Eijiro and I got to our smoothie bar and spent the first two hours of our date there playing games and getting closer to each other. I missed him during this week. Sure, I saw him, but we didn't have a lot of time together, and especially not any alone. We haven't kissed again since our first night, and I already craved having more with him now that I've had a few.
I got my reward once we left the smoothie bar. Neither of us are very big on PDA, and I already let him know that even once we tell everyone we're dating, I won't feel very comfortable kissing in front of our friends. I think intimate moments are private and should be just for us. He asked if hand holding and hugging were ok in front of others, and I encouraged those. Thankfully he was on the same page as not wanting to gross out our classmates as well, and he also requested not to be overly affectionate in public places, because his moms raised him to be a gentleman.
So therefore, once we were outside of the smoothie bar and at a quiet park, we indulged in our affection for one another. When his lips captured my own for the first time in nearly a week, it felt like I had been lost in a desert and hadn't had water in forever, and his kisses were the only thing to quench my thirst. I didn't want to let him go, I wanted to stay in the moment forever with his hands cupping my cheeks and mine around his neck.
Our unknown stalker, however, had other plans for us. Or more accurately, stalkers.
"YES!!!" Eijiro and I hear from a few yards behind us, causing us to break our kiss and look towards the source of noise. It came from behind a cluster of trees, and a flash of pink sticking out of them made the familiar squeal make a lot more sense.
"I think our date may have gotten stalked." Eijiro says in amusement to me, his hands still on cheeks as we both watch our friends try and fail to stay hidden.
"Hey, we made it two hours without them interrupting, we should give them some credit. Especially with Mina and most likely Kaminari there." I whisper back in equal amusement before using my quirk to knock all the terribly hidden teens out of the bushes. "Hey guys, fancy seeing you here." I call to them teasingly, standing up and facing them as they lay on the floor where I knocked them to. Mina, Kaminari, Sero, Mashirao, and Bakugo were all there. I was surprised to see Mashirao and Bakugo there, and neither of them looked particularly happy to be there either.
"How did you know we going out today?" Eijiro asks curiously as they all stand up again. All of them point to Kaminari and Mina, and they both at least look sheepish and a little ashamed.
"I may have overheard you asking Aizawa for permission yesterday to go on a date." Kaminari says to me with an awkward chuckle.
"I didn't believe him until this morning when you asked for help to look nice. You didn't say what it was for, but I had already pieced it together." Mina says next, looking more proud than ashamed at crashing our date. I turn my gaze to Sero, but he just shrugs and grins at me.
"I'm just here for the entertainment." Sero says shamelessly. He was just along for the ride and entertainment, so I move on.
"Bakugo?" Eijiro asks his friend, wondering why he's there. Bakugo has been acting more and more normal every day, but there's still something off about his interactions. And not just with us, he's been off with everyone. Even just yesterday Aoyama accidentally bumped into him in training and Bakugo didn't yell at all, it was strange. But he's making his usual gruff comments on things during lunches and dinners and yelling often at me or whoever, so that's all normal. I think he's still sorting through his feelings, but I also think there's something else going on.
"Don't fucking look at me, I didn't want to watch your lame shitty date. Raccoon Eyes and Dunce Face dragged me out, I only came with to stop them from being dumbasses." Bakugo says gruffly, his angry pout looking away as if he's debating every second whether to run or not. "Now hurry the fuck up and finish up so I can back to the dorms, I have better fucking shit to do today." I knew that was 'Bakugo talk' for 'I'm not stopping your date and I only came to keep the others from interrupting', and I knew my grateful smile was mirrored on Eijiro's face at the same time mine was.
My gaze goes next to Mashirao, wondering how they looped him into this.
"I literally don't even know how they got me here. I was taken before I even know what was going on." Mashirao says tiredly, pointing a blaming finger at the pink girl and electric boy.
"Hey, getting kidnapped is my thing. I expect better of you, Mashi." I tease my friend, but he's the only one who laughs. Everyone else tenses up slightly at my joking, and Eijiro takes my hand worriedly again. "Sorry, too soon?"
"Always too soon, Ri-Ri." Mashi smirks at me and I giggle before turning to Eijiro, seeing his worried look.
"Sorry, my humor is weird." I chuckle to him, then place a reassuring kiss on his cheek. "So, now that we have an audience, what should we do with the rest of our day?"
"Well, we only have a couple of hours left, should we grab some pizza?" Eijiro asks me, and I nod quickly in agreement. We both take off and leave the others, but know they're going to follow us anyway.
"Wait, we want pizza!" Kaminari yells in complaint and runs up to us, and just like that, our date is now a group hang out.
"How did you guys even leave campus? I'm surprised Aizawa let you." I ask as we sit down to eat, two large pizzas already ordered for all of us to share.
"It was easy, I just told Aizawa we were following you guys, he told us just not to get in any trouble." Kaminari says proudly, and I grumble at my teacher's action.
"Someone's not getting their coffee anymore, the damn traitor." I grumble to myself quietly. Mina was starting to talk about something or other, but a shrill voice cut through our conversations and made my spine tense instantly.
"Well look at that, this place let's useless trash sit around, how unsightly." The shrill, grating voice of Nikki Takamoto cuts through our group's chatter. "Oh wait, the cyclops wouldn't know about unsightly things, since she's so uselessly blind and all." Multiple laughs join in on her taunting, and I recognize all of them. Sure enough, when I look at who approached our table, there Nikki is, surrounded by my other childhood bullies, Yasushi Konda and Manami Otonari.
"I can't believe she even walks out in public with the shame of how weak she is. I mean getting kidnapped for a second time, it's no wonder her daddy is ashamed of her and hides her away." Manami adds in next, and at this point the table realizes these three are talking about me.
"Look, she found new people to pity her. Maybe she had to buy her way into having friends, it's not like anyone would hang out with a cyclops for the joy of it, I mean just look at how ugly her new cut is." Yasushi sneers, leaning his tall strong body over the table to intimidate me.
"Go fuck off, you weak ass extras!" Bakugo growls at them, going to stand from his spot by the window.
"You can't talk to my girlfriend like that. I won't allow it." Eijiro also stands up, and his spot is right on the edge of the seats so he's easily able to get in their faces. He has a heated glare in his eyes that I've never seen before, and we've faced villains together.
"Boyfriend?" Nikki scoffs dismissively, then turns a sneering look at me. "As if anyone would date her. You must be in it for the fame of her family, but I wouldn't waste your time, her hero daddy doesn't care about her."
"Wow." I chuckle out, finally speaking and drawing the attention of everyone. I stand as well then, clapping sarcastically at the new arrivals. "Thanks for the blast from the past, I really forgot how toddlers throw tantrums when they don't get their way, so thanks for the reminder." I then turn to my friends, all of whom look varying levels of pissed off and ready to fight. "Oh, introductions are in order. Future heroes, meet the future villains of Japan." I dramatically wave my hands like a show host to the three uninvited newcomers. "Future villains, meet the people who will be locking your ass away because your bad attitudes will only leave you with a career in a life of crime."
"Who the hell do you think you are to talk to us like that?" Yasushi growls angrily.
"You get some screen time from a failing school and now you think you're tough shit?" Manami scoffs at me next.
"She doesn't think she is, she just is." Mashirao adds in next, his tone dark and confident.
"Yeah, so take your shitty selves and walk the hell away, before she has to prove it." Kaminari says with a cocky smile, his eyes focused and ready to fight.
"Oh they wouldn't risk a fight, they'd get kicked out of their own low level hero schools they barely managed to get into." I smirk wickedly at the three, watching each of them shake in anger. I sit down with utter relaxation, knowing they can't do a thing without jeopardizing their own futures right now. "Especially fighting against me. I am, after all, rather famous right now, as you just less than eloquently said."
Nikki at least for the group seems to have one brain cell left in her moronic head, because she huffs like a brat and stomps out of the restaurant, her lackeys soon following. I'm surprised to see all three of them together, they all ended up going to different schools after middle school. But I guess some things never change.
"Who were they?" Mina asks me, a frown still on her face showing she's still upset.
"My childhood bullies." I say casually, then chuckle with relief the encounter went the way it did. "That uh... that felt really freaking good, by the way." I add with growing excitement. "I always just used to take their crap in the past. Usually there were more of them, but it was always those three at the center."
"You had to deal with them all the time?" Eijiro asks me sadly, taking my hand as he sits down and faces me fully.
"Yeah." I admit quietly. "I wish I could say that I handled it back then, but it took me years before I developed a thick skin. When I was younger I used to believe their words, and sometimes I still do. They're actually in the year above us, so when they left my old school the amount of bullies nearly halved. I always had my brother and Mashi to tell me what they said wasn't true, it just took me a while before I started seeing that as well." I nudge my best friend in a thankful way, and he returns the gesture quietly.
"I don't like that you had to get used to that, but I'm proud of you for overcoming them." Eijiro says softly.
"Those three are the main reason I don't like bullies." I say passionately, and glance over at Bakugo on reflex. I give him a smile though, I could tell he was about to yell at me for looking at him when I said 'bully', but I'm letting him now that I don't think he's a bully anymore. He and Midoriya have been fine, well neutral enough, with each other lately. He huffs and turns away from me, taking an aggressive sip of his soda.
"Those fucking extras are just jealous losers." Bakugo spits out, not looking at us. "They don't matter."
"Not any more, they don't." I agree, and then my eyes brighten up when our pizza arrives.
We returned to regular conversations after that, everyone dropping the topic of my childhood bullies and what they said about me. I was so touched that each of my friends stood up for me, and that my boyfriend, the sweetest and nicest person in the world, was ready to throw down to defend me. Also, he looked intimidating as all get out, it was impressive and very attractive. I wouldn't have let him fight, he would have gotten in trouble at school, but it was still incredible manly of him.
"Thanks for a wonderful first date." I tell Eijiro after we get back to campus. We managed to force the others to go back to the dorms, but the two of us are now strolling around the lake in the light of the setting sun.
"It could have gone with a few less interruptions." He chuckles sheepishly, then frowns again. "You're really ok with having run into those guys today? I felt you tense up when they came close to us and your hands were shaking a little."
"I wasn't ok at first." I admit. "It's why I didn't say anything for a while at the beginning. Those three... they're not good people. They would bully and hit me often, but since I wasn't allowed to use my quirk and it took me years before I was good at martial arts, I just had to take it for years. Usually my brother would show up and protect me, but he couldn't always be there. Their words used to hurt me so much. Cyclops, ugly, spoiled, quirkless, weak... mother killer." I sigh deeply as I remember the worst one the bullies used to say. "Those were the names that followed me for years, and they were started by them. They traumatized me for a time, but with my psychiatrist and my physical therapist, along with my family and Mashi, I learned to see it was them that was flawed, not me."
"Why would they call you mother killer?" He asks, his voice shaking in anger. "You were a child, a victim, you had nothing to do with your mother's death."
"Reporters." I say bitterly. "They twisted the story in the beginning because I wouldn't say who saved me. The hero who saved me asked only one thing of me when they did, they just asked that I tell no one it was them. I kept and honored that promise, not even Inasa knows who it was. But reporters took my lack of confession as a sign that I potentially, somehow, at six years old, took part in killing my own mother."
"That's messed up on so many levels." He says, still angry and now glaring at the lake.
"My dad had those rumors squashed by the next day and someone had the statements all retracted, but it still was a rumor for 24 hours. That's all it took for someone at my school to save the article, or maybe one of their parents or something. Either way, that was one of the taunts." I say, then slowly lift my lips into a wry smirk. "I actually did get into a full fight once at school because of it. I didn't use my quirk, but I still won, and it wasn't pretty for the kid on the receiving end. That was the last time anyone called me that. My dad didn't even punish me for fighting once he heard the reason why. He was actually quite proud, even bought me a top of the line gaming computer, but only because I didn't want the pony he offered."
"Hehe, I keep forgetting you're a rich kid, then you say you rejected a pony." He chuckles lightly. "I'm glad you're here now, away from all of that. You're such a strong person to have overcome it, and you're so inspiring. I'm proud of you." He looks at me with so much warmth, pride, and devotion as he holds me by my waist, our walk momentarily forgotten.
"Eiji." I say softly, then lean forward and close the distance between us, place a long, slow kiss against his lips. "You really are the most wonderful man. Thank you." I say once we separate, a soft grin on both our faces.
"Thank you." He says, his cheeks slightly dusted with pink. "We should head back though, it's getting dark."
"Crap, papa-zawa's gonna yell at me. Glad I still got him the coffee even though he didn't deserve it after siccing our friends on us." I say sarcastically as we walk back hand in hand.
"Are we uh... good to tell everyone?" He asks nervously.
"If they don't already know thanks to Mina the Gossip Queen, then yeah, we can tell everyone." I say teasingly, happily holding his hand as we walk into the dorm together.
"You're late." Aizawa says immediately, his fair floating and his eyes red as he sends out his capture scarf and drags me over to him. Why only I'm getting his wrath and not Eijiro, I may never know.
"We would have been on time if you didn't send a squad to follow us on our date." I glare back, my one free arm indicating for Eijiro to hand me the bag he insisted on carrying for me. He passes it to me and I take the contents out and shove them in our teacher's face. "You don't deserve this because you're a mean old cock-blocking grumpy pants, but here. I got you two since they got a new flavor. I expect to try it before our next morning training."
"Cock-blocking?!" Several voices choke out, one of them being Eijiro himself as his face turns bright red. It was around then that I realized nearly the entire class is in the living or dining room, and that everyone heard me.
"Well, that's one way to tell everyone." Eijiro chuckles as Aizawa releases me and stomps away to his room, his spoils of war tucked under his arm. He better share, the new coffee is a dark chocolate dark roast and it smelled heavenly.
"Saves us having to repeat ourselves, I do hate doing that." I grin at him and retake his hand, walking to the living room. "Yup, we're dating." I grin at the gathered classmates, all of who send us congratulations. Well, Iida started to lecture about how we can't be in each other's rooms at all and other nonsense I didn't listen to, but he still congratulated us too.