Yuta and Maki landed with a soft plop on a wide, open beach. The sun was warm, the wind was calm, and the waves gently lapped at the shore.

Maki sat up, brushing sand from her arms, her dress all but ruined by the dirt. However, unlike most girls, she wasn't mad—she had never been that attached to the dress in the first place. She only wore it because of the date.

And Yuta paid for them, so who was she to say what he did with them? There was a big possibility it might have been torn later tonight anyway.

'Though I doubt that,' she muttered, gazing at the clear blue sky above her. It wasn't evening anymore but almost early morning.

"Where are we now? Is this another world already?" she muttered. Now, that was one thing she was definitely mad about—if they were going to another world, then at least he could have warned her. She would have packed—or at least not come here in a dress.

Though even she knew that this teleportation thing wasn't under Yuta's control.

'Sigh, I might have chosen a troublesome partner...'

Yuta didn't answer right away. He stood up, looking around, eyes wide, his mind still clouded with whatever had affected him earlier.

'Was that Itachi?' he couldn't help but question himself, finding the situation ridiculous.

The beach wasn't unfamiliar to him. In fact, it felt like something out of his memories. He walked a few steps forward, then stopped.

"…Takoba Municipal Beach Park," he muttered.

Maki blinked. "What?"

"This place. We haven't come to another world. It's a place in my home world. Walk 20 minutes east of here and you'll reach my apartment," Yuta said, turning to her. "I used to train here at the beginning of my journey."

The sand was clean. The air felt fresh. There were no piles of trash or rusted appliances. The beach looked alive, like it had been taken care of.

Yuta knew Deku had done that in the story, however, that never actually stopped others from dumping more junk here afterward. In only a few months, the park was already back to its junkyard state.

However, this view from here… he felt like he had seen it before—not something he could see even after cleaning this place up.

"It feels like I have come back in time," Yuta said.

Maki looked around. "Well, at least it's not another pirate ship..."

Yuta chuckled nervously.

Maki stood beside him, arms crossed. "So? You gonna explain what that was back there? You suddenly ate that devil fruit out of nowhere, then turned into a human lamp, and now—poof—we're here?" Maki furrowed her brows.

"I… don't know," Yuta admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "That letter inside the box—I think it had an illusion inside it. Compelled me to take the fruit from your hand and eat it. Then we were here..." Yuta shook his head, like even he wasn't sure what had happened back there.

"So, basically," Maki said, narrowing her eyes, "you got hypnotised and dragged me into your weird glowing mess?"

"Hey... it's now our weird glowing mess." Yuta cheekily put it and shrugged.

Maki sighed deeply. "Next time you find a cursed fruit, we both bite it together."

"It's called Devil—nah, forget it. Cursed fruits doesn't sound half bad either. As for next time, I might as well explode before that. One fruit per person, remember."

"Ah, yes." Maki recalled the little bit of information she had learned in the pirate world.

"Don't worry, I'll delete your history," she said, bumping his arm playfully.

"How too kind of you." Now it was Yuta's turn to roll his eyes.

They both laughed, but the confusion still hung heavy between them. With no clues, no instructions, and no idea why—or when—they were, there was only one thing to do.

"Let's head out," Yuta said. "You promised me a date."

"I'm a mess..." Maki looked down at her clothes, filled with sand and her make-up all ruined. Then she looked at him with a pointed look, as if to say he was responsible for this.

"The same as the state of my life. You'll fit right in. Let's go." He grinned... and Maki had no other choice but to agree. A faint smile formed on her face.

Just knowing that they were still in their original world was enough for them to decide to do what they had originally planned: go on their first date.

The city was just a short train ride away. Maki walked beside Yuta, looking around with curious eyes. She had never seen this world in such detail before. Yuta, however, seemed distracted.

As they strolled down the street, Yuta's eyes scanned everything—the shops, the posters, the vehicles. His brow slowly furrowed more and more.

Maki tilted her head. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Yuta said quickly, forcing a smile. "It's just... things feel a bit off."

"How so?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"I don't know," he muttered. "Maybe it's nothing. I've just been gone from this world a long time." He shrugged.

But deep down, Yuta knew something was wrong. There was something different about this place which he just couldn't place his finger on.

He could tell because there was a time in his life when he had developed a hyper-focused attention to things around him—a time when he was weak and had to stay cautious.

Few of the habits stayed with him. He could pick on this things unconsciously even.

He didn't want to ruin the date, though. Maki was smiling, excited, and happy. So he kept it to himself.

They walked through an arcade, played a few games (Maki won most of them, of course—he could have used his Sharingan, but that would have been overkill), then visited a small takoyaki stand. Yuta even blushed when she teased him for staring at her too long.

Despite the weirdness, the date was going well. It was much different than what had happened with Toru.

Somehow all of his dates got ruined. His first date was ruined by Shigaraki—it felt like that was ages ago.

Then Rika...

This date too had started strangely, but still, it was good. They were having fun. It was just the lingering feeling in the back of his mind that wouldn't let him rest easy.

Still, he was going to enjoy this normal date until...

Until they heard shouting from a nearby street.

Yuta and Maki turned to see people running—a man holding a sack was jumping over a car, laughing.

"A robbery?" Maki asked.

"Looks like it," Yuta replied. "Nothing serious, though. Just someone using their quirk to steal. This used to happen a lot back when quirks first appeared. It took a long time for the government to rein it in. It never stopped completely until All Might, the number one hero, debuted.

However, All Might has retired now, so crime is climbing high again," he explained.

After a little impromptu history lesson, he was about to step in and stop the robbery, but then a figure dashed in from the side, landing in front of the robber with ease. The man wore a white jumpsuit and a yellow scarf. He was pretty old.

Yuta's eyes narrowed. He knew the man... or Gran...

"Gran Torino?" he whispered in disbelief.

'Hasn't he retired almost a decade ago?' Yuta had no idea why this old man was reliving his glory days again.

Maki blinked. "Who?"

"That's Gran Torino," Yuta muttered. "An old hero who retired a long time ago."

The small, speedy hero made quick work of the robber, knocking him out with a swift kick and tying him up for the police.

Yuta had a good gut feeling for when things were about to go wrong, and now his gut was telling him it was going to go volcanic anytime soon.

"Hey Maki... you mind a movie?" he asked offhandedly.

"Ah... no. But isn't this a little too early for that?" Maki thought they could go for a movie later in the evening.

"O-Okay. We'll do it later then. However, let's visit a café or something—I'm starving."

"Hmm, okay."

xxx

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