Cupie let go of him after she made her appreciation known before returning her attention back to Kiyoshi. However, it didn’t linger on the small boy long because soon Shunsuke was giving their classmate a proposition. A proposition that Cupie almost had to stop and ask if he was serious, since it sounded way too good to be true. Her heart beat a little faster as Shunsuke basically worded his offer in a way that Heisuke couldn’t refuse without hurting Kiyoshi’s feelings. Her classmate was totally fucked and both she and Shunsuke knew it.
“Wow~ Now isn’t that a good offer? I’ve been to the dojo and it’s super cool Kiyoshi! They taught me all about self-defense, it’s in a nice and secluded area, and Shun’s parents are really cool! They’re really awesome at fighting!”
Though it sounded like Cupie was hyping up the little boy for the dojo, what she was actually doing was reiterating to Heisuke why it was a good idea.
‘Secluded area’
‘Dojo’
‘They’re awesome at fighting’
Not only will Kiyoshi have a nice, clean place to stay where Shunsuke’s amazing cook of a mother would be able to fill the little boy’s stomach like Cupie’s wallet couldn’t, but he’d have two mighty fighters to defend him if a villain tried to do anything. Aside from that, he’d be learning self-defense on top of it!
God, has Shunsuke always looked so hot?
She grinned at Heisuke; not only was it their only option, but it was by far the best they could get.
Shunsuke’s voice called to her, earning a slight look of confusion before she nodded understandably. “Alright.”
She gave Kiyoshi a quick hug goodbye before rushing to catch up to Shunsuke. “Where we going?"
Shunsuke couldn’t help but snicker a bit as Cupie’s follow-up, further pushing the little “offer” which at this point was more than just that. She’d seemed just as shocked as Heisuke probably was about now, maybe even more so, but had pulled it together pretty fast. Luckily, she was quick to follow him, albeit, not without a little goodbye hug to Kiyoshi. He gave a small wave himself to the boy.
He didn’t wanna let goodbyes, or other conversation distract from the two conversations that would need to be had: one between Kiyoshi and Heisuke and the other between himself and Cupie. Luckily, Cupie’s question gave the perfect segue.
“Nowhere really,” he answered somewhat vaguely as he continued to lead her through the festival crowd.
There was a reason for this little solo walk, but he wasn’t sure how to jump into it. Especially with all these people around. “I’ve been thinking about something for a little while now,” he said calmly, slipping his hands into his pockets as he walked. “Something that Kiyoshi actually helped a bit with.” He smiled. “He’s a good kid.” That said, this wasn’t the place to handle this.
“Climb up to one of the roofs with me, Pinky.” He turned so he was facing her, though he continued to walk backwards, weaving through the crowd quite easily, one of Shunsuke’s habits when holding a conversation. How he did it, he never really explained; Cupie had asked. “The top of the dorms seems like as good a place as any. I’ll even race ya. I’ve been practicing my parkour, ya know.” He gave her a little grin, one of the signature expressions she’d come to know over time. “What do ya say? Up for it?”
Nowhere, huh? Well, if Shunsuke wanted to talk about it alone, it didn’t really sound like they were going nowhere. Still, she was happy to be able to spend some time with him. This wasn’t to say she didn’t enjoy herself with Kiyoshi and, to a point, Heisuke, but after spending most of the festival with them, it was nice to get to be with one of her precious persons. It definitely would have been nice to play some games or eat some food with Shunsuke at the festival, but hey, there was always next year.
Besides, it’s not like she didn’t spend a good portion of her time with Shun anyway.
As they walked, Cupie’s eyes lingered around the environment as she tried to guess what her friend was planning. In the back of her head, she was… hopeful, but that would be dumb. Cupie pushed those thoughts out of her mind, following the purple haired man until they approached the dorm’s building.
She smiled, raising an eyebrow at him. “Heh, how can I say no?” She took a second to ready any loose clothing she had on. “Alright, show me what you got.”
Shunsuke rolled his shoulders back a few times, loosening his limbs, and tilted his heads once to each side until he felt the satisfying crack. Boy was he lucky that he'd dressed casually today. Joggers, a t-shirt, comfortable sneakers. He'd almost worn a kimono himself to get into the festival spirit. And just in case his parents had made a surprise visit; his mom did love festivals after all.
Still, it seemed his challenge had been accepted. Cupie readied herself as he did. "Remember, don't go easy on me. Cause I'm coming at you with everything I've got," boy was that an understatement.
"Ready..." he paused, steadying his breathing. "Set..." He glanced at his friend and then up towards the agreed upon 'finish line'.
"GO!" Shun took off almost immediately, running towards the wall and beginning the climb. In all honesty, he'd learned fast and he was good, but he was still sure that Cupie had the edge. He might very well lose, but he was gonna give her a run for her money.
Upon “go,” Cupie made a dash for the wall with aim to start leaping upwards from the windowsills.
She was fast, running and climbing with practiced ease; she’d decided not to use her quirk to make it more fair for Shunsuke. However, she quickly realized that not only had he improved, but he’d taken a lot of her advice to heart. He was cutting his previous time in half. Shunsuke was fast, forcing Cupie to do her best to not only keep up with him, but work extra hard to try and pass him. Hell, she’d even had to use her quirk a few times to ensure she stayed ahead.
In the end, she was the victor. She panted heavily, grinning at Shunsuke as he made it to the rooftop after her. Cupie was proud of him to say the least.
“H-Holy shit… You really worked me into a sweat, didn’t ya? Haven’t felt this good in a while.” Cupie said to him, not realizing at first how that sounded out of context but he knew what she meant.
Shunsuke was panting himself. No amount of training or conditioning himself could ever really make up for the amount of effort it took to give Cupie a run for her money. Their competitions certainly were something else. Still, as he stood there, catching his breath, he couldn't help but begin to laugh a little.
"Well," he said as he straightened himself up, still on the tail end of his miniature laughing break. "I do my best to make sure it's as good for you as it is for me."
Shun hadn't always been the type to make those kinds of jokes, but it was something he'd found became easier once he was comfortable enough. Besides, he got enough practice with Cupie's teasing and having to come up with suitable retorts. "Still, you got me in the end. I really thought I had you for a second there," he said as he walked toward her, closing the small gap that had formed between them during their race. "So, how'd I do coach?"
Cupie had to pause and think about what he said for a second before a ‘pffft’ left her lips and she was laughing along with him. She didn’t mean to say anything dirty half the time, but it came as naturally to her as talking shit.
As she was catching her breath, Shunsuke asked her about his performance. “You did great! Like, holy shit you’re gonna surpass me real quick if I don’t practice harder. Can’t say I’d be disappointed if that happens.” She grinned. That was the whole point of her teaching Shunsuke; so that he’d get better until she had nothing left to show him.
“When that day comes, promise me you’ll show me your tech, yeah?” She said, looking up at him.
As Shunsuke's laughter died down, a smile came to rest on his face. He couldn't help it listening to her. "Even if that day came, I'm pretty sure you've find some way to kick my ass anyway," he said calmly. "You're not the type to let yourself be overtaken so easily after all." His smile widened a bit as he placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I think that's probably one of my favorite things about you," he said. "You've got this kind of never say die attitude. Like if you want to make something happen, you'll figure it out no matter what." Just like that, the reason he'd asked her up here came to the forefront of his mind. he took a deep breath, shrugging softly. "I don't care what anyone says, you're a total badass, Pinky." Not that anyone had actually said anything, but people did tend to talk about her language, her behavior, whatever.
Even so, when Shun thought about it, he couldn't help but smile again. As he pulled his hand away, rubbing the back of his head, he opened his mouth. "So, listen, I was hoping to talk to you once we were alone. Actually alone. It's nothing bad I swear, but I figure, now is probably the best time. If you don't mind hearing me out."
Cupie smiled in turn, letting his hand rest on her shoulder. Though, the more he spoke, the more she began to feel… nervous? Excited? She could feel butterflies in her stomach and a very light blush on her cheeks as he complimented her. Compliments: they were something she wasn’t used to. Her personality was a turn off to a lot of people, and the people who did compliment her were either Kiyoshi, purely platonic, someone else that she didn’t want to think about right now, or followed by some snide remark. Hearing it from Shunsuke… it was different. He gained nothing from saying these things to her, and yet he let it be known what he thought. Shunsuke’s words made her heart skip a beat as she smiled up at him.
“Thanks~ It really means a lot to hear that from you. You’re a total badass too, Shun.” She complimented in return, her attention caught again by his next sentences.
Badum badum badum badum badum
Her heartbeat was becoming faster, the thoughts from before were trying to surface again. Shunsuke had her full attention and she was ready to hear what he had to say.
“Of course. What is it?”
Had somebody asked Shunsuke what he was expecting to feel at this moment, he would have told them, nervousness. It was true. He'd expected all the nerves that he'd seen on tv, in movies, hell even games. He expected not to know what to say, even though he'd been thinking about it for a while now. But standing there with her, it all kind of just melted away.
"When I first heard about the whole exchange program thing, I hadn't initially been interested. I came, almost entirely because Shizui was coming and I wanted to be here for her. Plus, I kinda figured it would be a great chance to fight some of the UA kids who were supposed to be tough as all hell." That had all it had been at first: sticking by a friend and looking for a challenge. The benchmarks of Shunsuke's being. "But the longer I stayed, the crazier things got. Between the villain attacks, the tests, training, and classes..." he paused for a moment.
"I made friends. New friends. Friends I could count on the way I counted on Shizui for a long time. Kanna, Isamu, Ichirou, Masaru, Amaris... you." He looked up for a moment, his eyes fixed on the setting sun as the sky began to shift from day to night. "The first time we hung out, after the dance, you hit me with your quirk. I kissed you." He couldn't help but laugh a little bit at that. It was still funny, no matter how he looked at it.
"We could have gone our separate ways after that. Could have made it awkward, avoided each other. But we stuck with it. Hiked all the way up. We even ended up laughing and joking about it." It hadn't even been that long ago, but it still felt like a lifetime had come and gone since then. "Anyway, I told you about going hiking with my parents, our little family picnics. And I told you how my mother would look at my father, while he was telling whatever crazy story from their travels he felt like telling at the time. I got lost in nostalgia, thinking about the look in her eyes, wondering if I'd ever find somebody to look at the way she looked at him. Or if anyone would look at me that way." Shunsuke swallowed hard. Okay. There they were. The nerves.
Shunsuke couldn't say what she was thinking about at the time. But surely, neither of them had been thinking about each other in that way. In the way he was thinking about her now. "So, I'm standing here, high above everyone else, with a beautiful girl under the setting sun. And I think I understand all of that just a little bit better now." Shunsuke bit his lip, his face seeming to light up the slightest shade of red as he looked away for a moment.
No... He couldn't do that. Face it head on like you would a serious battle.
"I'm telling you all of this," he looked back up, his eyes finding hers determined and serious as ever, "because I really like you Cupie. When we hang out, I can't think of anyone else I'd rather spend my time with. When we aren't together, all I can think about is how I wish we were. Everything feels like this crazy, amazing adventure full of new things."
Finally, he stopped, taking a breath for a moment before squeezing his eyes shut. "Look, I get if you don't feel the same, Pinky. At the end of the day, for all the things I've learned, I'm still the same dumb, battle hungry, karate nut. But I think, if I hadn't told you, it would have been the biggest mistake I have ever made or ever would make."
Silence was what followed as Cupie stood there, registering the words that left Shunsuke. Everything that he said reverberated within her mind, bouncing off the walls as this new feeling within her blossomed. This wasn’t something that she was used to; it was something she had to stop and take a second to compose herself.
She recalled the memories with him; the dance, the mountain hike (a memory she laughed at with him), the days they would go out to spend together for meals or at the arcade. It all had come and gone, and yet she wished they could relive them. Since the villain attacks, and the loss of someone special to her, Cupie had been fighting to regain her life again. She hated the times she would spend sitting in her room mourning her late friend because she didn’t know how to control these deep emotions. And yet, with her friends, with the people she cared about most in the world, she was able to ease her worries. However, with Shunsuke, it was so easy to just forget her problems, to forget that they were targets to a villain organization, to put aside everything that upset her. With him, all she could really think about was how much she liked him and how much she enjoyed his company.
Life did get a little easier with someone like Shunsuke by her side, didn’t it..?
What did she do to deserve meeting him? Cupie wasn’t the most likeable person on Earth, and yet she had the absolute pleasure of meeting Shunsuke, to becoming his friend…
And now this… the opportunity to develop their relationship into something more.
He felt the same way about her…
He felt the same way about her.
And Cupie had never felt so happy in her entire life...
A droplet fell to the ground by her feet, then another. Her gaze turned from his and stayed on the darkening sky as a full smile graced her features.
“Now it’s my turn to share. When we first met, I didn’t think anything would become of us. I thought you were a nice guy in the same class as me; probably end up being a friend of Ichirou’s or Octavia’s or something. But then I met you again during my hike, a hike I would have never taken in the first place on my own merit. Makoto was the one who introduced me to the joys of hiking, and if I hadn’t felt a sense of duty to honor his memory by continuing on those hikes every morning, I wouldn’t have met you again. You wouldn’t have scared me, I wouldn’t have hit you with my quirk, and you wouldn’t have kissed me…and I wouldn’t have cared about you nearly as much as I do now.
I was lucky, honestly. I’m used to my quirk backfiring and dealing with the aftermath. It’s led to a lot of people getting mad at me or cutting contact completely. I thought my quirk ruined whatever friendship we had, but it didn’t. It only made it stronger…”
Another tear drop, very slowly were they forming in her eyes and dropping down her cheeks.
“I’m not used to affection, not even from my own parents… I’m used to people telling me no, to people not returning my feelings.”
She looked at him, a gaze of adoration in her eyes as she smiled at him. “This is what it feels like… to have someone return your feelings… I like you too, a lot, and…”
Cupie paused. She wasn’t sure how to put the rest of her feelings into words. As she said, she’s never felt this way after a confession, so she decided to use actions.
The pink haired girl approached him, coming in close enough so that their chests were together. Her hands held each other around the back of his neck, keeping their distance closed. The same look was present, her smile not faltering for even a second. “Remember that day you treated me to lunch, and you kissed me to give me a better memory of the one before it? Kiss me again, Shunsuke… This is the one I want to remember for a long time.”
The silence that followed was almost unsettling. Shunsuke's eyes opened to find the girl he'd just confessed his feelings to with tears in her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, to apologize, but stopped as she told him that it was her "turn to share."
He listened to her, mouth agape in shock for a moment as she spoke of her first impressions of what she expected their friendship to be like. She spoke about Makoto, the what ifs that might have led to another life, both the unfortunate and fortunate turn of events they experience. She spoke about her parents, what she'd come to expect of people, of opening herself up in regards to her emotions.
Her words were decisive; just as, if not more straightforward than his. And just like that, he felt her body against him, her hands at the back of his neck. He took a deep breath, fighting back the tears that'd welled up in his eyes. He closed his eyes for a second, opening them as she spoke again, smiling. At this moment, as he wrapped his arms around her waist, Shunsuke knew that he didn't need to say anything more. No words could possibly have made this moment any better. His eyes met hers and as he held her he leaned in, closing the final few inches between them until he felt her lips against his and kissed her with everything he had.
If this was a kiss she wanted to remember for a long time, he'd damn well make sure it was a good one.