Zero Hero ||MHA||

17. The Hero Festival

Bakugo and I were knocked out cold when the police arrived. Thanks to Hiro's quick thinking, he knew my random location alert was a cry for help and called the police. Kiyoshi escaped before the police came and unfortunately, they weren't able to track down him down. According to my dad, he disappeared. There's no way he could've known we were in trouble, and when I asked him about it, he avoided the question. From what I remembered, Corvade was there too. I tried prying more out of him, about why they were together, but he wouldn't spill it.

Two weeks have passed since then. Bakugo and I barely speak at school. Every time I'd show up, he'd ignore me or leave. Every time I saw him, I was reminded of what I tried to do to him.

"All done!" Mom announced, finishing the bow on the back. She pushed me to the mirror on the wall.

I wore a lavender yukata with pale-pink cherry blossoms prints. The sash was pink too, but it was a bit more saturated than the flowers on the yukata. This was Mom's but it still looked good as new. She fixed my hair into something presentable. I don't know how she did it, but she put my short hair into a braided bun, with an assortment of flower hairclips embedded inside the braids. The finishing touch was the white flower clipped on the right side of my hair. I don't know about fashion, but I knew this outfit good. When I told Mom that, she went bonkers.

"You look so beautiful," she giggled. She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo, blinding my eyes. "Let's go show your dad!"

"Uh, I don't think that's necessary. He's coming too..." I mumbled, stars prickling my vision. However, she was already dragging me downstairs and into the living room. Hiro noticed us, and his eyes glimmered.

"That really suits you, Rin," he complimented.

Dad, who was putting his shoes on, turned around to look at me. He squinted his eyes at me for a moment, trying to quickly think of a response. Then, he turned back around.

"...You look nice, I suppose."

"That's it? After all my hard work..." Mom grumbled.

I put on wooden Geta sandals. I hated wearing them because they're so uncomfortable. I asked Mom if I could just wear my regular flip-flops, but she said no. She said that it'd ruin the outfit.

We were going to the Hero Festival. As the name suggested, it's a summer festival honoring and celebrating our heroes. It's a big event that happened across the entire country with multiple festivals being held in different locations. When Strawberry Shades heard about the festival, he begged me to go. "I'm gonna be there! You don't want me to be alone, do you?" I remember him saying. Although I wasn't planning on going, Hiro thought it'd be a fun outing.

We walked to the event, since it wasn't too far from where we lived. When we got to the festival grounds, the sky had grown dark and red paper lanterns were lit. At the entrance was a gigantic blow-up All Might doll. Mom forced us to take a picture. Inside, lined up around were stalls selling food, merchandise, toys, and other random knickknacks. As expected, the place was packed. People wore yukatas, but I also spotted kids wearing hero costumes. There were a lot of All Mights. We had to squeeze through the line of people who were buying and waiting for food and merchandise at the stalls. The entire place smelled like delicious food: grilled meat, takoyaki, candied apples... It was enough to make my mouth water.

I felt my phone vibrate. Pulling it out from my sash, I saw that Iida texted me.

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New Message from:

Iida 👓

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