𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 | 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗶 𝘅 𝗼𝗰

²¹you dork

Aizawa closed his eyes as he tried not to let Ms Joke's praise for his class get to his head. It was only the first round of the exams and his students were doing exceptionally well despite the wrench Ms Joke's class had thrown into their initial plan.

His attention mainly switched between Shoto's fight against ten samurai-looking second years – the dual quirk boy unsurprisingly having the upperhand – and Rin who was on the other side of the stadium wandering by herself.

She, like Shoto and Bakugou, had parted from the class from the beginning. Rin had been more motivated than usual to pass the exam, Aizawa assuming it was part of some plan she formulated against her father.

Even if Aizawa had been against Rin's need to take down the League instead of securing her own safety, it didn't mean he wasn't rooting for her to pass the exam.

Speaking of the star-like girl, Rin fearlessly searched through the urban landscape, invigorated by the new adjustments to her hero suit. The aesthetic design of her suit was the same as it had been before, but the material was now insulated with a cooling function to drastically delay overheating and could now withstand up to 6000º. Even though her Starform could surpass that level of heat, Mei Hatsume wanted to use Rin as her test dummy for the fabric before increasing its heat resistance.

Rin adjusted her gloves, a new addition to her suit, mindlessly stopping in the middle of the street.

As suspected, a ball bounced off her shoulder blade where one of her targets were placed – the other two targets being on the right side of her chest and her left thigh.

Despite one of her targets being hit, the circumference of the circle glowing a raging red, a small smile appeared on her features before she turned around.

Another ball, with perfect aim, hurled towards her right side. She had time to anticipate it, but she remained still, simply just watching as it plummeted towards her.

Before her assailant could victoriously grin, her body ignited with a dense, blinding light and the rubber ball was not only flung away from her gravitational field, but was burnt into ashes at his feet.

The unsuspecting second year with a water quirk had assumed she'd been an easy target – he'd seen her performance during the Sports Festival and thought he had every move in arsenal memorised. Alas, he was foolish for forgetting that her performance had been at the beginning of the year, and she was now a fully-fledged U.A. student who'd been trained under the newly assigned Number One Hero.

So, he ogled at the glowing celestial body who levitated ever-so-slightly above the ground, the heat of her body causing small flowers and weeds to grow through the concrete of the road. She bounced her own ball in her hand, her honey gold eyes burning straight through his wimpy figure.

Suddenly, the lousy, rubber ball that the examiners gave them looked like a meteor in her hands.

He did not wake up that morning expecting to be pelted by shooting stars.

✩࿐  

"Oh, Rin, you're here already."

The said girl sat on a bench by herself, her sunglasses on top of her head as she ate a meat bun provided by the examiners. Her legs swung innocently, a cup of water between her legs.

Despite around fifty students having already passed the first part of the exam, she was perfectly content sitting by herself.

"Mmhm, I haven't been here for long though." Shoto knew she was lying given that she'd already taken her targets off.

"Congratulations on finishing first in our class," he sat beside her, Rin passing her cup of water to him. "Hopefully the rest of the exam is a breeze for you, it would greatly benefit your plan."

She nodded whilst he chugged the rest of her water down, gazing up at the screen to see how many spots were left to gauge if her classmates could pass. Shoto glanced at her, noticing how she'd pulled out the necklace he'd given her out from her hero suit, her fingers playing with the star charm.

"Our classmates will scrape by," Rin turned to Shoto as he spoke. "Just focus on yourself."

A soft smile appeared on her face before she stood up, slightly stretching out her stiff arms.

"Alright, I'll try not to overthink it." He was slightly taken aback when she gently grabbed his chin, tilting his head up to her before she lightly pecked where the white and red of his hair intermixed. "Thanks, you dork."

He blinked blankly as she left him behind to go to the bathroom, feeling his face unexpectedly heat up. Raising his cold hand to his cheek, he realised that the warmth radiating from his face wasn't something he could simply use his quirk to cool off.

Shoto covered his face, hunching over on the bench as he tried to calm his rampant heart.

Like all sweet things, she was not good for his health.

But that didn't stop her from being all the more addicting.

Meanwhile, Rin collapsed against the sinks in the girl's bathroom, her face entirely red as she stared at her flustered expression in the mirror.

She'd been so out of loop and rattled around Shoto ever since he'd kissed her goodnight the night before.

A huge part of her denied her feelings for him, or at least pushed them away into a little box like she did with all of the problems she didn't have time to solve or even think about. She always thought that liking him would only make things more complicated because they'd been planning and training for months just so they could overthrow their fathers and escape their arranged marriage.

But, after he'd softly kissed her, her feelings now stubbornly resurfaced every time she talked to him, her heart yearning to be close to him in the smallest ways possible.

Like any feeling, like her restless anxiety, she was afraid of liking Shoto because it was something she couldn't control.

✩࿐  

a/n: I'm just trying my best to get through this (lowkey awful) arc.