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Tamaki wasn't even sure how he got into this predicament.
UA just announced an event for all of the third-year students, a school dance. They still hadn't made a name for the event, but they were likely going to give it one if it went well this year. Present Mic was announcing it ecstatically in class, causing every third-year student to be talking about the event. Things got even more energetic when students started inviting others as dates. Tamaki, Nejire, & Mirio even watched Bibimi invite a boy through an extravagant song and dance that left the hallway covered in confetti.
As the three started to walk away, Nejire ecstatically said, "Everyone's so excited! I wonder what I'm gonna wear! Do you think there will be any villain attacks like with the first years? Hey hey, who are you two asking to the dance?"
Mirio said to Nejire, "The person I'm bringing is a surprise, but I think Tamaki's just gonna ask you to go, Nejire."
Tamaki immediately turned red with embarrassment. It was true that he was going to invite Nejire, but he was still figuring out how to surprise her without embarrassing himself. Now that Nejire did know, he felt ashamed that she found out so quickly.
Also, there was one other thing holding him back from asking, but before he could verbalize it, Nejire was directly in his face asking with her cheery expression, "Hey hey, are you really gonna ask me to the dance?"
Completely red in the face, Tamaki said, "Well, I- I guess I- I was going ask you. I- If you wanted to go, that is."
Nejire's face lit up even more than it already was as she said, "I would love to go! I really have to know what I'm gonna wear now! I'm gonna go visit Yuyu and see if she can get me something really sparkly! See ya!" Nejire then immediately bolted down the hallway cheerfully, leaving two of the Big Three standing in the hall.
Mirio lightly punched Tamaki in the shoulder while saying, "Nice job, Tamaki. Now you don't have to worry about asking Nejire."
Tamaki didn't respond, standing frozen in the middle of the hallway with a look of dread in his eyes. Mirio immediately noticed and dragged him over gently to the side of the hallway.
Mirio now had a concerned tone as he said, "Hey buddy, what's wrong?"
Tamaki finally unfroze and said, "Th- There's a reason I wasn't asking Nejire immediately. I wasn't even sure if I was gonna go."
"What? Why wouldn't you go?"
"Because..." Tamaki clenched his teeth before saying, "I- I can't dance."
"WHAAAAAAT!?" Mirio said, drawing the attention of several passing students. Mirio noticed and brought Tamaki into a shoulder huddle before whispering, "What do you mean? Everybody knows how to dance."
"Yeah, well I don't. I've tried to practice in the past, but I always end up freezing before I even make it to the dance floor."
"You know what?" Mirio brought Tamaki out of the huddle and stopped whispering. "It's going to be my mission to teach you how to dance before you go on your date with Nejire!"
Once Mirio said "date", Tamaki was frozen once again. Mirio had to drag him all the way to his dorm.
A few days later, Mirio brought Tamaki to gym Gamma. "Alright, Tamaki!" Mirio spoke similarly to how he spoke to the class 1-A kids. "Let's get you to dance, alright?"
Tamaki followed behind Mirio and asked, "Are you sure we're allowed to be here? The gym is supposed to be for training purposes."
"Yeah, and this is training! I made sure to sign all the papers with Izawa, so we should be good to go!"
As the two walked in, Tamaki noticed that there was another person already in the gym. She looked fairly young, had light blue skin, short dark blue hair, and was wearing a sleeveless sweatshirt and shorts. Tamaki was unsure if Mirio did sign the correct paperwork before the girl said with a smirk, "Is this the guy you were talking about, Mirio?"
"Sure is!" Mirio responded. "Tamaki, this is Kaoruko Awata. She works at Sir Nighteye's agency. She's also who I'm taking to the dance."
Tamaki walked up to Kaoruko and held out a hand while saying, "I- It's nice to meet you."
The blue-skinned girl responded by giving Tamaki a big hug, saying, "Nice to meet you too, Tamaki! Mirio told me a lot about you."
Tamaki couldn't respond immediately, since the girl was much stronger than she looked. Tamaki had trouble breathing until she let go of him.
Mirio laughed a bit before saying, "She's gonna be here to help you with dances that need another person. Just try not to freeze up, and you should do fine."
Tamaki then began his training. On his first day, he could barely dance to any songs that were being played. It seemed like he couldn't do worse. Then they tried slower music with Kaoruko. Tamaki could barely tap his foot to the tune, let alone hold the blue girl while dancing. Eventually they decided to stop for the day.
Mirio tried to cheer Tamaki up, saying, "Don't worry. We still have a couple weeks before the dance. This was just to understand the baseline of what we're working with."
Kaoruko added, "It's not like you can be good at something automatically. And even if you are, there's still plenty of room to improve."
Tamaki nodded and said, "Yeah, I guess so."
Kaoruko left the two heroes to go to their dorms. Tamaki flopped onto his bed as soon as he got into his room. Tamaki thought to himself, Maybe I should just tell Nejire I can't go. Maybe I can get Fat Gum to call an emergency at work before the dance.
At that moment, Tamaki heard his phone chime as he got a text. He picked up his phone and saw that Nejire had texted him.
N: Hey Hey
N: Just got some options from Yuyu
N: Should I wear yellow or red
N: The yellow one is sparkly
N: The red one is formal and is very soft
Tamaki noticed how excited Nejire seemed just from her texts. Tamaki texted Nejire back.
T: You should wear the yellow one.
N: That sounds great
N: It matches my quirk
N: Can't wait for the dance
Tamaki checked his phone for a few minutes to see if Nejire would send any more texts. After a few minutes of radio silence, he finally fell asleep.
Over the next few weeks Tamaki trained tirelessly with Mirio and Kaoruko. His improvement was very visible, and it almost started to be easy for Tamaki. Mirio had even brought one of the first years, Mina Ashido, to help Tamaki learn some moves. He was even able to get the courage to slow dance with Kaoruko for thirty seconds. After that, however, Tamaki would throw up from nervousness. Eventually, Tamaki was ready for the dance, and he was putting on his best outfit for the dance.
Tamaki heard a knock at the door, followed by the familiar voice of Mirio saying, "Hey Tamaki! You almost ready in there?"
Tamaki was having a bit of difficulty with his tie, but responded by saying, "Yeah, I'm fine. Is Nejire out there already?"
"Yup, she's just waiting outside."
"Okay." Tamaki finally got his yellow tie all tied. He straightened his suit quickly before grabbing a small plastic box from his desk.
Tamaki stepped out to the hallway, with Mirio responding, "Hey! Looking sharp, Tamaki."
Tamaki nodded and said, "I could say the same thing. I didn't think you could pull off a green tux."
Mirio laughed before saying, "Well, we should probably get our dates outside.
Tamaki and Mirio walked outside of the building's front door to see Nejire and Kaoruko talking to each other. Kaoruko wore a short green dress with several shimmering green orbs on them, almost like bubbles. When Tamaki looked at Nejire's outfit, he was frozen in awe. She wore a medium length yellow dress with several shimmering pieces of jewelry. The sparkling of the dress made her look like a shooting star or a fairy.
Nejire looked over to Tamaki, noticing his awestruck stare and smiling as she said, "You look nice too, Tamaki."
Because of that statement, Tamaki noticed that he was staring and immediately became red in the face while trying to say, "I- I got you a- a gift, Nejire."
Tamaki opened the plastic box to reveal a blue and yellow corsage. Nejire's face lit up as she looked at the arrangement of flowers.
Mirio looked over at the corsage and asked, "Where'd you get that, Tamaki? It looks amazing!"
"It's actually my mom's work. Her quirk lets her create flowers from her body, and she's gotten pretty good at arranging them." Tamaki then slowly grabbed the corsage and put it on Nejire's wrist, Nejire continuing to beam at the sight of the flowers.
Kaoruko looked towards Mirio with an impatient smirk before Mirio said, "Hey, why are you looking at me like that? I didn't know I was supposed to bring one of those."
The whole group laughed as they walked towards the dance.
The dance was being held in the middle of Ground Omega. Cementoss had been able to create a general dance floor in the middle, and the rest of the teachers and some of the support item class helped to create the decorations. The area was lit with a glow from fake fireflies and streamers seemed to hover over the edges of the dance floor. Ballons hovered around, bouncing across an invisible roof. Over by the edge of the dance floor was a table covered with fancy snack and sweets, which almost seemed to shimmer in the firefly lights.
When they arrived, Tamaki was slightly worried by the size of the crowd. Although he barely recognized anyone, everyone else seemed to recognize the Big Three walking into the event. Everyone was watching, and Tamaki immediately felt like leaving.
Mirio elbowed Tamaki before saying, "Calm down, buddy. Everything's going to be fine."
Nejire pulled at Tamaki's arm while saying, "Come on, let's go dance already!"
Tamaki looked out towards the dance floor and only saw a couple of people dancing. Butterflies immediately began to fill his stomach as he was being slowly dragged towards the literal center of attention.
Mirio interrupted Nejire, however, and said, "We should probably get something to eat first. I'm a little hungry."
Kaoruko caught on to what Mirio was doing and said, "Yeah, I'm starving. I could use something to make up for my missing corsage."
Tamaki walked with the group as he slowly calmed down. Once he had calmed back down, he noticed that Nejire had already grabbed a sparkly golden cupcake and taken a bite. She said to Tamaki, "These are really good. You gotta try this, Tamaki." Nejire then brought the partially eaten cupcake to Tamaki's mouth.
Tamaki slowly took a bite of the cupcake. It was extremely sweet, but not so sweet that it was overpowering. Lunch Rush must have made most of the food.
Eventually, the dance floor started to fill up, and Nejire finally brought Tamaki into the crowd. Mirio and Kaoruko joined them as well, filling in the gap to the outside of the dancing group. Although Tamaki was a little more stiff than usual, but he was managing to dance with Nejire. Tamaki tried focusing on Nejire, how she seemed so carefree as she danced. Her hair twirled around her shimmering dress, taking away Tamaki's attention from the crowd.
That enjoyment slowly started to fade as he noticed the crowd start to move. He noticed that there was a dance circle forming in the middle of the crowd. Tamaki started to become more nervous, especially as he noticed how close he was to the circle. His heart was beating faster and faster as he saw this in front of him. He felt like he was going to be sick until he thought he blacked out, barely able to tell what was going on around him.
Tamaki became even more confused by the sight of Nejire, Mirio, Kaoruko, and himself standing close together in a sweet-smelling bubble with nobody around.
Confused, Tamaki asked, "Wh- What happened? How long was I out for?"
Mirio let out a half-hearted chuckle before saying, "Well, I think it's safe to say that the dance won't be happening outside anymore."
Nejire was already rapidly recounting the story of what happened, saying, "Okay, so that whole dance circle formed, and a lot of the dances were cool, and one kid was even able to do the worm. But then in the middle of all of that, a family of skunks walked onto the floor. I was wondering if the skunks were going to dance, but they just stood there for a while. Then someone accidentally stepped on one and then they started spraying at the crowd and then Bibimi complained about getting some in her mouth and then Kaoruko grabbed us and put us in a bubble and then I noticed that you blacked out and then you asked what happened while you were out and then I started to tell you."
"Yeah, that's what happened," Kaoruko added, "I thought I could use a nice smelling bubble to counteract the skunk smell. It looks like it worked, but just in case..." She then placed smaller bubbles on everyone's heads before popping the bigger one they were standing in.
Tamaki looked around and saw that everyone had left the dance except for them. A few of the streamers were ripped from escape attempts from others. The snack table was knocked on it's side, either from hungry skunks wanting a snack or hungry kids wanting a treat before they escaped. The floor was covered with popped balloons and flower petals. Tamaki noticed a number of petals near him with a blue and yellow coloring. Tamaki immediately knew what this meant and looked towards Nejire. Sure enough, her corsage was almost completely destroyed, with only a few smaller flowers remaining.
Tamaki said with a remorseful tone, "I'm sorry. Your present probably wouldn't be ruined if I hadn't frozen and helped you. I'm so stupid, I-"
Nejire let out a loud laugh that caused the bubble around her head to shake before saying, "Tamaki, this was my fault, not yours. I bumped into others while dancing and I knocked most of the petals off. You were perfectly fine."
Tamaki felt a soft smile appear on his face before Mirio said, "Hey guys, it sounds like the music is still playing. Do you want to dance a bit before we head back?"
Nejire said to him, "Of course! We just got her half an hour ago, why not get one more song?"
Tamaki heard the music and noticed that it was a slow song. He remembered how nervous he got during those songs and was worried he would throw up again. Before he could do anything, however, Nejire was in front of him, a gentle smile on her face. Tamaki forgot all about his nerves and began to dance slowly with her.
Mirio and Kaoruko stood to the side and watched Tamaki and Nejire dancing. Kaoruko whispered to him, "Are you sure he won't get nervous?"
Mirio nodded and whispered, "I'm sure. My buddy may not have the bravery of a lion, but he always manages to calm down whenever Nejire's around."
Tamaki and Nejire continued to dance in the dim light, not worried about anything but each other as they spun around under the starry night sky. Tamaki realized he may not always be able to get over his nerves to dance all the time with Nejire, but this was close enough for him, and that was all he cared about.