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It's Monday and he should wait for Bakugou, but Eijirou can't take it anymore. It's been 48 hours of living with an ever swelling ball of anxiety in his stomach but it's even worse now that he's at school.

By lunch, he's spent four straight hours feeling like he's dying, so as everyone else files out he goes to lean against Kaminari's desk.

"Hey!" he says, trying to remember what it's like to sound casual.

"Hey Kirishima, what's up?" Kaminari says. He's rooting through his backpack, probably looking for his wallet. Eijirou only has a few moments before Kaminari heads off to lunch along with everyone else, but there's still too many people in the room.

"Um," Eijirou says, desperately searching for a normal topic to stall with, "how was your weekend?" Okay good, great, safe question.

Kaminari lights up—oh crap that's right, this isn't a safe topic at all, crap— "It was great! I went to this new café with—" Kaminari stops himself, and Eijirou can't decide if he wants to laugh or cry because he knows exactly who Kaminari was with. "I mean, it was nowhere special, just downtown, but it was good."

"Good, good," says Eijirou. His hands are sweating. He glances up and the room's about as empty as it's going to get so he just goes for it. "How's it going with," Toga Himiko, his brain interjects unhelpfully. "Your, uh," shape-shifting villain, alleged murderer, stabby-go-lucky— "girlfriend?"

The smile on Kaminari's face is blinding. "She's good! Apparently she's still having some issues with her coworkers at her part-time job but when we... met up..." Kaminari trails off, then narrows his eyes suspiciously. "I know what you're doing."

That's news to Eijirou, who has no idea what he's doing. "Oh?"

"You're trying to get me to slip up!" Kaminari accuses. He crosses his arms over his chest and glares. "Well you're not going to, because she's not fake."

Hysteria bubbles up in his chest and Eijirou fights back the insane smile trying to force its way onto his face. Just last week he was telling Sero that if Kaminari was that desperate for people to believe he had a girlfriend, the least they could do was play along.

Things would be so much easier if Kaminari's fake girlfriend had stayed fake.

"No, ah—" Think, think. He needs Kaminari to talk to him. Bakugou said it'd be fine, that they'd been dating for a while now and Kaminari would probably be fine as long as they didn't do anything rash. Eijiro understands the logic behind it; Kaminari was fine before they knew. Logically, nothing has changed. Emotionally, he's still struggling to believe that. "I just wanted to um, ask about her? Like, uh—" Ask what, if she's evil? If she eats puppies? "—how did you meet? Todoroki said it was online. Was it, like, a dating app?"

Kaminari continues glaring like he thinks he's being messed with. Still, he says, "No, nothing like that, just a—you know, an online hangout place? For fun. We got to talking on the server and we just clicked you know?" Kaminari's face softens and his eyes go a bit unfocused. "And then we found out we were both attending high-school near Tokyo so we decided to meet in person, and then we clicked even more, and she's just so cute and funny—ugh." He sighs. "Why won't anyone believe me? Is it because she sounds too good to be true? Because she is but like—"

"No, no, I believe you," Eijirou hurries to assure him. "I was just, uh..." Think, come on— "Curious? Because, like. I've never had a girlfriend or anything."

"Ohhh." Kaminari's eyes go wide as his posture perks up. He snaps his fingers and points at Eijirou. "You want advice."

Eijirou only just stops himself from grimacing. Yeah. Advice from the guy who managed to reel in an actual criminal.

Unfortunately, he can't think of a better excuse. He shrugs. "I mean."

"Why didn't you just say so?" Kaminari stands up from his desk so he can throw his arm around Eijirou's shoulder. "Welcome to professor Denki's crash course in love."

Eijirou tries not to groan and tells himself that this is a good first step.

A few days later, Eijirou still thinks it was the right move. For whatever reason, Bakugou still doesn't want to tell Aizaiwa-sensei. If Eijirou had continued to go along with it and do nothing, the anxiety and guilt would have completely cannibalized him by now.

It was the right move but he does have regrets. Like, he doesn't actually want to hear Kaminari boast about his (secretly evil) girlfriend at any and all hours of the day. Sure, Eijirou likes seeing his friends happy. But not when they're being brainwashed.

Kaminari says, "We go for boba almost every week!" and horrified, Eijirou thinks, You see her that often? but says, "Uh huh." Or, "We get matching keychains every time we're at a tourist spot it's kind of our thing," and Eijirou thinks, I think I saw that in a serial killer documentary once, but responds with, "That's nice."

But then one day Kaminari says, "It's not that bad. I don't know why Todoroki is being so weird about it," and Eijirou says, "Yeah, I'm sure it's—wait what?"

"What?" says Kaminari.

"What is—I mean, what does Todoroki-kun, think is weird?"

"The biting thing," Kaminari says, and Eijirou blinks, because—are they still talking about his villain girlfriend?

"The biting thing?"

"Yeah?" Kaminari shifts uncomfortably, then glares. "Don't you get all weird about it too, it's just—how she shows affection! It's like, cuteness aggression," he says, like that's a real thing he would have known about if Toga Himiko hadn't fed it to him, "because she thinks I'm cute." His face goes pink.

Everything is horrible, and Eijirou is too stunned to filter himself properly.

"She bites you because she—? Like, does it bleed?"

Kaminari hunches up shoulders defensively, which Eijirou reads as yes. "You're being weird about it. You don't even have a girlfriend, you wouldn't understand."

Eijirou wants to shake him. She's brainwashing him and apparently she's also hurting him, and Eijirou won't stand for it. But he can't push it, not now. He knows that. He has to be—subtle. If Kaminari gets defensive he'll close up and stop sharing and then Eijirou won't be able to do anything.

"No, you're right, I really don't know what it's like to have a girlfriend, but like, I'd like to, you know?" he babbles. "Maybe I'm just jealous."

Kaminari loosens slightly. "Yeah?"

Eijirou nods frantically. "Yeah! I mean it's not that I don't want a girlfriend, I've just never had one before and it's—kind of scary, but—" Where is he going with this? He wants Toga Himiko to stop hurting his friend, but how can he do that when he can't even get to her?

"Yeah totally!" says Kaminari, loosening more. "It is pretty scary especially at first because what if you mess up? What if you're not cool enough? What if she decides she doesn't like you?"

An insane, half formed thought enters his mind. "How do you decide what to do on dates?" he asks, thinking as fast as he can. "You've been on a lot of them, right? You must be an expert."

Kaminari beams. "I mean, I wouldn't say expert, but I think I'm getting pretty good at it." He leans forward to rest his chin in his hand and looks contemplative, like he's actually giving it some thought. "I think it's most important to do something you'll both enjoy. And something where you can both talk is good, too! My girlfriend and I go to movies sometimes but I think that'd be a bad first date because you can't really talk. But you also don't have to overthink it. You could just go hang out in a mall together for a few hours."

"Sure, I mean, sounds great." Where is he going with this? "But. Um."

"But what? Don't tell me you're nervous," Kaminari teases.

That's it. Eijirou leaps at the opening. "But I really am! I mean a mall date sounds like it would be easy but I just get so nervous. Do you think—could we maybe go on a double date or something?"

"A double date?" Kaminari echoes.

"Yeah! Like—with you and your girlfriend. Sometimes I can't think of what to say and then it's just awkward silence, but if there were four of us, I dunno, I just think it could really take the pressure off." Eijirou's heart is beating in his ears and his mouth is dry. "This weekend, maybe?"

"Oh my god," Kaminari says. For a second Eijirou thinks he's just screwed up irrevocably, but then Kaminari finishes with, "That is such a good idea! I mean, I'd have to ask my—but I'm sure she'd—" Kaminari pauses. "Hold on, this weekend? Do you like someone, Kirishima?"

It is at this precise moment that Eijirou realizes he has not thought this through.

He rubs nervously at the back of his head and says the only thing he can. "Yeah."

"Who is it?" Kaminari asks, looking ecstatic. Yeah, Eijirou, Eijirou thinks frantically, who is it? "What's she like, do I know her?"

"Um," Eijirou says, trying desperately to think of someone, anyone. His mind is completely, unhelpfully blank. "Yeah? I guess."

"You guess?"

"I mean—" This conversation has taken a turn he should have, but didn't, see coming, and it's like watching a car crash except he's the car. "You do?"

"Who is it?" Kaminari asks, and then leans in to whisper conspiratorially. "If we go on a double date, I'd find out anyway."

The double date. This is all for the sake of getting to Toga Himiko. Come on, Eijirou, think.

A name comes to mind—crap, no, not that one, anyone but her. Literally anyone would be better. He needs to say someone, anyone else.

The problem is, Eijirou only really talks to one girl and suddenly he's blanking on the existence of every other girl who's ever lived. And Kaminari's starting to look confused and suspicious again and he needs to say something.

The name feels like a mistake even before it comes out of his mouth, but he says it anyway.

Kaminari gasps.

At lunch, Eijirou finds Ashido and Sero sitting alone at a table together. Bakugou is nowhere to be seen, which is pretty typical. He's probably pestering Todoroki into eating more, or stalking Kaminari again. That's just as well, because Eijirou doesn't want him to know about this.

"Ashido," Eijirou says seriously, sitting down across from her. "I need you to go on a date with me."

Ashido blinks, noodles slipping off of her chopsticks. Sero's jaw drops open.

"That's—" Ashido says, face turning a darker shade of pink. "A really terrible way to ask a girl out?" Okay, ouch, wasn't expecting that. "Like, you're not going to die if I say no."

"No, hold on, you don't know that," Sero protests. "Maybe he's saying he is going to die, because his broken heart will kill him. That seems pretty romantic to me."

"Sero, this is why you're my best friend," Eijirou says, heartfelt.

Sero frowns. "Bakugou is your best friend."

"I'm kinda mad at Bakugou right now."

Sero's eyes light up. "Oh, sweet."

"Wait, no, go back to my confession," Ashido says, chopping her arm between them in a gesture she clearly picked up from Iida. She points at Eijirou. "You get extra points for romance, thanks to Sero's defense. But, like, are you actually asking me out?" She glances over at Sero. "Because it's pretty weird of you to do that in front of an audience."

"I'm not an audience I'm your friend," Sero complains. "Don't demote me to background character status!"

"Yes," Eijirou says in answer to Ashido. "I mean, no. I mean, sort of? I do need you to go with me, but it's for Kaminari."

"Wait, you want Ashido to go on a date with Kaminari?" says Sero.

Ashido raises an unimpressed eyebrow. "What he said."

Sero mimics the expression, similarly turning it on Eijirou. "I know his fake girlfriend stories are sad and all, but that doesn't mean Ashido should have to take the hit."

"Thank you," Ashido says primly.

"She's not taking a hit," Eijirou says desperately. "She's going with me, but it's not like that."

"I am feeling distinctly un-wooed," Ashido whines.

Eijirou grimaces. "Sorry." He thinks about how best to explain and doesn't come up with anything very good, so he just goes for it. "I told Kaminari I wanted to go on a double date with him and his girlfriend and when he asked who my date was, I said you. So I need you to go with me to the mall this weekend so I can meet Kaminari's girlfriend."

Ashido and Sero just stare at him, which is a fair response. Then Ashido gets the same complicated look on her face when she's struggling with a math problem on their homework, and Sero throws his hands up in the air.

"I'm sorry," Sero says, "you need a fake date to go spy on Kaminari's fake girlfriend and you didn't ask me?" He gestures angrily towards Eijirou. "Dude!"

"Hey now, why would he have asked you?" Ashido asks, turning to glare at Sero. "I'm a great fake date candidate!"

Sero looks at her with disgust. "It's the bro code, Ashido. The bro code."

Ashido squints. "The bro code means going on fake dates with each other?"

"It does when Kaminari's fake girlfriend is involved!"

"Sorry," says Eijirou to Sero. "I panicked." Sero huffs and crosses his arms. "We can go on a fake date next time?"

"Next time I won't get to see the fake girlfriend! What if you just told Kaminari you were bringing me, instead?"

"He can't do that," Ashido says. "Kaminari already thinks he's bringing me, that would just be weird."

"It wouldn't be that weird!"

"It would be pretty weird," Eijirou says apologetically.

Sero groans and lays his head on the table next to his lunch tray. "I want to go see the fake girlfriend, too," he says morosely.

"I'll take pictures," Ashido offers, and nope, no she won't. Eijirou isn't letting evidence that Kaminari is dating a villain anywhere near Ashido's phone. He'll have to figure out something to stop her, but that's a problem for future Eijirou.

"So, you'll do it?" he asks hopefully.

Ashido rolls her eyes. "You think I'd miss a chance to see the illustrious fake girlfriend? Not a chance." She grins, then, feral and terrifying. "We're going to be the best fake couple alive."

They make arrangements to meet Kaminari and his girlfriend at a station mall in Shinagawa on Saturday. It isn't until he's with Ashido in the train on the way there that he realizes that they should make an actual plan.

"Hey," Eijirou says, "when we get there, I need to talk to her alone."

Ashido looks thoughtful. "I was wondering why you were doing all this. Me and Sero, we're in it for the tea, but you've never been much for gossip. You gonna give her the shovel talk or something? 'Break his heart and I'll break your face'?"

"Something like that. But, you know, maybe less violent."

"Probably a good plan. You shouldn't hit girls." She pauses. ""Unless they're like, villains or something."

"Haha, yeah," he says, voice strained and sweat beading on the back of his neck. "So anyway, could you get Kaminari away from us for a bit?" He isn't sure what he's going to say to Toga Himiko but he'll say... something.

"Sure I can, but I don't think we should do it right away," Ashido says.

"Huh?"

"Well, separating them right when we get there would be weird, wouldn't it?" she explains. "We're supposed to be on a date. Me going off alone with him is terrible date etiquette, plus it might really piss off the fake girlfriend."

"You should maybe stop calling her fake, we're about to meet her."

"I'll stop calling her fake when I see proof she exists."

That's probably fair. Well, not fair to Kaminari, but as far as Ashido goes it's downright magnanimous.

They're supposed to meet Kaminari and his girlfriend at the east station exit, and if he hadn't been with Ashido, Eijirou would have gotten turned around and been late. Given that Kaminari is, you know, Kaminari, Eijirou expects he and Ashido will be in for a bit of a wait.

Except as soon as he leans back against the wall and pulls out his phone to check it, he hears, "Kirishima, hey! Over here!"

He turns—and there they are. Kaminari, and his girlfriend: Toga Himiko.

The girlfriend in question is petite, maybe ten centimeters shorter than Kaminari. Eijirou's first impression is fashionable.

She's wearing a slouchy, off the shoulder sweater with a black tank top peeking through, a plaid skirt that matches the sweater. Knee-high black boots, and crisscross fishnets. Heart barrettes in her hair.

She clings to Kaminari's arm, small and soft and fragile. A niggling doubt sneaks into the back of his brain and says, Really? You think this girl is a criminal?

"She's cute," Ashido whispers to him. "How the hell did Kaminari land someone so cute?"

Eijirou shrugs helplessly, helpless for more than one reason because did he get this all wrong? Had Bakugou mistaken this girl for someone else?

Then the couple is upon them, both smiling and bashful. Kaminari gestures in their direction, saying, "These are the friends I was telling you about, Kirishima and Ashido." Then he gestures towards the girl at his side. "Guys, this is Hi—"

"Himi," she says herself, cutting Kaminari off. "I'm Himi, it's nice to meet you."

Himi, Eijirou thinks numbly. She stopped him from saying her full name.

Toga Himiko looks up at him then, her smile not reaching her cold, calculating eyes. A chill runs down Eijirou's spine and he's suddenly sure that she's onto him, despite there being no way that's possible.

Bakugou was right. Kaminari is dating a villain.

"Y-yeah," he just barely chokes out. "Nice to... meet you too."

Ashido comes to his rescue. "Oh my god, it's soooo good to meet you, Himi-chan, I'm Mina." She takes a step forward, and Toga startles and lets go of Kaminari. Eijirou tenses, ready for this to turn into a fight, but Toga lets Ashido grab her hands and squeeze them. "Kaminari never shuts up about you. And now I see why!"

Untethered from his secretly evil girlfriend, Kaminari ambles towards Eijirou. At first Eijirou only spares a quick glance in his direction, because they're both busy watching the girls interact; Eijirou to better react if Toga Himiko pulls a knife on his fake girlfriend, and Kaminari probably nervous to see if his debatably real girlfriend gets along with his friends. Then Eijirou does a double take.

"Dude," he says to Kaminari. "Is that a dog collar?"

"What? No," says Kaminari, touching a hand to the black studded collar on his neck in a scandalized gesture. "It's fashion."

Eijirou, wearing cargo pants and a loud print t-shirt that Ashido had rolled her eyes at, decides to take his word for it.

They then embark on the highest stakes and highest stress situation of Eijirou's entire life.

As they meander through the atrium of the mall in their little clump of four, Toga is nothing short of everything Kaminari has ever boasted about. She hangs off his arm and stares up at him adoringly, her smiles are wide and constant. But then she'll glance back at Eijirou and Ashido with a flat, deadly expression—and she's onto him, he just knows it. He doesn't know what to do about it though, so he just pretends it isn't happening. She wouldn't stab anyone in public, right?

The third or fourth time Toga turns around to glare, Ashido leans over and whispers, "I don't think she likes us. Possessive much?"

"Maybe she's just nervous," Eijirou says defensively, and then thinks, wait, why is he defending this girl?

But then he doesn't have to think about it because Kaminari says in a loud voice, "Here it is!" He turns to Toga and softens. "This is the one you wanted to check out, right?"

"You remembered!" She leans against him with her whole body and beams. "You're the best."

"No, you're the best," Kaminari gushes.

Beside him, Ashido makes a quiet, fake retching noise.

The store is a boutique clothing store, and it's got... clothes. Ashido seems interested enough, and she chats with Toga about the cut of some shirt and Toga holds it up against her torso and does a half spin. Ashido makes approving noises. Toga turns to show Kaminari and Kaminari gives her two enthusiastic thumbs up. Toga smiles then back to the rack. A few minutes later, Ashido mirrors Toga's actions, holding a shirt up against herself and turning to Eijirou. Eijirou looks at her. Ashido looks back.

"Well?" she says, expectantly.

"Uh," says Eijirou, glancing at Toga, then Kaminari. Kaminari's eyes are wide, and he shakes his head imperceptibly before darting his eyes towards Ashido and back. Eijirou looks back at Ashido. He puts both of his thumbs up.

Ashido rolls her eyes. "Yeah okay. Himi-chan, do you want to try some stuff on?"

"Sure!"

The girls go to ask the store clerk about the dressing rooms and Kaminari elbows Eijirou hard in the ribs.

"Ow!" says Eijirou, pressing his hand to the spot.

"Dude, you can't hesitate like that!" says Kaminari, sounding a bit panicked. "You have to answer instantly and with one hundred percent positivity."

Sounds like brainwashing to Eijirou. "But what if it's ugly?"

Kaminari gives him a deprecating look. "Do you know anything about women's fashion?"

"No."

"Then your opinion is invalid."

They hover near a table full of frilly socks as they wait for the girls to reappear. Eijirou thinks he should say something, or maybe ask if Kaminari thinks his girlfriend is acting strangely, but Kaminari speaks first.

"Is this your first time out, like, together?" he asks, and Eijirou takes a moment to realize he means Ashido.

"Um?" he says.

"Like, officially."

"Oh. Uh. Sort of, I guess?"

"Okay, well, you're doing it wrong."

Eijirou, despite this being a date he's fabricated for the sake of getting close to Toga Himiko, is offended. "What do you mean? I think it's going fine."

"Yeah, it's going fine but it could be going great." Kaminari holds up his hand and wiggles his fingers. "It's a date, man. You gotta hold her hand."

"Oh." Eijirou colors a little, feeling silly. That does make sense.

"And don't forget to pay for everything!" Kaminari pauses. "Well not everything everything but you should especially offer to pay for food and drinks."

"I know that," Eijirou says defensively. "I've seen movies."

Kaminari shakes his head and gets this look on his face like he's thirty years older and about to impart great wisdom, despite this being his first relationship and having only dated his girlfriend (his evil, villainous girlfriend) for maybe two months. "You can't just rely on movies my man."

Eijirou huffs. "You're right, I'll just text Jirou every time I have a problem."

The pretentious look drops off Kaminari's face. "Excuse you, like you wouldn't just ask Ashido—oh. Guess you can't just ask Ashido questions about Ashido, huh?"

They're not even dating for real and the thought makes Eijirou cringe. "Yeah that would be a little... weird."

"You can ask Jirou if you want," Kaminari offers magnanimously.

Eijirou laughs. "Thanks." Then he remembers he's on a mission here. "Hey, about To—your girlfriend," he says, realizing halfway through he's not supposed to know Toga's family name. He wonders if Denki even knows it. It's unlikely, since a single internet search would bring up her laundry list of murders. "Did she—"

He's interrupted by the changing room curtain flinging open and Toga saying, "Tada!"

Immediately, Kaminari says, "Oh my god, that looks so good on you." Toga giggles.

Then Kaminari hits his arm, jerking his head to the right. Eijirou follows the direction and sees that Ashido has emerged without his noticing.

"I... like the skirt?" he tries, scrambling.

Ashido gives him a flat, unamused look. "This is my skirt. I wore it here."

"Oh. Well, uh. It looks nice on you?"

She rolls her eyes. "Thanks, bae."

The girls go back into the changing rooms and Kaminari hisses, "Dude, you gotta step it up!"

He's right, in more ways than he knows.

Ashido and Toga make a few purchases and when they exit the store Ashido hands Eijirou the plastic bag. He takes it, a bit bewildered.

"Boyfriends are literally for holding things," she hisses under her breath.

Eijirou isn't super sure about that, but Ashido would know better than him. And he doesn't mind carrying Ashido's stuff for her, but it does feel a little like he's been tricked.

Kaminari and Toga are a few paces ahead, and when he goes to catch up to them, something brushes against his free hand. When he looks down, it's Ashido, slotting their fingers together.

"Uh," says Eijirou, keeping his hand open and unmoving as Ashido curls hers in.

"Kaminari's right," Ashido whispers. "We've gotta step it up."

She'd heard that? He wonders what else she'd been able to hear, what Toga had been able to hear, and his face feels hot. He closes his hand around hers and tries not to think about it.

Holding hands with a girl is... fine. Outside of his mom, a decade ago, Eijirou has never done it before. Ashido's hand is soft but a little clammy, but after a few seconds he doesn't really notice.

She tugs on his arm to hurry him along so they catch up to Kaminari and Toga. When Kaminari catches sight of them, he gives an unsubtle thumbs up. It makes Eijirou awkwardly self-conscious in a way he's unfamiliar with. It doesn't help that having both of his hands metaphorically tied up while in close proximity to Toga makes him nervous.

Luckily, it doesn't end up being an issue. Their next stop is the Daiso on the second floor because, as Kaminari tells it (with his girlfriend standing right there), Himi-chan likes to go just to look around.

"Me too!" says Ashido. "I love looking at their bowls. I don't even need bowls."

"I understand completely," says Toga reverently.

Eijirou has seen the bowls at Daiso. They're... bowls.

The four of them go look at the bowls first, the girls fussing over the new designs while Kaminari shrugs at Eijirou and Eijirou shrugs back. After maybe ten minutes of this and neither girl putting any plateware in their shopping baskets ("You don't look at the bowls to buy them, Kirishima. Honestly," Ashido scolds), they split up. He and Ashido wind up looking at an aisle of plastic organizers with tiny squares and Kaminari and Toga wander off towards the cutlery.

"Like, this one would be perfect for my pencils, but where would the erasers go?" Ashido muses, turning one of the organizers back and forth in her hands.

"Mm," says Eijirou, craning his neck to look at Toga. Her back is to him, but she's picked up something off the shelf.

"And my pens... I know I have too many of them but what am I supposed to, just not have all the colors? Unacceptable. So maybe this one wouldn't work after all."

"Yeah." Kaminari is bending over to look at whatever Toga has and he's smiling but he's also an idiot so that doesn't really mean anything.

"But on the other hand, the size is just so perfect, and maybe I could just get another one for my—are you even listening to me?"

"Yeah," says Eijirou, watching Kaminari grab something pink to show to Toga and—Ashido huffs and he turns back to her. "I mean, no, sorry, not really. I just..." How can he explain that Toga is a threat without sounding insane? "I have a weird feeling about her."

Ashido shrugs. "She seems nice to me. I think you were right earlier—she was just nervous to meet her boyfriend's friends."

Eijirou looks across the room at their friend and his villain girlfriend. Kaminari doesn't notice his stare, but Toga does. She turns, just enough to show what's in her hand without being obvious to Kaminari, and makes direct eye contact as she pulls a plastic sheath off a butcher knife. In a ridiculous feat of dexterity, she spins it around her fingers, then her palm. As her final act she tosses the knife lightly in the air and it spins, suspended in midair by inertia before she somehow slides her hand back into place without getting cut and sends it spinning around her fingers again. Then she bares her teeth at him—gleefully, but not a smile. Her incisors are very, very sharp.

"I dunno about that," says Eijirou, mouth suddenly dry.

"Oh come on, give her a chance."

Eijirou reluctantly looks away, but he hardens the skin over his organs and arteries, in case Toga decides to use him for knife throwing practice. Assuming she doesn't go straight for his face, he could probably take her. "She seems a lot more aggressive than before. Is that just me?"

"Oh. About that. I told her that as Kaminari's friend, you wanted to talk to her."

She did what? "You did what? Why?"

"Look," Ashido says sighing, "girl code trumps friendship, sometimes."

"Since when? You don't even know her!"

"Neither do you," Ashido says pointedly. "Girls tend to avoid hanging out alone with boys they don't know. She might be wary of you now but I promise, I was doing you a favor."

Eijirou groans. "How am I supposed to talk to her now?"

"Stop being so dramatic, we'll figure it out." She grabs two organizers and puts them in her basket. "Come with me to the checkout and we can talk strategy."

They don't so much talk as Ashido just tells him what they're going to do. They're going to get dessert.

"What?" Eijirou asks blankly.

"There's a bunch of little shops on the third floor—crêpes, waffles, anmitsu, parfaits. We'll go up there, find a table, and I'll leave you alone while I go order. After a minute, I'll fake having forgotten everyone's orders and get Kaminari to come with me. Depending on the lines, that should give you ten, fifteen minutes. Maybe more."

That sounds like a great plan, actually. "How are you so good at this?" Eijirou asks wonderingly.

Ashido laughs and waves him off, but she seems pleased.

When Kaminari and Toga catch up to them, Eijirou, as instructed, is the one to pitch the idea. "Hey, do you want to check out upstairs? Ashido says they have desserts."

"I could sit," Kaminari says agreeably. He looks over at Toga. "That okay with you?"

Toga shrugs. "Yeah, sure." She's smiling, but the instant Kaminari looks away she shoots a glare in Eijirou's direction. He wants to glare back but Kaminari is facing him so he can't.

They all head upstairs, and after they find a table to fit all four of them, Ashido says, "Okay! What were we all thinking? It would probably be easiest if we all ordered from the same place."

After a brief discussion between Ashido and Toga, during which Kaminari and Eijirou share a blank stare, it's decided that they're all going to get parfaits.

"And you can't get the matcha one, because I'm already getting that one," Ashido tells him as they look over the menu on their phones.

"Uh, okay?"

Ashido gives him a look. "If we don't diversify how will we try each other's flavors? Duh."

Eijirou huffs in amusement. "Got it."

After they've all decided, Ashido says to the group at large, "I can go order, you guys stay here and save our table."

"Sounds good," says Eijirou. Kaminari hits his arm. "Ow."

"Dude!" he hisses. "Don't you know anything?"

"Why do you keep hitting me?" Eijirou complains.

"Because you keep screwing up your date! Go with her!"

Ashido laughs. "No no, that's alright, Kirishima can stay here." Then she looks at Eijirou slightly. "I will take 2000 yen though."

That's reasonable. Eijirou shrugs and pulls out his wallet.

A few seconds after Ashido has walked away, Kaminari groans. "You've got to work on your boyfriend skills, my man. You can't just let your date stand in line for you."

"Why not?" says Eijirou, baffled. "She offered. And she said she didn't mind."

"That's not how it works," Kaminari insists. "You're the dude. You gotta step it up."

Eijirou rubs the back of his head sheepishly. "I'll work on it, I guess."

"While you're at it, work on that first name basis. You're still calling each other by your last names, what's up with that?"

What's he supposed to call Ashido, then? Mina? Terrible, no, he could never. "I dunno, bro. We went to middle school together, it just feels weird to switch all of a sudden."

Something catches his eye as it approaches his table, and of course it's Ashido; right on cue.

"Hey, sorry, I have a crap memory. Kaminari, can you come with me to order?"

"Uh," Kaminari says, taken aback and seeming unsure. He looks at Toga. "Um?"

"I'm good here," Toga says cheerily.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely!" Her face droops a little, and looks sad, like a puppy. "Sorry to make you go by yourself. I'm just a bit tired, I didn't know how badly I needed to sit down."

"Oh, no, it's no problem," Kaminari hurries to assure her. "I can go with Ashido to get our desserts, as long as you're sure you're good."

"I am!"

"Well. Well, okay," Kaminari says. He stands and takes two steps towards Ashido before looking back at his girlfriend nervously. She smiles and waves him off and he goes.

And then they're alone; just Eijirou and Toga Himiko. When she turns towards him, the soft, tired expression falls away like cracked pieces of clay. She slouches back and kicks her legs up onto Kaminari's empty chair. Then she pulls something small, a black rectangle, from somewhere within the folds of her skirt. It takes Eijirou a moment to realize it's a switchblade.

Shit. This may have been a mistake.

"Took you long enough," Toga says, and her flat, low tone is shocking. "Mina-chan said you wanted to talk, but I thought you'd chickened out." She fans out her left hand, turns it back towards her, curls in her fingers—and then starts cleaning her fingernails with her knife.

Until this very moment, there'd been a niggling left-over doubt about if she really was who Bakugou accused her of being. She's his age, and around Kaminari in particular she seems so young and harmless. Even with the name similarities, even with the way she's been glaring at him all day, how could she be a villain working with the League? How could this girl be someone wanted by the police for multiple homicides?

And yet here they are.

Eijirou wants to snap back that he's no coward and he's not scared of her, except he is, in fact, a bit scared of her. He only manages, "Yeah. Well," and a stiff, half shrug.

She looks directly at him then, gold eyes cold and piercing as metal. "'Yeah well' what? You know right? That's why we're here."

Distantly, he realizes his heart is pounding and his mouth is dry. He struggles to swallow and doesn't quite manage it. "Yeah. I know."

"You gonna arrest me? Is that your plan? You and no backup except your little girlfriend over there?" Eijirou almost jumps in to defend Ashido because she's not little and she's not even anyone's girlfriend, but thinks now maybe isn't the time. "What the fuck do you want? Why the fuck are we even talking?"

"We're talking because my friend is dating a literal murderer—"

"Alleged!" Toga hisses. "Alleged murderer!"

"Fine, alleged literal murderer, and what did you expect? Everyone would just stay out of it?"

"If they know what's good for them, they'd better," Toga says, low and threatening.

"I won't," Eijirou declares. He sounds more bold than he feels and he can't tell if that's a good thing or not. "I won't just stand by and watch my friend get hurt."

Toga's nostrils flare and the switchblade twirls like a small, sharp tornado in her hand. It comes to an abrupt halt, sharp end pointed in his direction. "You assume just I because break a few rules here and there that I'm an abusive piece of shit?"

"Like that would be a stretch next to murder," he snaps back. "But no, I'm assuming it because he told me."

"The fuck he did. He'd never say that about me." She's glaring so fiercely that he almost believes it.

Which really pisses him off. "Because why—because you told him not to say anything? You think you have him so well-trained that he'd never dare say anything against you?"

"I don't know what the fuck you think you're talking about but—"

"I'm talking about how you bite him!"

She freezes. And maybe that should feel like a victory, but it only feels like the moment before a lion slashes out the throat of a tourist who stuck his head through the bars. "Ha. Hahaha! So that's what this is." She grins, toothy and manic. "You goddamn heroes and your one-sided morals. You think you're better than the rest of us just because you were born with a quirk that society likes."

Eijirou's fists clench and he can feel his quirk working its way up his neck. "You think your quirk gives you free rein to hurt people? To kill them? That's a load of shit."

"Aw, poor little hero," she croons. "So touchy over a little blood. You wouldn't last one fucking day with a blood-based quirk. Would you be so disgusted you'd die? Would you kill yourself, you think?"

That's it.

"Yeah, I'm touchy," Eijirou snaps, "because it's his blood. Did you even ask first? Did you bother explaining yourself, explaining your quirk? Or did you just hurt him and not tell him why?"

Toga pauses, and there's a shift in her expression that looks a bit like doubt. For a second, Eijirou thinks maybe she does care. Maybe Kaminari isn't just a game to her.

Eijirou pushes forward, capitalizing on the opening. "You can't do that. You can't make people like you and then hurt them. That makes you worse than a villain. That makes you trash."

"I'm not—" she starts, but then cuts herself off. Her expression is strange—strangled. "I didn't—It's not like that."

"Do you like him?" Eijirou asks.

Toga's answer is written all over her face, but he still isn't sure he believes her until she says, almost a whisper, "Yes."

"Then talk to him," Eijirou insists. "Tell him why. Ask him if it's okay. Don't just—don't just—"

"We return victorious!" Ashido cheers. Eijirou's jaw snaps shut.

Before the other two get close, Toga turns her face down towards her lap, obscuring her features with her bangs. But by the time Ashido and Kaminari pull out their chairs to sit down, Toga's back to bright and smiling, all traces of the dangerous villain Eijirou had just been talking to, vanished.

Ashido ends up liking Eijirou's anmitsu parfait better than her matcha one and they switch, at Kaminari's insistence.

"That's how dates work," Kaminari says, hands digging through his own hair in anguish. "What part of that's how dates work do you not understand?!"

Ashido laughs at him and takes another bite of Eijirou's parfait. Eijirou doesn't really mind either way, and shrugs before getting another spoonful of matcha flavored ice cream.

Then Toga says, "If I ever ask you to trade, you don't have to. You know that, right?"

"Babe, anything of mine you want you can have. It's literally yours, those are the rules."

She lowers her spoon to the table and stares at it, her expression oddly tight. "Those aren't the rules. We can—we can make our own rules. I wouldn't be mad, okay? If you didn't—if you didn't want to share."

"Uh." Kaminari's eyebrows furrow worriedly. "Are you okay? Is this secret girl code for, you want my dessert? Because like I said, you can have it if you want."

Toga's grip on her spoon tightens visibly.

Beside Eijirou, Ashido is holding still, which he only notices because he's holding still too. He glances at her without moving his head, and she glances back. Her eyebrows shoot up, a concerned question. Eijirou shrugs with one shoulder as minutely as he can, then looks down to his dessert and pointedly over at Toga, then back to Ashido. He raises his own eyebrows. This isn't about the dessert. She mouths, I know, right? and grimaces. He mirrors the expression back at her.

Toga says, "That's not what I mean at all, silly!" bright and super fake, and by the look on his face even Kaminari can tell. "Eat your parfait." She starts eating her own enthusiastically, clearly trying to throw off their attention on her.

Though he looks worried, Kaminari takes the words as a command and quietly gets back to his dessert. After a few tense moments, Eijirou and Ashido follow suit.

After the most awkward snack of their lives, they collectively agree it's about time to go home.

"I'll throw our trash away," Kaminari volunteers, standing.

Toga stands as well. "I'll go with you."

Eijirou helps stack everything. After taking it from him, Kaminari and Toga walk back towards the food counters.

"Sooo," says Ashido, "you two talked?"

"Yeah."

"And? How'd it go?"

Eijirou doesn't answer for a moment, distracted by Toga bumping into Kaminari and then Kaminari turning his head to grin at her and bump back. They disappear around a corner and Eijirou finally turns to Ashido.

"I'm not sure yet."

She hums. "But like. This was pretty fun, right?" He must look confused, because she smiles and expounds. "This whole double date thing."

Eijirou mostly found the entire thing very stressful, but he says, "Yeah, I guess."

She breaks eye contact and looks down at her hands. "Fun enough that you'd want to do it again?"

"What, like..." He racks his brain for what 'again' might mean. It's hard to imagine she wants to become serial fake dating offenders. "Come to the mall?"

"No, like, other things." She's still not looking at him. "Like, dates, but—not to spy on our friends' girlfriends."

"Uh?" says Eijirou, thinking what other kinds of dates are there then that's a stupid question then wait, does she mean—. His thoughts cut off and his mind is sent reeling. Does Ashido like him? Like-like him? "Um?"

Ashido sighs. "Just say you're not into me, jeez." She pushes her chair back from the table. "I'm going to hit up the bathroom. I'll be back in a bit."

"'Oh." Maybe he should stop her, tell her that he wants to talk about it, but the thing is... he doesn't. He doesn't want to talk about it at all. His face is hot and he doesn't think he could string two coherent words together, and also if he follows her would that mean they're dating? He thinks Ashido is great, but he doesn't know if he thinks she's great in that way. So he just says, "Okay."

She goes without another word. The further away she gets the guiltier he feels about it, but there's also a sense of relief.

He's grateful to Ashido for coming along. Facing Kaminari's terrifying girlfriend all by himself would have been awful. But having to carry her stuff and hold her hand and compliment her constantly—he wasn't sure he liked all of that. It made him feel overly self-conscious, which made him nervous, which made him double guess himself, and honestly it was just a mess. He didn't want to be pushed into a relationship he wasn't sure he wanted, only to feel awkward and uncomfortable and like he was constantly doing it wrong.

Someone like Toga probably never felt awkward or uncomfortable or like they were doing it wrong. She probably just did anything she wants, no matter what anyone else thinks. As much as she's a villain who might be secretly planning to drain his friend of all his blood, Eijirou has to admit he's envious of the way she seems not to care about anything or anyone. Except for maybe Kaminari. Well. Assuming she isn't faking the whole thing to lure him to his untimely but inevitable death.

Speaking of Kaminari, he and his villain girlfriend have been gone for an awfully long time.

Is Kaminari okay? Toga wouldn't have murdered him so quickly, right? If anything, she would have gone after Eijirou—not her doting, oblivious boyfriend. So Kaminari is probably fine.

Eijirou stands up anyway, and heads in the same direction the pair had earlier. He expects finding them to take a while, maybe too long. Anxiety is already bubbling up in his chest, turning his walk into a jog. But right as he approaches the corner Kaminari and Toga had disappeared behind, he hears Toga's voice.

"No, it's fine," she says.

Eijirou thinks about it, feels bad about it, and then presses himself against the wall to eavesdrop.

"Are you sure?" says Kaminari. "Because if he said anything—"

"He didn't. It's not a big deal. Let it go."

"I'm not just going to let it go when you're clearly upset."

Toga sniffles. Eijirou tenses, ready for crocodile tears and a series of lies that will turn Kaminari against him. But if he interrupts now, that will just make him look worse. He can't do anything except listen to this play out.

But instead of anything she might have said about Eijirou, she says, "I just—I really like you."

"Aww, that's sweet—hey, no, are you crying? Don't cry, Himiko—"

"It's just, I like you so much," Toga says, voice wobbling, "and I want you to like me too, but what if I'm messing it up?"

"You're not messing it up! If anything, I'm messing it up, have you met me?"

"You're perfect, and I'm—I'm—"

"No you're the perfect one, what are you even doing with me? You're smart and beautiful and thoughtful, and I'm a six out of ten tops—"

"You're not a six," Toga protests.

"Okay, a seven."

"Okay."

There's a sniffling pause, and then Kaminari says, "You're fine with that? You don't think I could get up to, say, an eight?"

Toga laughs wetly. "No way, you go to a nerd school. Maybe you can be an eight when you graduate."

"Hey, UA is not a nerd school! ...Wait, it sort of is, oh crap, am I a nerd?"

As Toga laughs again, Eijirou carefully pushes away from the wall and goes back to the table. He's heard enough.

Ashido is waiting for him there, sitting at the table and messing with her phone. She looks up at his approach and raises an extremely judgmental eyebrow.

"Get some good gossip did you?"

Crap. From the table, he was in plain view this entire time. He doesn't know how long she's been back, but long enough to watch him behaving like a freak. He rubs at the back of his head in guilty nervousness. It's also nerve-wracking to face Ashido so soon after... whatever had happened before she went to the bathroom. Is she going to be weird about it? Is he going to be weird about it?

"I get it," Ashido says, and for a horrifying moment he's thinks they're talking about their not-relationship again. Then she continues. "Kaminari is the kind to put his whole heart out there. And with someone as cute as Himi-chan—it's hard to believe, right? Kaminari could really get himself hurt." She looks over towards where Eijirou had been eavesdropping. Eijirou follows her gaze to see Kaminari and Toga finally emerging. Both of their eyes seem a bit red. "I'm just glad she really seems to like him, is all."

It is hard to believe. It's ridiculous that Toga Himiko, member of a terrorist organization and alleged murderer, would be dating a hero student for anything other than nefarious reasons. But her unease when talking to Kaminari just now...

Maybe she's not trying to trick anyone. Maybe Toga's just a teenager like the rest of them, struggling to figure out where she fits in and what she wants to do, struggling between her own needs and not hurting the people she cares about.

"Yeah," says Eijirou, watching the couple walk towards them hand in hand, and thinking about the painfully honest way Toga's voice had quavered when she said, I like you so much. "Me too."