The school bell rang loudly, signaling recess as students immediately got up from their seats, some stretching, some chatting, and many pulling out their lunch boxes while others rushed toward the cafeteria.
Amidst all that movement, Minoru Mineta stood up with his lunchbox and walked alongside Toru Hagakure, both of them looking around for a place to eat.
"Where should we sit?" Toru asked, her voice cheerful as her sleeves moved slightly.
Mineta was about to answer when his eyes caught sight of a blonde girl with messy bun-styled hair, a smile on her face that didn't quite reach her eyes, walking toward the staircase leading to the rooftop with her lunch box in hand.
"Why not go to the rooftop?" Mineta said. "We can eat there and also see the school from the top."
"Oh! That sounds fun!" Toru replied instantly.
Both of them walked up the stairs together, and soon they reached the top where the rooftop door was already open, letting in the breeze.
After stepping outside, they saw a blonde girl sitting alone, quietly eating while looking at the city.
Mineta and Toru sat some distance away from her and opened their lunch boxes, and the girl glanced at them, gave a small smile and a nod before returning to her food.
"The view is great here," Toru said while looking around.
"Yeah," Mineta hummed in agreement, though his attention was elsewhere. 'That smile… definitely fake. She's close to breaking,' he thought while glancing at Toga, who was now poking a tomato with her chopsticks.
Mineta continued eating while chatting with Toru, but his eyes occasionally shifted toward Toga.
'From what I remember… her parents treated her like a monster because of her quirk… suppressed everything… and that's what made her like this,' he thought. 'If nothing changes… she becomes a villain.'
Toru and Mineta kept chatting as they ate, and when he looked down at his lunch, noticing it getting smaller, his eyes landed on his fork. '…I have an idea,' he thought, though his expression didn't change.
'It's gonna hurt a bit… but this might work.'
He glanced at Toga again and saw that she was about to finish her lunch. 'Now or never,' he decided.
Mineta closed his eyes slightly and pressed his thumb against the fork's edge.
A small sting.
Then sharper.
He felt it.
Blood.
He immediately let go and hissed, "Tch—!"
"Mineta!" Toru exclaimed slightly."Your thumb is bleeding!"
Mineta looked at his thumb and said, "Ah… I got distracted thinking about a super move for my quirk…"
At that moment, Toga's eyes shifted toward them due to Toru's voice, and she froze as she saw droplets of blood forming on Mineta's thumb.
"You can't play with utensils like that while eating!" Toru scolded. "Wait, I have bandages in my bag. Stay here!"
"Yeah… okay," Mineta said as Toru quickly got up and walked toward the stairs.
Mineta watched her leave, and once she was gone, he turned his head slightly toward Toga, noticing that she was staring directly at his thumb, her gaze fixed on the small droplets of blood.
"Senpai," Mineta called out calmly, "do you come here daily to have lunch?"
Toga snapped out of her trance and looked at him, forcing a smile. "Y-Yeah… I do," she said. "My name is Himiko Toga."
"I'm Minoru Mineta," he replied, and while speaking, he subtly pressed his thumb again, letting a bit more blood form.
Toga's eyes immediately went back to his thumb as a small droplet fell to the ground.
"What's wrong?" Mineta asked, acting confused.
"N-Nothing," Toga said quickly, looking away.
Mineta tilted his head slightly. "Sorry if I sound rude… but is your quirk blood-related?"
Toga's head snapped back toward him so fast it looked unnatural. "H-How did you know!?" she demanded.
Mineta raised both his hands calmly. "You've been staring at my thumb for a while… your canines are longer than normal… and you were drooling a bit," he said.
Toga's face turned red as she quickly wiped her mouth.
She looked at him for a moment before looking away and muttering in a low, cold tone, "So what if it is…? Were you trying to bring it up to show how disgusting it is…?"
Mineta shook his head. "No," he said simply. "I just thought… you might need blood. You were drooling, like you didn't drink any today."
Toga froze.
She slowly looked at him again, directly into his eyes, searching for something—disgust, fear, rejection—but found none.
Something shifted inside her.
For the first time, someone didn't look at her like she was wrong.
She heard footsteps approaching from the staircase and immediately stood up, hurriedly packing her lunch box.
Without another word, she ran off the rooftop.
A few seconds later, Toru came back, slightly confused. "What happened? That blonde senpai just ran away really fast!"
"Oh… she got a phone call," Mineta said casually. "Maybe something urgent came up."
"Oh… okay," Toru said, accepting it easily as she sat beside him again and started applying a bandage to his thumb.
All the while, Mineta kept a calm face.
But inside—'What the hell did I just do?!' he screamed internally. 'I just threw all that out without thinking!'