Mystery from Another World

Part 32: Rooftop Rendezvous

In all the excitement over the Ketsubutsu incident, Shine and Wally had almost forgotten they were supposed to meet Dabi on this same Friday. It was later at night when Shine and Wally wanted to sneak out, but they had to double check all the kids were in their rooms first. Then they slipped out.

But of course Jiro heard Shine leave--Shine was not as fast as Wally and couldn't completely hide her footfalls that way. Jiro peered out of her room and listened. She didn't hear anyone in Shine's room. She snuck down the stairs and into the common area. They were long gone, but the door was unlocked, she found. Not that the students always remembered to lock it...but...

She turned around, and Bakugo had appeared also. Jiro jumped. "Why are you up?"

"Why are you?" Bakugo shot back. "What's going on down here?"

"I just wanted water," Jiro lied.

"You aren't in the kitchen," Bakugo said. "You heard something, didn't you? Someone outside?"

"No, no," Jiro hissed. "Keep your voice down, Explosion Boy... Likstar snuck out. She's not in her room... I bet West did too. I didn't check his, though. I don't want to go on that floor. What if I wake Shoji up?"

Bakugo solved this by going back up the elevator himself. He could walk more quietly when necessary. He opened West's door. It was unlocked, and no one was in there. The ID card was, but Bakugo didn't know to see any significance in this, other than they'd clearly be portaling out.

Jiro had come as far as the stairwell but no farther. Bakugo shook his head.

She leaned on the wall. "This is bad. We should let Mr. Aizawa know."

"No," Bakugo said, stalking past, back to the ground floor.

Jiro followed. "Come on, we have to. They're breaking curfew...and who knows where they're going? To hunt down villains or worse, like whatever they did yesterday. We can't just ignore that, Bakugo."

"If we blow their cover now, they could just do something else," Bakugo said. "I say we wait and catch them in the act."

"Act of what? They're already gone."

"What's going on?" Momo startled them. "I heard footsteps on the stairs and the elevator moving..."

Shoji was probably awake too, then.

"Our supervisors decided to sneak out," Jiro said. "Are you going to make up another excuse for this, Momo? Or is this where we call it? They're breaking the rules."

"Oh no..." Momo covered her mouth. "That's so dangerous. They could run into all sorts of villains at this time of night."

"We don't know they left campus," Bakugo said, but he thought they had. "If we rush to Mr. Aizawa, we'll look stupid if they come back really fast. I say we wait."

"Yes, it would probably be best to wait..." Momo agreed. "Maybe they just went for a walk, Jiro. Let's not believe the worst... I mean, they hardly get any alone time, and they are a couple. It's... romantic, sort of."

"Romantic would be following the rules." Jiro didn't really think about that sentence too hard. "Which they should be doing."

"Let's just wait for an hour," Momo insisted.

* * *

Dabi didn't know why he followed Shine's directions, other than he didn't care to risk being seen with them anyway, but she showed up, and no doubt her man was somewhere around watching her, so he didn't bother attacking.

"What kept you?" he said sarcastically.

"This is about the same time," Shine said. She shivered. "Where is this?"