"Hey I've been meaning to ask you something."

  Uraraka turned to face her, but Robinn didn’t turn back. She only caught the side of her face, the rest angled toward the distant city lights below. Her expression was unreadable, almost too still.

  "Oh... you have? What is it?" Uraraka asked. Her voice came out lighter than intended, nerves creeping in without warning. Something in Robinn’s tone had unsettled her.

  The air around them was cooling. Everyone had fallen into that hushed, anticipatory quiet that happens right before fireworks start. The mountain wind rustled the leaves at their backs, and the faint hum of the city drifted up the slope.

  Robinn didn’t reply. She slowly unextended her legs and pulled her knees up, resting her chin between them, staring straight ahead. Her breaths were slow and controlled. The blankness on her face didn’t shift, even as she exhaled and let her shoulders slump as if she were compressing herself into a smaller space.

  "The fireworks should start soon!" Iida shouted from the far side of the clearing, his voice carrying through the dark.

  Uraraka glanced over. He was waving his arms in stiff, enthusiastic motions to gather attention, which pulled out a small smile from her.

  "I don't really know how to say this," Robinn mumbled.

  Uraraka snapped her gaze back to her. That mumble sounded too close to vulnerability. Robinn’s eyes, half-lidded and tired, peeked over her knees. Her face was lightly squished between them.

  "You don't have to force yourself to say something if you don't want to," Uraraka said, trying to coax even the smallest smile. "Are you okay? You look sad."

  Robinn flicked her eyes to her. The tired look vanished instantly. "Yeah I'm fine." The tone was plain, almost empty. After a stretch of silence, she added, "It's just that today's the sixth anniversary of my mom's death." She said it without any shift in emotion, as if stating a schedule.

  Uraraka's blood ran cold. The bluntness. The timing. The suddenness. And it was the first real thing she had ever heard about Robinn’s family. For someone who always held herself together with that strange mix of calm and distance, dropping something this personal felt almost unnatural.

  "I... I'm really sorry... for your loss," she managed. The tone was appropriate, though inwardly she cringed at how stiff she sounded. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized Robinn had probably been carrying this all day while acting completely normal.

  "Don't be." Robinn turned her gaze back to the horizon.

  "Do you... um. want to talk about it?" Uraraka asked, already doubting the moment the words left her mouth.

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  Robinn didn’t answer. The silence stretched thin, uncomfortable. Uraraka felt herself folding inward, wondering if she’d misread everything about this girl.

  Then Robinn looked at her again, still resting her cheek on her knees. "By the way, the question I wanted to ask." She paused, eyes unfocusing for a moment before sharpening again with a smile. "Would you consider being my friend?"

  Uraraka’s mind short-circuited. The emotional whiplash cracked through her skull. Weren’t they already friends? Did Robinn genuinely not think so? Hadn’t she asked a similar question once before? Who even asked things like this at their age? Her brain was assaulted by too many questions at once.

  And before she could form a single word...

  BANG.

  The first firework exploded. A burst of light bloomed almost level with them, painting the clearing gold and red. More followed immediately, crowding the sky and overwhelming her senses. They weren’t even that loud, but her brain refused to process anything else for a moment.

  She realized she still hadn’t answered. Even if the question was strange, Robinn had asked sincerely.

  "Yes." Uraraka said softly.

  Robinn pointed to her ear, eyebrows raised.

  "Yes!" she repeated louder, but Robinn still blinked in confusion.

  Uraraka huffed a desperate laugh, leaned in close, and all but shouted in her ear.

  "Yeah you dummy!"

  The tension inside her cracked into something warm and steady. She had not even considered their friendship might have been one sided until this exact second. But now, apparently, it wasn’t.

  Robinn’s expression shifted finally. Her smile disappeared into her usual blank look as she mouthed something that looked like "cool." Then she pushed herself upright, reached up, and lazily undid her ponytail. She put her hood up and laid flat on the grass instead of watching the fireworks.

  Uraraka blinked at her, confused, but let it go. She turned her focus back to the sky, determined to enjoy the show anyway.

  The finale of the first sequence burst overhead, a huge orange firework shattering into dozens of tiny multicolored sparks that scattered like pieces of a broken prism. Even after the last ember died, she kept watching the glittering city through the drifting haze.

  Kaminari strolled up with a few others behind him.

  "Hey you two! I spotted an abandoned radio tower on the other side of the hill."

  He pointed vaguely off past the treeline, where the silhouette of a rusted, half-collapsed structure stood just beyond the clearing’s edge.

  "We could probably get an even better view of the fireworks from up there, wanna come?"

  Robinn raised an arm straight up, lazily wagging her finger side to side in a dead-serious 'Nope,' never lifting her head from the grass.

  Uraraka sat up slightly. "I don't think I should... I hurt my ankle on the hike up."

  Kaminari’s grin faltered, then returned with renewed force. "Hey, why don't some of the stronger guys carry you up?"

  Her face heated as she waved her hands frantically. "No no it's okay! Don't worry about me, I'll keep Robinn company here." She turned to gesture at Robinn, only to freeze when the girl’s legs were already planted firmly on the ground.

  Robinn was standing, looking down at her. "I can carry her up. We already did that on the way up." She said it like it was nothing, then yawned.

  Kaminari’s eyes widened in surprise, then he beamed.

  "Robinn, you don't have to..." Uraraka said quietly, embarrassed again.

  Robinn held out her hand, gaze steady and determined. Strong enough that Uraraka instinctually accepted, using her good foot to stand. Robinn turned, crouched slightly, and Uraraka climbed onto her back. This time her ponytail didn’t smack Uraraka in the face.

  Somehow Kaminari rallied the entire group, and before the next firework show, they began climbing the tower. The metal groaned but held. Higher up, the wind tugged colder at their clothes. From Robinn’s shoulders, Uraraka had the clearest view of the sky as the next show began.

  Author's note:

  Took a while, sorry. That's about it, see ya.