

Kaede waves. Waves!

That smile that makes flowers bloom in her ribcage, wrap the bones with their dainty stems and their petals falling lazily on her bloodstream. That hopeful smile.

Shouto, her Shouto and she can't actually believe it. He's here, so near, just a couple of meters away from her. Meters she can cross with her white tennis shoes. She waves again, smiling like an idiot, but just like what she did when she left the league, she's damning the consequences, lighting a mental torch and setting fire to the opinions of irrelevant personages.

He doesn't respond, but even the gesture, or the lack thereof is welcome, because she's known he's always been silent around everyone.

Unpredictability is in his nature and one second he could be deadpanning at one of her corny jokes and the next worrying over her grades. Ten months is enough time to get used to it. Shouto is unpredictable and she loves that about him, heck, she loves everything about him even the imperfections.

But there's a fine line between normal character and hostility, and he crosses it by firing the first shot.

A big wave of fire that threatens to scorch her skin is hurled at her direction, and if it weren't for her quirk being triggered by her self preservation instincts- dissipating the fire into nothing- Kaede would have been nothing but a pile of ash.

Of course that self preservation instinct does nothing to alleviate the cracks in her ribcage as he sends a forceful punch just after the smoke clears. She's trying to move on from all the bloody battles, but Kaede appreciates the intelligent battle skills he's displaying, from using the fire as a mask to hide his following attack.