pretend it only happened in a dream | bakuiida

part two | it's 2012

~*~

Ms. Long sits at her desks, silently, for the first ten minutes of class. Some people are talking to their friends, others are silent. As for me, I stay focused on my phone in my lap.

Tenya turns to me in the midst of it all. "I didn't know you were friends with Kirishima," he says.

I shoot him a glare. "Why do you care?" I ask.

He looks taken aback for a moment, but smoothly recovers by shrugging. "I don't particularly care. Just didn't know."

Instead of reply, I lazily nod and keep playing on my phone. Tenya accepts this response and goes back to writing some sort of notes down. 

"Okay class! Today we will be doing a partner project with the people in the row with you," Ms. long announces to us. She's always very smiley with her hands clasped. Of my teachers, she might be one of the nicest. She isn't, of course because I'm in life essentials with Mr. Wilbert and he's the best teacher.

Ms. Long suddenly turns towards me. "Tenya, Bakugou. Asui isn't going to be here this week so you will be doing the project without here."

Tenya nods. "Of course," he replies with a smile. I bet he's every teachers favorite student.

"The project will be on kite building. There's a link on the online syllabus for the research pages and some good resources. Get to work!" 

I roll my eyes and pull out my Chromebook. I tap the power button a couple of time but it refuses to turn on. It sucks for Tenya, but it looks like he's going to be doing this research all alone. 

"Chromebooks' dead," I mumble. 

He looks over from his screen. "No big deal! Just look over on my screen and I'll do the typing." Tenya scoots his computer towards the middle of our desks. 

I notice his lock screen is Spiderman and I can't help but smile at it. What a nerd. Kaminari will eat that up, he loves hearing the "scandalous" things about popular people. One day I hope Kami will grow up and focus on something else than shit talking.

We spend the class period reading and copying and pasting information. Tenya is good at research, which is nice because I'm shit at it. "Building this outta be fun," Tenya says.

I nod. "If you're good at building," I mumble. 

"Bakugou?"

I look at him. "Yes?"

He smiles. "Don't be a prick," he says, the tone in his voice not changing as he stays looking as kind as he did before. 

I furrow my eyebrows. "What?" I'm baffled.

He shakes his head before speaking just as he did before. "Don't be a fucking prick. Seriously, it's not hard."

But before I can tell him to shut up, the bell rings and he leaves as fast as he can. I go to the quad after class where I always do to meet up with Mina, Sero, and Kami. 

They're there as always. Minus Mina, which is odd because she's always there first. "Where's Mina?" I ask, walking up to the two boys.

Sero shrugs. "She's not here today. I can see if she's got her location on for snapchat?" 

"Might as well," Kami mumbles.

Sero spends a few seconds on his phone and in the mean time I turn to Kami. "How's Jirou?"

"Oh! She's great. She's so pretty. She gave me her scrunchie today."

I laugh. "Very cute."

Sero coughs before announcing, "Mina is at buybuy baby right now."

"That's weird," I say.

"Maybe the baby fever got to her."

Sero slaps Kami in the arm. "Don't imply she's pregnant!"

"I never did!" 

"Yes you most certainly did!"

While the two of them bicker, I walk away and immediately text Mina. Something's definitely up with her. I tell her to find me after school because we need to talk about whatever is up with her.

I spend the rest of the day avoiding work and starring at cute boys. Durning lunch I see Tenya and his sports friends, Todoroki, Midoriya, and Uraraka. Rumor has it that Uraraka is a lesbian, but rumors are rumors and nobody should really believe them. Plus I've seen her with her hands down Midoriya's pants in a French class once. So that rumor is dead as a doornail.

Things get around so fast here, its ridiculous. You kissed a boy at a party? Good luck covering that up because 4 people seeing it turns to 8 other knowing, and those 8 all tell 8, and so on and so forth. 

Nobody spreads rumors about Tenya Iida. Part of me believes its because he's just that nice, the other half says people fear him. His brother works at the school and he's on the football team and he's so incredibly rich and smart. You know how those rich boys are, always stepping on someones toes. I'm sure Tenya could step on a lot of toes if he wanted to. 

After school, Mina picks me up. "So," I begin. "What's wrong?"

She sighs, driving away from the school. "Well." She pauses. "Promise not to be upset?"

I nod. "Mina were closer than close. What's wrong?"

We stop at a stop light and she chuckles. "I'm pregnant."

My mind goes blank for a moment. She's got to be fucking with me, right? But I know Mina, and she's not. "What are you gonna do?" I ask.

She doesn't look at me, just keeps driving. "Have a baby I suppose."

I gulp and stay quiet. "Have you told Kirishima?" I ask.

Her grip on the steeling wheel seems to get tighter, but she replies, "Yeah. I'm gonna move in with him and yknow. We're going to have a baby and raise it."

"What about-"

"I don't know," She says sternly. "I don't know anything beyond that. I have no plan. I'm kind of freaking the fuck out."

Across the center consul, I wrap my hand around hers. "We'll all help you Mina. We're here for you. Promise!"

She offers a half-smile, which is honestly the best I could get. The rest of the car ride is silent until mean parks in the grocery store parking lot. "Where are we going again?" she asks.

I shrug. "Your house?" 

Mina shakes her head and looks down. "They kicked me out so," she mumbles. 

"Lets go see a movie! Something, anything. You needa get your spirts up. Anything fun!"

We settle on a movie and go and see The Hunger Games since everyone has been raving about it. I remember reading the books a few years ago. I miss being ten back in 2005. What a good time. At the theatre I buy popcorn and root beer and we sit together and watch the movie. Sometimes it's best to pretend everything is okay than fix it. That's part of becoming an adult. 

"That was crazy good," Mina says, giggling as we step out of the theatre. "Like I'm in love with Gale, he's so hot."

I giggle. "I thought Peeta was cute," I say.

Mina shakes her head. "Peeta may be cute but Gale was a whole man!" We laugh all the way to her car. "To your house?" she asks.

I nod. "Yeah, it's getting late."

She smiles. "Thanks for today. I really needed it."

"Anything for one of my best friends."

~*~