Requiem of the Broken

Chapter 43: Reflection

Ochako was sitting at the table, idly eating her food. The whole class was together at a local restaurant, the mission to save the hostages was over, and it had been a couple of days since. They hadn't had to go on a mission of such a scale in more than a year and they had been exhausted. They'd taken a couple of days to rest, and then Momo had invited them all to a restaurant to relax as best they could after the mission.

Ochako appreciated it, they all did, both she and Bakugo were being abnormally quiet. Something Tsuyu had quickly picked up on, she had an eye for such things. She also assumed that whatever it was that plagued both Ochako and Bakugo's minds, was likely connected. Something they had seen during the mission was weighing heavily on their minds and neither was keen on talking about it. She decided to have a talk with them after they left the restaurant.

"Hey, Ochako, you there?" asked Mina, head tilted to one side, her curiosity written plainly on her face.

"Huh?" said Ochako, looking up blankly at Mina.

Mina adopted an exasperated expression, "This is the third time you've missed something entirely since we got here. What is going on? Actually, both you AND Bakugo have been acting pretty quiet." Said Mina, a sudden suspicious look coming over her as she looked between Ochako and Bakugo.

"Nothings going on, I just don't feel like talking is all." Said Ochako evasively, going back to picking at her food. The food she hadn't really touched all the time they had been here.

Bakugo for his part just grunted and took a long drink from his glass filled with a weak beer.

Mina narrowed her eyes, her mind clearly trying to put two and two together. Then in a sudden burst of realization, she made a show of adopting a well exaggerated surprised expression,
"You didn't confess your undying love to Bakugo on the battlefield did you!?" She exclaimed, in mock surprise.

Ochako started so much that she nearly toppled several glasses from the table. Bakugo for his part, who had been midway bringing his glass to his face, actually detonated the glass, which sent shards of glass everywhere.

No one moved for a few seconds, they simply stared at the two in utter shock at the extreme reactions they had given.

"Don't tell me you ACTUALLY DID confess in the middle of the battlefield," Said Mina incredulously.

"WHA? NO!" Exclaimed Ochako, looking at Mina with utter shock.

"Damn it..." muttered Bakugo, starting to pick up the pieces of the glass he had utterly destroyed.

"Allow me," said a man dressed in business casual, walking up to the table from the backrooms of the restaurant.

He waved his hands and the individual pieces of glass from all over the area zipped through the area and coalesced in his palm. The pieces started to reform the glass, and when it was whole he deposited the glass on the table.

"Now, would someone like to explain why one of my glasses was just shattered into a thousand shards?" Said the man, looking down at the group with apparent annoyance.

"My fault, got surprised and blew up the glass. Sorry, it won't happen again." Said Bakugo, looking up at the man.

The man considered Bakugo's response, he looked Bakugo up and down, taking in his beer-soaked clothes before he nodded. "Yes, I'm sure it won't," he said, before turning and heading back into the depths of the restaurant.

There was an awkward silence, as the group shifted uncomfortably in their seats as Bakugo, grumbling, used his napkin to try and absorb as much of the beer as he could from his clothes.