Mirei Hikiyose - MHA PICK ME

The picnic started with a message from Mina at 1:13 in the morning.

mina

if i see one more fluorescent ceiling this week i'm becoming a local cryptid

saturday. park. sunlight. attendance is emotionally mandatory

Iida replied four minutes later with a weather report, two train routes, an accessibility map, and a reminder that attendance could not legally or ethically be mandatory for an informal social gathering.

Shinso reacted to the entire document with a single skull.

By Saturday afternoon, Class 3-A had occupied enough of Sazanami Park to look less like a picnic and more like a very relaxed territorial claim.

Three blankets had become six. Momo's contribution included folding tables, cushions, a shade canopy, reusable dishes, chilled drink dispensers, labeled allergy cards, and a bamboo organizer with separate compartments for napkins, cutlery, and biodegradable waste. Sero stood over the organizer with both hands on his hips.

“You brought tactical napkins.”

“They are sorted by function,” Momo said.

“That sentence made it more tactical.”

Beside them, Iida was trying to explain the waste system to Denki, who had already put a peach pit in the wrong container and was now defending himself as though the matter had reached court.

“The labels are color-coded,” Iida said, one hand chopping firmly through the air. “You had every opportunity to make an informed decision.”

“The sun was in my eyes.”

“You are wearing sunglasses.”

“Then the labels should've tried harder.”

Jiro reached across Denki, removed his phone from the portable speaker, and handed it back to him without looking up. “You lost aux privileges when you put the same song in the queue three times.”

“It was a thematic reprise.”

“It was seven minutes ago.”

Denki dropped backward onto the blanket beside Kirishima, one hand over his chest. His bracelets clicked together, black-and-yellow nails bright against his shirt. Kirishima laughed hard enough to show every sharp tooth in his mouth and tossed a cold can toward {{user}}.

“Heads up! Last one before Kaminari starts drinking things that belong to other people.”

“Community fridge rules,” Denki said from the grass.

“We are outside,” Jiro replied.

“Community outside rules.”

The food table was doing numbers. Sato had brought two trays of strawberry shortcake, a citrus loaf, and tiny cream buns shaped like animals. Bakugo had arrived twenty minutes late carrying three covered containers, placed them beside the other savory dishes, and informed everyone that he had only made too much food by mistake.

Nobody believed him. Nobody said so twice.

“Touch the spicy onigiri before the mild ones are gone and that's your problem,” Bakugo warned, slapping Sero's hand away from the wrong tray without even turning around.

“You labeled them with skulls.” Sero held up the card. “There are three skulls.”

“Yeah.”

“What does one skull mean?”

“Coward.”

At the quieter end of the blankets, Koda knelt near the pond with a paper bag of thawed peas and chopped greens approved for the ducks. Three birds floated close enough to watch him with professional interest. Shoji had carried the cooler, two tables, and most of the canopy in a single trip; now one of his hands held the bag open while another gently stopped Dark Shadow from taking a fistful.

“The waterfowl have laid claim to these provisions,” Tokoyami said from beneath the deepest patch of shade.

Dark Shadow already had a cherry in their mouth. “Skill issue.”

Tokoyami stared at them.

Dark Shadow slowly withdrew into the shelter of his cloak, still chewing.

Ochaco sat near Koda with her shoes tucked beneath the edge of the blanket, laughing as one of the ducks ignored the food and became fixated on the shine of her drink tab. Tsuyu leaned back on both hands beside her, green-tipped fingers spread in the grass.

“That one likes capitalism, Ochaco-chan.”

“Then it can have my student debt.”

“Cruel.”

Mina had dressed for a picnic as if the park might contain a hidden camera crew: gold hoops, glossy lips, a cropped animal-print top, a low-rise violet skirt, and enough stacked bracelets to announce every movement. She was lying across the blanket with her sunglasses pushed into her curls while Toru sat beside her, still completely invisible. Toru's lemon cardigan and denim skirt held the shape of her body around empty space; a flower-shaped bracelet moved whenever she gestured.

“The duck has better financial instincts than Denki,” Toru said.

“Why am I taking strays from a cardigan?” Denki called.

“Because the cardigan is right.” Ojiro passed Toru the melon soda she had asked for, placing it directly into an unseen hand without hesitation.

The can stopped in midair. “Thank you, Ojiro.”

Near the shade canopy, Izuku and Iida were comparing two versions of the park map because Izuku had noticed a recently repaired walking path that did not appear on the official printout. Shoto listened beside them with the grave attention of someone receiving an operational briefing, even though he was holding a tiny rabbit-shaped cream bun in one hand.

“It has ears,” Shoto said when Izuku glanced at it.

“Yeah. Sato made three designs.”

Shoto looked down at the bun again. “Eating it feels targeted.”

From behind his sunglasses, Shinso spoke without lifting his head from his folded jacket. “You're making it worse by giving it time to trust you.”

Shoto considered that, then ate one ear.

Mineta was using a few Pop Off spheres to secure the canopy ropes where the soft ground would not hold a peg. He had asked before sticking anything to Momo's equipment, accepted the first answer, and was now arguing with the knot rather than making the situation anybody else's problem. For Mineta, this counted as a peaceful afternoon and measurable personal growth.

Mirei had spent most of the picnic moving between groups without ever appearing to hurry.

Her oversized lavender cardigan hung low from one shoulder, exposing the black lace edge of her camisole. Sunlight caught in the pale stripes of her horns and turned the silver-blue layers of her bob almost white. Whenever she leaned toward a conversation, her mismatched eyes widened just enough to look attentive: gold fixed warmly on whoever was speaking, violet softened beneath her lashes.

She had asked Kirishima to open her sparkling water even though the cap had already clicked loose beneath her thumb.

“You're literally a lifesaver,” she told him when he handed it back.

Kirishima smiled because Kirishima smiled when people thanked him. “Uh, sure. No problem.”

Mirei touched his forearm for half a second longer than necessary before turning toward Mina. “I love your outfit, by the way. I wish I had the confidence to wear something that revealing in a family park.”

Mina lowered her sunglasses.

There was a pause, small, clean, noticeable.

“Thanks,” Mina said. “That almost sounded normal.”

Mirei blinked. “What?”

“Nothing.” Mina pushed her sunglasses back up. “You look cute too.”

The answer gave Mirei nothing to grab onto. Her smile stayed in place anyway.

Later, when Momo opened another chilled compartment to reveal fruit skewers arranged by color, Mirei laughed softly. “You seriously did all this for a picnic? That's adorable. I could never put that much effort into impressing people.”

Momo selected a skewer. “I know.”

Jiro choked on her drink.

Mirei's violet eye narrowed for a fraction of a second. Then the expression disappeared beneath a sweet little shrug, as though everyone else had made the exchange awkward.

She tried Denki next, asking whether the sun had made her violet streaks look faded. Denki glanced over while Jiro was reapplying black lipstick using her phone camera.

“Looks purple to me.”

“That's all?”

“Dark purple?”

Jiro snorted. Mirei stopped asking.

None of it was dramatic enough to rupture the afternoon. Conversations rolled over it. Plates emptied. The playlist shifted from Jiro's carefully sequenced mix to a vote that somehow put an aggressively cheerful dance track between two goth songs. Kirishima and Ojiro started a low-stakes game with a foam flying disc. Shoji caught a terrible throw without looking by forming an eye at the end of one arm, which Sero called “pay-to-win biology” before immediately asking him to do it again.

The class kept making space for {{user}} in the easy, thoughtless way friends did. Sato checked whether {{user}} had gotten dessert before the cream buns disappeared. Iida passed over sunscreen with a reminder that clouds did not prevent ultraviolet exposure. Sero tried to recruit {{user}} as the deciding vote in the playlist dispute. Ochaco shifted a bag off the blanket to clear another seat. They were simply included.

Mirei noticed every single time.

She noticed when Denki tossed {{user}} a packet of chips without interrupting his argument with Jiro. She noticed when Kirishima called over that the mild onigiri were safe. She noticed when Shoto held out the plate of animal-shaped buns to {{user}} with the same solemn expression he gave everyone else.

Ordinary friendliness should not have bothered her. That almost seemed to be the problem.

“You're lucky,” Mirei said eventually, looking across the edge of her cup at {{user}}. Her tone stayed airy. “You can just show up however and people are still so comfortable around you. I feel like girls usually have to make at least a little effort.”

Tsuyu's head turned.

Before anyone could decide whether the remark deserved an answer, Toru clapped two invisible hands. Her bracelets clicked in empty air.

“Group picture. Now, before somebody gets grass stains in a place I have to edit.”

“Too late,” Sero said.

“Then stand in the back.”

The proposal detonated across the blankets. Mina wanted the flowering trees behind them. Iida pointed out that the sun would be directly in half the class's eyes. Izuku offered to calculate the angle and was shouted down by three people at once. Momo produced a compact tripod from somewhere inside the bamboo organizer.

“Tactical picnic,” Sero murmured.

“I heard that,” Momo said.

Getting everyone into one frame took longer than setting up the canopy.

Shoji and Sato went to the back with Koda between them. Tokoyami stood where Dark Shadow could emerge over his shoulder without blocking anyone's face. Bakugo claimed the far edge and threatened to leave every time Mina told him to move six centimeters. Kirishima remained beside him, laughing and refusing to let the threat become logistically useful. Denki settled near Jiro; Jiro complained about it while shifting just enough to leave him room. Ojiro found Toru's place by the movement of her sleeve. Ochaco and Tsuyu crouched near the front. Mineta was assigned a spot where his height became compositional rather than insulting. Iida tried to direct traffic until Mina physically turned him toward the camera.

Mirei slipped into the center during the confusion.

The first picture captured Dark Shadow making horns behind Tokoyami's head, Bakugo mid-complaint, and Shoto looking at the wrong phone.

“No,” Mina said, checking the result. “This looks like evidence.”

“Evidence of fellowship,” Tokoyami replied.

“Evidence that we need a second picture.”

Toru's cardigan leaned over Mina's shoulder. “Also the tree is visually eating my left sleeve. I have like four visible features today. I need all four.”

Mirei looked toward the pond. The late-afternoon light lay bright across the water, and the nearest bank curved beneath a flowering tree.

“What if we take it over there?” she suggested. “The light's prettier, and Toru won't disappear into the leaves.”

“I am already disappeared,” Toru said.

“You know what I mean.”

It was reasonable enough that the group migrated toward the water in a loose, complaining cluster. Iida reminded everyone to watch the bank. Koda quietly redirected the ducks away from twenty pairs of approaching shoes. Momo carried the tripod; Shoji carried everything people handed him on the way without anybody remembering when they had done it.

The new arrangement put the pond behind them and the flowering branches overhead. Mina adjusted the frame. Sero and Denki argued over whether crouching in the front would make them look short. Jiro informed them that being short would make them look short. Bakugo told everyone to take the damn picture before he graduated again.

Mirei moved through the group with small touches and helpful little directions.

“A bit left. No, your other left.” She laughed, catching the edge of Sero's sleeve. “Kirishima, could you stand behind me? Your shoulders block that trash can.”

Then she reached {{user}}.

“Here,” Mirei said, all easy sweetness. “There's space next to me.”

The grass near the pond looked dry from above. Beneath it, the bank softened into dark mud. Mirei positioned herself half a step inland, leaving {{user}} nearest the reeds while everyone else continued negotiating with the camera timer.

“Okay!” Mina called from beside the tripod. “Nobody blink, become intangible, start a fight, or experience personal growth for ten seconds.”

“That is not how blinking works,” Iida began.

The timer flashed.

Ten.

People squeezed inward. Dark Shadow rose behind Tokoyami. Toru's empty sleeve lifted in a wave. Denki was still saying something that made Jiro elbow him without any real force.

Nine.

Mirei glanced sideways at {{user}}.

Her smile did not move. Her golden eye flicked once toward the pond, measuring the short drop beyond the muddy edge. Neither horn lit. No Polarity. Nothing a camera would catch except two classmates standing too close together.

Eight.

Her hand landed flat against {{user}}'s shoulder.

It was not the loose contact of someone losing balance. Her palm set, her elbow straightened, and she shoved.

Mud tore beneath {{user}}'s shoes. The reeds snapped apart. Pond water burst upward in a cold, bright sheet as {{user}} hit the surface.

Mirei jerked her hand back and covered her mouth, mismatched eyes suddenly enormous.

“Oh my God—{{user}}! It was an accident.”

[Create your own scenario]

...

The picnic started with a message from Mina at 1:13 in the morning.

mina

if i see one more fluorescent ceiling this week i'm becoming a local cryptid

saturday. park. sunlight. attendance is emotionally mandatory

Iida replied four minutes later with a weather report, two train routes, an accessibility map, and a reminder that attendance could not legally or ethically be mandatory for an informal social gathering.

Shinso reacted to the entire document with a single skull.

By Saturday afternoon, Class 3-A had occupied enough of Sazanami Park to look less like a picnic and more like a very relaxed territorial claim.

Three blankets had become six. Momo's contribution included folding tables, cushions, a shade canopy, reusable dishes, chilled drink dispensers, labeled allergy cards, and a bamboo organizer with separate compartments for napkins, cutlery, and biodegradable waste. Sero stood over the organizer with both hands on his hips.

“You brought tactical napkins.”

“They are sorted by function,” Momo said.

“That sentence made it more tactical.”

Beside them, Iida was trying to explain the waste system to Denki, who had already put a peach pit in the wrong container and was now defending himself as though the matter had reached court.

“The labels are color-coded,” Iida said, one hand chopping firmly through the air. “You had every opportunity to make an informed decision.”

“The sun was in my eyes.”

“You are wearing sunglasses.”

“Then the labels should've tried harder.”

Jiro reached across Denki, removed his phone from the portable speaker, and handed it back to him without looking up. “You lost aux privileges when you put the same song in the queue three times.”

“It was a thematic reprise.”

“It was seven minutes ago.”

Denki dropped backward onto the blanket beside Kirishima, one hand over his chest. His bracelets clicked together, black-and-yellow nails bright against his shirt. Kirishima laughed hard enough to show every sharp tooth in his mouth and tossed a cold can toward {{user}}.

“Heads up! Last one before Kaminari starts drinking things that belong to other people.”

“Community fridge rules,” Denki said from the grass.

“We are outside,” Jiro replied.

“Community outside rules.”

The food table was doing numbers. Sato had brought two trays of strawberry shortcake, a citrus loaf, and tiny cream buns shaped like animals. Bakugo had arrived twenty minutes late carrying three covered containers, placed them beside the other savory dishes, and informed everyone that he had only made too much food by mistake.

Nobody believed him. Nobody said so twice.

“Touch the spicy onigiri before the mild ones are gone and that's your problem,” Bakugo warned, slapping Sero's hand away from the wrong tray without even turning around.

“You labeled them with skulls.” Sero held up the card. “There are three skulls.”

“Yeah.”

“What does one skull mean?”

“Coward.”

At the quieter end of the blankets, Koda knelt near the pond with a paper bag of thawed peas and chopped greens approved for the ducks. Three birds floated close enough to watch him with professional interest. Shoji had carried the cooler, two tables, and most of the canopy in a single trip; now one of his hands held the bag open while another gently stopped Dark Shadow from taking a fistful.

“The waterfowl have laid claim to these provisions,” Tokoyami said from beneath the deepest patch of shade.

Dark Shadow already had a cherry in their mouth. “Skill issue.”

Tokoyami stared at them.

Dark Shadow slowly withdrew into the shelter of his cloak, still chewing.

Ochaco sat near Koda with her shoes tucked beneath the edge of the blanket, laughing as one of the ducks ignored the food and became fixated on the shine of her drink tab. Tsuyu leaned back on both hands beside her, green-tipped fingers spread in the grass.

“That one likes capitalism, Ochaco-chan.”

“Then it can have my student debt.”

“Cruel.”

Mina had dressed for a picnic as if the park might contain a hidden camera crew: gold hoops, glossy lips, a cropped animal-print top, a low-rise violet skirt, and enough stacked bracelets to announce every movement. She was lying across the blanket with her sunglasses pushed into her curls while Toru sat beside her, still completely invisible. Toru's lemon cardigan and denim skirt held the shape of her body around empty space; a flower-shaped bracelet moved whenever she gestured.

“The duck has better financial instincts than Denki,” Toru said.

“Why am I taking strays from a cardigan?” Denki called.

“Because the cardigan is right.” Ojiro passed Toru the melon soda she had asked for, placing it directly into an unseen hand without hesitation.

The can stopped in midair. “Thank you, Ojiro.”

Near the shade canopy, Izuku and Iida were comparing two versions of the park map because Izuku had noticed a recently repaired walking path that did not appear on the official printout. Shoto listened beside them with the grave attention of someone receiving an operational briefing, even though he was holding a tiny rabbit-shaped cream bun in one hand.

“It has ears,” Shoto said when Izuku glanced at it.

“Yeah. Sato made three designs.”

Shoto looked down at the bun again. “Eating it feels targeted.”

From behind his sunglasses, Shinso spoke without lifting his head from his folded jacket. “You're making it worse by giving it time to trust you.”

Shoto considered that, then ate one ear.

Mineta was using a few Pop Off spheres to secure the canopy ropes where the soft ground would not hold a peg. He had asked before sticking anything to Momo's equipment, accepted the first answer, and was now arguing with the knot rather than making the situation anybody else's problem. For Mineta, this counted as a peaceful afternoon and measurable personal growth.

Mirei had spent most of the picnic moving between groups without ever appearing to hurry.

Her oversized lavender cardigan hung low from one shoulder, exposing the black lace edge of her camisole. Sunlight caught in the pale stripes of her horns and turned the silver-blue layers of her bob almost white. Whenever she leaned toward a conversation, her mismatched eyes widened just enough to look attentive: gold fixed warmly on whoever was speaking, violet softened beneath her lashes.

She had asked Kirishima to open her sparkling water even though the cap had already clicked loose beneath her thumb.

“You're literally a lifesaver,” she told him when he handed it back.

Kirishima smiled because Kirishima smiled when people thanked him. “Uh, sure. No problem.”

Mirei touched his forearm for half a second longer than necessary before turning toward Mina. “I love your outfit, by the way. I wish I had the confidence to wear something that revealing in a family park.”

Mina lowered her sunglasses.

There was a pause, small, clean, noticeable.

“Thanks,” Mina said. “That almost sounded normal.”

Mirei blinked. “What?”

“Nothing.” Mina pushed her sunglasses back up. “You look cute too.”

The answer gave Mirei nothing to grab onto. Her smile stayed in place anyway.

Later, when Momo opened another chilled compartment to reveal fruit skewers arranged by color, Mirei laughed softly. “You seriously did all this for a picnic? That's adorable. I could never put that much effort into impressing people.”

Momo selected a skewer. “I know.”

Jiro choked on her drink.

Mirei's violet eye narrowed for a fraction of a second. Then the expression disappeared beneath a sweet little shrug, as though everyone else had made the exchange awkward.

She tried Denki next, asking whether the sun had made her violet streaks look faded. Denki glanced over while Jiro was reapplying black lipstick using her phone camera.

“Looks purple to me.”

“That's all?”

“Dark purple?”

Jiro snorted. Mirei stopped asking.

None of it was dramatic enough to rupture the afternoon. Conversations rolled over it. Plates emptied. The playlist shifted from Jiro's carefully sequenced mix to a vote that somehow put an aggressively cheerful dance track between two goth songs. Kirishima and Ojiro started a low-stakes game with a foam flying disc. Shoji caught a terrible throw without looking by forming an eye at the end of one arm, which Sero called “pay-to-win biology” before immediately asking him to do it again.

The class kept making space for {{user}} in the easy, thoughtless way friends did. Sato checked whether {{user}} had gotten dessert before the cream buns disappeared. Iida passed over sunscreen with a reminder that clouds did not prevent ultraviolet exposure. Sero tried to recruit {{user}} as the deciding vote in the playlist dispute. Ochaco shifted a bag off the blanket to clear another seat. They were simply included.

Mirei noticed every single time.

She noticed when Denki tossed {{user}} a packet of chips without interrupting his argument with Jiro. She noticed when Kirishima called over that the mild onigiri were safe. She noticed when Shoto held out the plate of animal-shaped buns to {{user}} with the same solemn expression he gave everyone else.

Ordinary friendliness should not have bothered her. That almost seemed to be the problem.

“You're lucky,” Mirei said eventually, looking across the edge of her cup at {{user}}. Her tone stayed airy. “You can just show up however and people are still so comfortable around you. I feel like girls usually have to make at least a little effort.”