Chapter 118. Celebration!
“Ok, so I don’t know how much Hagakure told you, but I want to say it first thing. I did not plan on this, nor did I even know about it until today.” The girls nodded while I sighed in relief of them not leaving me for doing something dangerous behind their backs again. Toga was confused at what was happening so I decided to start from the beginning. “Ok, when I was cleaning out my parents room while boxing things up for the move I found this weird locked box with this watch inside.” I continued on my story until Toga spoke up.
“I drank your blood! Does that mean they will be inside me as well!?” She looked at me with a big smile. “Sorry Toga, these things only work in my body. They will just pass through you.” She seemed downhearted at the idea of us not being connected by this as well. I rubbed her back to help her feel better and continued on. At the end Momo was the one to speak up first. “So in the end, you have little to no control over these Nano machines inside your body. You also cannot remove them, or destroy them in any way.” I just nodded at her summation.
“They evolve by themselves to a certain degree, but I can also increase, and direct the evolution. I can have them make more of themselves to a maximum. Right now I haven’t touched anything, I want you all to know that. I will not be making any decisions on this without your input.” Everyone smiled and nodded at how I was learning, and progressing with not doing dangerous things on my own. I sighed again at everything that was happening.
“So… Anything anybody wants to ask?” I said while almost laying on the bed from exhaustion. Deku spoke up, but he was a little nervous. “Do you know why your parents had that?” Everyone but Toga froze at that question. I tapped my fingers against my chin while thinking. “I have no idea, but this is something that I need to figure out.” Everyone nodded in understanding. We sat in silence for a bit before Mina spoke up.
“I think your room changed since the last time we all visited.” Shoto was confused that everyone visited my apartment, but Deku filled him in while I was looking at what was different. “Yea, I wanted to keep a lot of things from my parents. Most of these new jackets and coats are his.” I said it with a bit of a somber tone, but I had a smile nonetheless. That was when Kyoka spoke up. “Is that why you have an extra guitar?” She pointed to the corner where I had it stored in its case.
I nodded while bringing it over. “Well, my mom was the musician… So this was hers.” I opened up the case, and the deep hues of red reflected back at me through the case. I got a smile just seeing the guitar again. I pulled it out, and strummed a few chords. Toga recognized the sound, and smiled at me while hugging my arm tighter. I was in the mood to play something, so I just started to strum the opening to a song. ‘Midnight Blue’ by 'Electric Light Orchestra', started to play as I gained a smile at the song.
I always loved this song, by one of my bands and artists, Jeff Lynn. I sang with a smile while thinking of the past of listening to this song for the first time. My dad always liked teaching me about music back when he was my age. Having this music was like taking a part of him wherever I was. And I needed him with me now more than ever. I had so many emotions that came with this song. It was a song that I used to listen when I slept at a young age. It was so comforting, but sad at the same time, much like how the song was itself. I finished the song on my mothers guitar softly, and just let the room sit in silence for a bit. I put away the guitar, and sat back down next to Toga.
Everyone was frozen from the new sounding guitar. I really liked the sound it had too. I just chuckled at how much that guitar could matter to me, but I never knew about it until a few days ago. I then yawned and took a look at the time. It was just past 8pm, and I was already tired and hungry. ‘Probably the Nanites multiplying, the energy has to come from somewhere.’ “Alright, I think we should all be going to sleep. We got classes in the morning.” Everyone snapped awake, and agreed. Toga was the only one having a push back.
“But I wanna stay here!” She hugged onto my arm. I got up and walked out of my room with the rest as Toga was still holding on. “Well I’m going to eat something first. You can come with me if you want, but I can’t have you sleeping in my room Toga.” She nodded with a big smile. ‘I guess she just wanted to be around me more.’ I smiled at my conclusion, and petted her hair. As I was heading down to the first floor to find something to eat, I noticed all of the girls were with us as well. I looked confused at them, but Mina spoke up.
“Well, now that you mention it. I’m totally starved too. I think this place has a kitchen, so I was wondering if you could make some extra?” I looked at the other girls who were nodding in agreement, and I smiled. It was nice to have people to cook for. It was even better if they asked for your food specifically. “Of course, I’ll see what the school has in store for us.” They all got smiles as big as mine as we all made our way to the kitchen.
Looking at the kitchen I was shocked to see it was the size of my living room back at my old apartment, maybe even bigger. The girls were giggling at my surprise, as Mina dragged me to the massive fridge. I opened it and was met with a bunch of instant cooked foods, or frozen dinners. I looked down and saw raw ingredients of greens, and meats. I was already tired, so I wanted to make something easy, and I could cook quickly. I gazed around to see the kitchen was connected by a large glass sliding door to a porch. I closed the fridge door and investigated further.
I looked on the porch and got a large grin at what I wanted to do. I looked back at the girls, and I think they were picking up on what I wanted to do, judging by the smiles on their faces as well. Toga was also smiling, but I think she had no idea what I was planning, but was just happy seeing me happy. “I’ll get the ingredients on the porch, and start cooking from there. Momo, if you could help me with that?” She nodded with her proper smile as she went over near the fridge to help transport what I needed.
I then looked back at Mina and Hagakure. “Could you two tell the others? I don’t think it would be right to start without asking if they wanted to join first.” Mina happily nodded at being able to do this with the whole class while Hagakure was already on her way. I looked at Kyoka and Toga and just smiled seeing their waiting expressions. “Kyoka, Toga, can you two get some speakers for some music?” Kyoka was a little worried about being alone with Toga at first, but after I asked them for what I wanted she lit up right alongside Toga. They both went back to the rooms, and I was left alone with Momo.
I went over to her and smiled. She had a slightly sad smile, which confused me. “Momo, what’s wrong?” Her smile seemed to darken a bit as she looked down at me. I couldn’t see her eyes, and she stayed a step back from me. “I’m sorry I did not want to tell the others about us.” I was surprised at her saying this. 'I never noticed that she had this weight on her for this whole time. She has been hiding it so well, that I forgot about it.' I quickly hugged her tightly as she froze in my embrace. “Momo, you don’t have to worry about that. I know you were just scared at how others might judge us, and what your parents might think. I know that your family is very influential, and I know you don’t want to disappoint them. The amount of love I have for you never diminished for one second. It has only been growing from when we first got together. You just aren’t ready to tell others yet. That’s ok. I’m not entirely sure I’m ready either. We can just go at it at our own pace.”
She slowly put her arms around my back and gripped my shirt with her hands as she nuzzled her head deeper into my chest. I just smiled lovingly at her and rubbed her back. “Now… Do you want to cook together with me again?” She just nodded while never removing her head from my chest. After a bit she let go and had one of the largest smiles I’ve seen her wear. I was stunned at her beauty.
Just seeing her like this made me forget everything else in the world. I just was absorbed into her majesty. She looked at my expression and giggled as she took my hand and brought me close to the fridge. “Now Denki, what should we take for this barbeque?” I broke out of my trance, and looked into the fridge. We had a lot of meat, so that was top priority. I took some out and started to cut it up into bite sized pieces for the kebabs. Momo also started to put everything on the spits after I was done, and set them on the plates to cook later. I then took one larger piece of meat. Momo was interested in what I was going to do with this one. I cut up the meat into more small pieces, before placing them on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer.
Momo seemed confused at what I was doing. "Don't worry, they just need to firm up a bit." I said with a smile as I was searching for a food processor. It took a bit, but I found it. Once I did, it had been long enough to take the meat out of the freezer. I then placed some inside the processor and pulsed it, until it became ground meat. Momo, seeing this understood what I was doing now. I could see the realization on her face. It was cute to watch her brain thinking, before coming up with an answer. “Unfortunately I don’t think we have any buns, so we’ll just have to eat them on plates.”
It was then that Momo pointed towards the bread cabinet. I looked inside, to find lo and behold burger buns. I smiled and laughed while taking them out. It was at this point that Mina and Hagakure brought everyone that wanted to join. I looked at everyone in class with a large smile. “Who’s hungry!?” Everyone except Bakugo, who seemed to be here only because he was hungry, cheered as we all headed outside on the porch. I started up the propane grill and started to grill up the kebabs. While those were cooking I looked to see everyone was talking amongst themselves.
I smiled at the scene and remembered what I needed. “Momo, can you watch the grill? I want to find some spices.” She nodded with a smile as I ran back inside the dorm. I found the cabinet and looked around at the multitude of spices. I wasn’t as good a chef as my dad so I didn’t really know which was best for what we were making so I took out some old faithful's. Salt, pepper, garlic powder, and red pepper cayenne. There were a few more ingredients to my dad's favorite spice mix that I didn't know, but these were the base. I put them all on the table, got a small testing bowl and put mostly salt, and cayenne as the base for the spice. I then added some pepper, and then a dash of garlic powder. I mixed it together quickly, careful not to breath it in and took a small dab and tasted it.
I thought for a second, and deemed it passible. I went outside with my blend and went over to one of the kebabs and gave it a light dusting. Momo was curious, and just watched. I let it finish cooking and took a bite. I immediately opened my eyes in surprise. Everyone was watching to see if it was good. I finished chewing and got a large smile. “Oh yea… Not as good as the stuff my dad used to use, but I got pretty close.” I pointed to my spice experiment while taking another bite of my kebab. “It’s good! Try some!” Everyone got excited to see what it tasted like so I quickly dusted the rest of the cooking kebabs. After a few minutes they were done, and half of the class was eating.
They all agreed at the taste and started chowing down. I smiled at everyone who liked my cooking. Momo was surprised at the taste as well. She covered her mouth as she was eating, and after a bit she asked. “What spice did you find?” I looked at her as I was flipping the burgers. “I just made my own from what they had.” She looked at me with even more surprise, as did anyone who happened to be listening. I looked at her confused. “What? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know some basic spices. It’s not like I know as much as a true chef. I don't even know as much as my dad.” I continued flipping burgers as she still stared at me.
She sighed while smiling and then continued to eat her food. I finished a burger for myself and had Kirishima take over the grill. I started to eat my burger when I suddenly noticed Kyoka and Toga. Kyoka was holding my own guitar while Toga was dragging the amp with a disgruntled face. I looked at them with confusion. “Why did you guys bring these?” Kyoka spoke up while handing me my guitar. “You said bring something for music. This is what I want to hear.” She had a grin by the end, and so did Toga.
I looked at them both, then sighed. I gave Kyoka back my guitar, and she gave me a sad look. I smiled and walked back into the dorms. “Don’t worry, I’m just washing my hands. I’ll be right out.” I heard them both cheering silently. ‘It seems Toga had some time to grow on Kyoka.’ I smiled as I was drying my hands. I came back outside to see everyone in class eating and talking with each other. I walked over to the grass where Kyoka and Toga set up my guitar. I grabbed my guitar from Kyoka while smiling at her.
She turned away and grinned while blushing. I stood up while checking the tune of the guitar. This seemed to grab everyone's attention. I shrugged while looking at them all. “I was going to just play some music on a speaker, but Kyoka wanted to hear a little concert. So I’ll play one song in celebration of us all being here today.” Some looked intrigued at what I might sound like, while others seemed interested at what song I might play. Except for one man. "Kaminari! I must remind you to not be loud!" Ida was speaking with his arms moving up and down almost robotically. I chuckled at his rule loving nature. “I'll keep the amp low.” Ida thought for a bit, before nodding in appeasement. "Ok... Let's play something up-beat." I started to play the opening riff of Huey Lewis ‘Power of Love’ loudly.
I remember this song in ‘Back to the Future’. Just playing it gave me nostalgic memories of that perfect movie. I started to rock out with a huge smile while singing. While I was singing I actually started to amplify my voice to compete with the guitar subconsciously. I kept singing the song, and while I did I started to jam and move around while playing, kinda like Marty. I was just having fun while playing the song and singing about the power of love. I put my feelings of fun and happiness about how love has changed my life for the better. By the end I was smiling from ear to ear while laughing a little bit at how much fun it was to just rock out.
I stopped powering the amp and let out a sigh of happiness. I started bringing my amp and guitar towards the porch while laughing from time to time. I walked up to the porch and put my guitar back into its case. I looked back at everyone who was just frozen. “All right, I’m gonna put these away. I’ll be right back.” I said gleefully at the fun I just had. Other classmates were also feeling happy and talked with each other happily. It was contagious, and by the time I came back down to see everybody they were all asking me questions about my music.
“Dude, that was awesome! I didn’t know you listened to English music!” Sero was the first to talk to me. I smiled at how everyone liked the song. “Yea, all of my favorite musicians are English.” That seemed to cause the others confusion, until Mina went to my side and hugged my arm. “Denki totally used to live in America.” That made everyone ask me questions about what it was like, and help for English class. I started to laugh at the great time we all were having.