Lightning Serenade

Chapter 48: Waterpark Date II

"Oh, hey! You're that kid from the sports festival, aren't you?" the ticket stand guy asked, staring straight at Hitoshi. "The one from general studies who made it really far!"

After a short hesitation, Hitoshi answered, "yeah... that's me."

"So cool!" the young man praised. He might have even been a teenager, around their age. It was common for some teenagers to get summer jobs, especially when they didn't have hero internships to worry about.

"Oh, I think I remember you two being in the sports festival, too! How many quirks do you have, man?" he asked, turning his attention to Neito.

"Just the one," Neito dismissed coolly. "Now, about those tickets—"

"Yeah, sorry guys! You two are good to go, but you have an electric quirk, don't you?" the ticket stand guy asked, finally turning his attention to Denki. "People with electric quirks aren't allowed in this waterpark, but there's another waterpark about two and half hours from here by train that does allow people like you!"

"You're really going to discriminate based on quirks? Don't you know that's illegal?" Neito sneered, slamming his hands on the countertop, indignant at the audacity of the waterpark.

"Sorry, man," the ticket man offered, his hands out in a placating manner. "It's not up to me or you know I would let you all right in. Seriously! Big fan!"

Neito took a deep breath in, let it out, and demanded through his teeth, "let me speak to your manager."

As the ticket man left the window to fetch his superior, relieved to not deal with that situation any further, Denki tried to tell them that it was okay, and that he was used to it.

"You shouldn't have to be used to it!" Neito seethed, angry for Denki. "That's the point! How the fu—How are we supposed to train hard and become heroes if they won't even let us get some self-care and relaxation? They want us to burn bright and die early! And I don't care who hears!" Neito ranted, getting louder as he went, and turning on his heel to yell the last part at the gawking group at the next ticket window over.

Luckily, that group was smart enough to quickly divert their attention back to their own ticket window and quickly move on after making their purchases.

Denki, the peacemaker, tried, "you guys can just go without me, and—"

He stopped as he saw Hitoshi shaking his head. "This was meant to be a date with you. It wouldn't exactly be a good date if you weren't there, would it? Let us handle this. We have your back."

Denki sighed and contemplated, but inside, he was warm and absolutely thrilled. When was the last time that someone had defied rules for him? When was the last time that someone pointed out when he was being treated unfairly and actually worked toward fixing it?

"You always take care of everyone else," Hitoshi continued as Neito continued to shoot glares at everyone who looked at them for more than half a second. "You took care of me with the muzzle demonstration at the mall, and then Bakugou with getting the whole school to participate in yet another demonstration."

"And don't forget about when you saved my ass after I was so rude to you during training," Neito tacked on after sending a glare at an older lady who had been shooting disapproving glances in their direction. When he finally made eye contact and the lady rushed away, Neito grinned manically at his little success.

"That was just training!" Denki defended Neito against himself. "Anything goes during training!"

"No, it doesn't!" Neito argued. "Because I would have been devastated if the roles were reversed! You are so good at letting things go, but maybe you're too good at it. When you do that too often, you let people walk all over you instead of standing up for yourself and taking what you deserve."