Chapter 33: League of Villains IV

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"A villain school, Denki? Really?" Dabi deadpanned, dropping to try to kick Denki's feet out from under him.

Denki knew that a move like that would be coming eventually after Dabi had focused heavily on making Denki block his upper body, so he easily jumped over the kick aimed at his ankles, throwing his own kick towards Dabi's face while he was in the air. Dabi, however, was expecting him to take that specific opening and grabbed his leg before he made contact, causing Denki to fall to the floor. Denki had committed falling properly to muscle memory years prior, so he easily rolled into it without hurting himself.

"Well, I want to say take anyone from any other school, and just leave all of my friends at UA alone, but that wouldn't be very Plus Ultra of me," Denki admitted, lying on the floor, breathing heavily.

Dabi snorted in response, offering a hand to pull Denki up. Denki took the hand but pulled Dabi down onto the floor next to him instead, flashing a mischievous smile at him.

"Plank competition?" Denki offered, eyes sparkling.

"You're on," Dabi responded, immediately getting into plank position with Denki scrambling to follow suit so that they would start at the same time so it would be fair.

"So..." Denki started, wanting to be distracted from the strain of the plank on his core. "You and the boss man, huh?"

"Yeah," Dabi answered easily, a soft smile on his lips. "He's great. What about you? Anyone special?"

"Uh... well..." Denki started.

Normally, Denki was very open about his feelings for the soulmates, but it felt strange telling Dabi about his feelings when Dabi had been there when they had all first met. Dabi had known about Neito and Hitoshi being soulmates for a long time, so to admit to liking them was a little more nerve-wracking than admitting it to his classmates, for instance.

"Spit it out!" Dabi commanded, shifting his weight to bump his shoulder into Denki's.

"I'm in love with Neito and Hitoshi," Denki admitted, squeezing his eyes shut at the anticipation of Dabi's response.

Denki peaked his eye open and glanced toward Dabi who seemed to be deep in thought.

"You're in love with both Hitoshi and Neito?" he asked for clarification.

Denki nodded, fearing the worst.

"Hitoshi and Neito who are soulmates with each other?" Dabi asked.

Again, Denki nodded.

"Hm," Dabi hummed in response.

"That's it?! Hm?" Denki asked incredulously.

"Do you like video games, Denks?" Dabi asked instead.

"What does that have to do with—?" Denki started to ask but was interrupted.

"Just answer the question," Dabi demanded.

Denki sighed, shifting his weight to be distributed more evenly across his forearms against the floor.

"Yeah. I play often," Denki answered, wondering why Dabi was asking.

"What kinds of games?" Dabi asked.

"All kinds. I just follow my friends to whatever game they invite me to next," Denki responded.

"Cool, cool. What's your handle?" Dabi asked.

"P05itiv3R3v0lt. Why?" Denki asked, patience running thin as his muscles strained against the weight of gravity.

"No reason. Maybe we'll have to play together sometime. So, tell me about Hitoshi and Neito, then," Dabi commanded.

Denki swore he was going to get whiplash from Dabi changing topics so suddenly, but he needed to talk about the soulmates with someone who might understand, so he jumped right in about how they had started pulling away at the same time he started online gaming and how they had slowly started to come back together again, only to be distanced once more.

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