Word Count: 4,600

It felt so strange to be home, to walk the familiar-yet-now-different streets of her childhood and youth. Children played, old ladies gossiped, and it seemed like everyone over the age of thirty was playing mahjong. The small town of Momo's childhood was bustling and laughing as though she had never left.

Yet she still noticed the hushed whispers and lingering looks some people gave her as she rode through town. She wondered if they recognized her still. Unlikely, she thought. It had been months since she'd left, and if the short hair, tanned skin, and more prominent muscles hadn't altered her appearance enough, her experiences surely did.

Still, she sighed to herself. "I just don't know how I'm going to adapt to civilian life again, Uraraka," she lamented. "I don't know how I'm going to adapt to everyone seeing me as my old self again. Like, that's not quite who I am anymore?"

Uraraka wriggled out from beneath the folds of Momo's dress and cocked her head at the girl. "Well, you're still you beneath all that. Being a soldier did change you, but…" she paused, thinking about how to put it. "Well, it's harder to describe to someone who hasn't seen many people come and go and grow up through the ages, but the core that makes you you, Momo, is still the same as it was before you left. You're still kind and thoughtful, and you still strive to meet expectations and standards. All war has done to you really is forge that core from its raw potential into hardened, steely beauty."

A wispy smile began to form on Momo's lips. "Thank you," she said quietly, with warm, fuzzy feelings flooding her chest. "That means a lot to me, actually."

But rather than a proper response, Uraraka chirped in surprise and dove back into the dress, and at first, Momo didn't get why, but then—

"Oh, did your parents finally cut you a break and let you out of the house?"

Startled, Momo tugged on the reins; Iida fussed for a moment, then stopped just shy of a familiar, ginger-haired girl. "Itsuka," she said, a smile tugging at her lips at the sight of her childhood friend. She was suddenly very glad that she had decided to stay out of her uniform on the ride home, glad that she'd learn to roll with whatever happened to hit her in the face at the moment and just wing it. "Yeah, they did."

Itsuka nodded and began walking in the direction of their homes. Momo followed on Iida. "Must've been rough, studying day in and day out," Itsuka commented. "Nobody's seen you for months! It was almost like you fell off the face of the earth. I was talking with Camie about it over tea the other day. I'm glad my parents didn't have such an extreme response when my matchmaker meeting went awry."

"You're not betrothed?"

It was a simple question. To Momo, who hadn't thought much of regular life in forever, it made perfect sense to ask, but it made Itsuka stop again.

She turned around slowly and studied Momo for a prolonged period of time. "You weren't really locked up all these months, were you?" she asked, though it was framed more like a statement.

It suddenly fully hit Momo that nobody but her parents knew she had left town. To everyone else she had known for forever, she was no Haku. She was Momo, the daughter of the Yaoyorozus who failed so miserably at her matchmaking appointment that, as she was just now belatedly realizing, she spent all her days inside studying to be a proper lady. To them, she was no war hero.

"No. No, I wasn't," Momo admitted with a smile. "I was… out of town."

"Oh? Where? Which relatives did you stay with? How was it?"

She thought for a moment about all her days in training camp, of all the hours spent working out with Kirishima, of all the late nights spent laughing with Kyouka, of all the early mornings spent poking fun of Denki. She thought of the long marches between camps, of Kirishima's biweekly wrestling matches with Tetsutetsu, of the Sunday evening campfires with Shoto.

Shoto.

Momo swallowed hard, then put on a smile. "It was so incredible, you wouldn't believe me if I told you about it."

Itsuka hummed knowingly, leaving Momo to wonder if she was merely pretending. "No, I suppose not," she agreed. She gave Iida a quick pat on the nose and began to walk away. "Give your mother my regards."

"I will."

Strange how close Momo had been to a fate like Itsuka's: still unmarried, but content with where she was.

She dismounted Iida just outside the gate to her home. Pulling out a now half-rusted key, she unlocked it and let herself in.

"Mother? Father?" she called as she led her horse inside. "Grandmother? I'm home."

Two older women came running out.

"Momo?" one of them called, and the girl in question smiled. "Momo!" Mrs. Yaoyorozu didn't even bother to be graceful as she tackled her daughter in a hug, sobbing all the while. "You're home, you're home, you're home at last."

Momo stroked her mother's hair. "I'm so sorry I worried you," she said while giving her grandmother a nod in greeting. "But it's something I had to do."

"Momo," her mother gently said, cupping her daughter's face in her hands, "If you'd listened only to me, to your grandmother, to your father— you wouldn't be the daughter I'm so proud of today."

Momo flushed, embarrassed at the rare compliment. "And look!" she said, quickly brushing it aside and changing the subject once more. She pulled Shigaraki's sword out of its bundling on Iida's back and the emperor's medal out from underneath her shirt. "I've brought home this sword and medallion as tokens of appreciation from Emperor Nezu himself. They're symbols of honor to declare the Yaoyorozu name as worthy of the emperor himself. Where's father? I'd like to talk to him."

Her grandmother pointed in the direction of the courtyard pond. "He's over there, mumbling to himself about the trees in the courtyard. He's been kind of out of it since you left, talking nonstop about starting an orchard or whatever, but I'm sure he'll be glad to see you."

Momo nodded, gently prying her crying mother off of her. "Thank you," she said, and led Iida over to the stables before plodding over to see her father again.

Grandmother Yaoyorozu watched Momo walk over to greet her father. "So she comes back with a hunk of metal and a sword," she huffed to her daughter as the latter wiped away her tears. "If you ask me, she should have brought home a man!"

"Ohh, leave her be," Mrs. Yaoyorozu chided, pretending to play-slap the old woman. "Just be happy she's still on this earth to take care of you in your old age."

Grandmother shrugged good-naturedly. "Could always make me happier, daughter-in-law Futaba."

(Aside, Mrs. Yaoyorozu rolled her eyes.)

Kyouka leant against her broomstick for a moment as she stared up at the sky. There were just a few clouds caught in its dull blue, which would have made it near picturesque had there been some actual fucking leaves on these damn trees. They weren't quite there yet, but winter had never been her favorite season.

She sighed and dropped her gaze back down to the ground, where the dust and dead matter still lay, ready to be swept up and disposed of. A chilly breeze stung her cheeks and ruffled her hems, creeping up her back through a bad seam, but she bit back a shiver and resumed sweeping. She'd put up with worse.

It was one of those moments when she missed her friends the most; farm life was a lot lonelier than she remembered. Since she'd been gone, her favorite cousin had been married off, and a new in-law had settled in to replace her. She didn't much like the in-law. She always looked like she hated everyone, as if she could have done so much better than what she'd actually gotten.

Well, sis, I hate to break it to you, but this is what you've got to work with now, Kyouka thought, the bitterness amplified by her loneliness. She squinted up at her in-law's window. So do your damn chores.

Someone knocked on the gate, a few quick, messy taps that sounded as if the knocker just couldn't wait to see what was on the other side, as if it had come out all in a rush. How peculiar.

"I'll get it," Kyouka called. She leant her broom against the wall, gathered her skirts, and jogged up to the front gate, not really caring that whoever had come was going to see her looking like a mess. No one ever came all the way out here other than the neighbors (a term used quite loosely, as the nearest property was some ways down the road) or delivering some new decree from the emperor. Whichever it was, they didn't care how she looked.

That's what she thought, of course.

"Hi," Denki said, that dumb grin on his face lighting up her entire world in the span of an instant. He looked at her as if no time had passed at all since they parted at the emperor's palace, as if he loved her all the same if not more. He shoved a basket of something at her. "Marry me."

Kyouka's hand froze halfway to her face, leaving a strand of hair fallen before her eyes in total shock. "Shut. Up."

It was strange, riding home. Alone. Just the two of them and their two horses, with no caravan of soldiers following behind them. It was just the two of them, Eijirou and Katsuki. Katsuki and Eijirou. (It had actually been surprising to Ei, the fact that Katsuki apparently lived in the same direction as he, just a few kilometers more distant.)

And now they'd walked the distance to Eijirou's house, spanning what should have taken forever and a day compressed into what actually felt like three days.

Three days was too short a time frame for Eijirou. There had been so much that had gone on in their short time together, and now there were to be just three short days together to close it all off? Was that even possible?

Eijirou had no answer even now, faced with it, standing before the gate to his house. It still didn't feel real.

He and Katsuki exchanged glances, whatever conversation they'd just been having already vaporized by the moment. What was there to say? I guess this is goodbye then? It felt like it deserved a little better than just a goodbye though.

Eijirou chewed his lip. They might visit in the future— might. Might.

He dismounted, his grip on the reins the only thing that kept him from trembling slightly. The redhead pulled an old key from some hidden pocket and turned away to fiddle with the gate lock. "So," he said, swallowing that strange feeling of not-quite fear and realizing that almost never had he spoken aloud his true thoughts. (Was now really a good time though?) "I guess this is goodbye, then."

A grunt. After that one moment where their eyes met, it felt strangely difficult now to even look at one another. What a bother. And when Ei had gone through all that trouble of becoming braver, too.

He took in his next breath rather loudly, but the near-gasp was nothing compared to the confession that came next. "I'm getting married soon."

Katsuki looked at him now, his eyes unabashedly wide with dumb shock. "What the fuck?" he asked, and Eijirou could see where that was coming from. This wasn't something he really shared with anyone, though Denki knew snippets.

Ei took a breath, and he let it out. He kind of only said that for the shock value, but he was also very scared of the now very-real possibility that it might be true. He nervously shifted his weight around and rather unconsciously hid behind the iron bars of the gate. "Well, it's not really something I want, I'll tell you that for sure. It's more like something my grandma was pushing on me before I left. She's wanted me to marry the neighbor girl since we were babies, but the thing is, I'm not really into girls, so it just seems like a, a, a—"

"A shitty idea all around?" Katsuki supplied, and Eijirou nodded.

"You know what they say," Eijirou solemnly said. "You can't say no to Grandma."

Katsuki snorted and crossed his arms. "That's something only shitty old farts would say. I mean, neither you nor I are boys anymore. Not saying going to war turned us into men, but we've seen shit by now. We've learned more than some cranky old housewife probably. You're not a bad bitch, Ei. Make your own decisions. I think your neighbor girl wouldn't like to be married to some fucking flower vase if she could help it."

"Well, would you?" Eijirou quipped back. Oh, fuck, I'm flirting.

Katsuki flashed a grin. "You might find this surprising, but I actually fucking love flowers."

Wait, but if he always called Momo Peony, then does that mean—

He was brought out of his thoughts by a sudden snap in front of his eyes, and Eijirou yelped in surprise.

"Peonies are Hapa's thing, Shitty Hair. Learn to analyze in the right direction."

Okay, now that just made things more confusing. Eijirou was a simple man. He liked manly things and manly men. He also liked it when people didn't talk him in circles and said what they meant. Which, to be fair, he himself hasn't really done yet. (So now was the time.) "You know, I'm not saying that marriage is a bad idea either," he said, careful in his words. Katsuki cocked an eyebrow at him in a look that half beckoned him to continue, half challenged his statement altogether.

"Well, I'd be pickier about whom I'm marrying if I were you," he said, gruffly.

"That's why I'd want to marry you."

There! He said it! Now nothing was in his hands and it would probably just be best if he wandered into the woods and died! Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! He'd say he picked up too much from Katsuki at this point, but that would mean he regretted their time together, and he DIDN'T. But maybe Katsuki did then in which case it was time to wander into the woods and die, but—

In reality, Katsuki grinned at him, looking almost like he was going to laugh. "Finally," he said. "If I got to choose, I wouldn't pick anyone other than you."

(Eijirou's heart plain stopped here, when Katsuki looked him dead in the eye and delivered his next line.)

"It has to be you."

There was the standard beat of silence, that quick pause that anyone would expect when something was said that would take anyone aback. Then, of course, both their faces turned rather flushed, but by then, it was impossible for them to look away.

"…Well, just wanted to let you know you had options if you wanted them," Katsuki said at last, turning aside and readying to set off again.

"Wait," Eijirou called, though he didn't actually have to speak so loudly; Katsuki listened to him, after all. (Katsuki did, in fact, turn around for him.) Eijirou swallowed hard, but now that he was doing it, nothing actually felt as bad as the anticipation. "Come here for a second, and dismount."

Katsuki did, in fact, comply for him.

.

.

.

"I love you."

.

.

.

Another pause.

.

.

.

.

.

A much longer pause than the first one.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The iron bars that made up the gate would testify, however, that there was rather more that happened between them in that rather long pause.

.

.

.

.

When they parted at last, Eijirou was feeling pretty good, having made promises just then between the bars. He hummed as he led Riot back to their home stables, suddenly not so scared of whatever his grandmother had in store for him and his return.

Meanwhile, Katsuki rode home all in a daze. His thoughts were few and far-between, and even then, they were fleeting. Arriving home, he hardly recalled getting through the gate and settling his horse in the stables.

He huffed as he entered the house again, though not for any particular reason. Taking three steps in, he could already hear his old mother gabbing away to someone. He could easily figure out who, but he still wasn't in the mood to say anything to her even though it had been weeks, months, since he'd accidentally kinda-not-really-but-also-still-kinda-yeah killed-but-not-murdered her only son.

Thinking about all those dumb dog tags Eijirou picked up just made him feel worse about the ordeal. Not like he hadn't known how hard and personal the death of a son was to the direct family the whole time; he'd just rather have left it behind for the time.

Well, what kind of man would he be if he didn't face this kind of crap sometimes?

"I'm home," he grumbled as he passed by the tea room, and the two women conversing there stopped dead and turned to watch him walk away.

"Nice to see you home in one piece, Kacchan," his mother said, her voice less rough than he remembered. "Where's the dog tag so that we know you're not an apparition?"

Scowling, Katsuki snapped off the wooden tag and flung it at his mother. (Wow, the people here got on his nerves faster than he remembered.) "Good day to you, Mrs. Midoriya," he mumbled as he passed them by.

"O-oh, well, good day to you too, K-Ka-K-Kacchan," the green-haired woman replied, sounding surprisingly less nervous than she had before he left.

"Is it just me, or did something happen to him while he was gone?" he heard her ask his mother as he left for his room. The question itself rather irritated him; of course stuff happened to him! He went to war! Did they think that was just some walk through the orchards? Sheesh.

"I'll tell you about it when Mrs. Green Bean over there is gone," Katsuki called over his shoulder. "Okay, ya old hag?"

"…Seems to me more like the more things change, the more things stay the same," his mother snipped.

(Katsuki held in the urge to roll his eyes. There really was a lot to cover later on that he rather wanted to keep hushed up until Ei's business got resolved.)

Denki pushed the basket at her again, prompting her to take it from him, albeit rather dazedly. "Marry me," he asked her again, tempted to take that step forward and narrow down a bit more of the distance between them, to take her hands and ask her in earnest a third time.

Kyouka blinked once, twice, then shook her head, looking frankly a little more pissed than Denki had hoped. Not that he'd been wishing she'd be pissed in the first place, of course, so really that meant she couldn't have been all that pissed, right?

Right.

"I'm poor," was the first excuse that fell from her lips, as she fidgeted with the basket of zongzi. She looked away, as if embarrassed of this confession.

"Not a problem," Denki said, shrugging. She'd be marrying into his family anyway. They weren't gentry class, they weren't of any political influence, they weren't of a military lineage, but did any of that really matter?

"You won't get a good dowry out of me," was the second one, spoken as though she had lost the brave edge of their adventures to some demure stranger.

"Doesn't matter," Denki replied. He had to actively fight the temptation to reach out to her and lift her chin up to meet his gaze. He'd be gentle, of course, though he didn't doubt for a second that she could kick his ass if she wanted to.

The basket crackled and snapped beneath the pressure of Kyouka's grip, and suddenly, his heart broke. She started crying.

"I'm scared," she said, and her voice sounded like the broken melody of a thawing stream. Soft, cracking, but bubbling still beneath.

It was that song of hers that mended his soul again while also filling his soul with an indescribable, aching longing. Denki took a step closer to her, reached out his hand to touch her tear-stained face, and she let him. All that was between them now was the basket of his mother's zongzi that, he hoped at least, she would take.

"It's okay," he said, whispered, almost murmured. "I'm here."

He held her there until the winds didn't feel so cold anymore, until the crows didn't sound so harsh anymore, until the tears didn't flow anymore. Then, when it seemed all the world had quieted, he asked his question again.

"Will you marry me?"

The basket fell to the ground as Kyouka flung her arms around him, crying again, but laughing this time too.

"Yes."

Shoto was nervous, walking up to the Yaoyorozu home all on his own. He'd wasted so much time just getting there, learning where it was, prying the information out of the few people in his house willing to give it up. (Touya was very much not on that list of people willing to allow her address to transpire, insisting that, "it was a cool sword; they should really just keep it and let her come fetch it herself it she wanted it back so bad.")

But, well, here he was. Standing in front of their gate one morning in the second month. It was a surprisingly wet-feeling day, what with the half-melted snow puddles lying about, reflecting the fluffy clouds in the blue sky oh-so beautifully. But now he was simply dawdling, prolonging the inevitable. What was there to even be scared of? He wasn't scared of Yaoyorozu. She'd never scared him. Why would she start scaring him now?

(Because now he knew he was in loooove— shut up, thoughts.)

He took in a breath, and he let it out.

He knocked on the gate.

Kind of. It was made of iron bars, but there was a— oh, nevermind. At any rate, two older women came over to greet him. Her mother and grandmother, he realized now. He swallowed hard. At last, the point of no return.

"Excuse me," he said, sounding shy even to himself, "but is this the Yaoyorozu residence?"

"This would be the place," the younger of the two replied from the other side of the fence.

"I'm looking for…" Here he trailed off, unsure of what to call her. "Momo," he decided at last, her true name still sounding foreign on his tongue.

"Momo?" the old woman suddenly cut in, sounding as if she'd never heard that name in her life. "What are you wanting with our little orchid in bloom?"

"Mother, stop making up weird phrases. This boy doesn't look like a poet, so we shouldn't confuse him as such," the other woman chided. She sighed and shook her head, but she still smiled at Shoto. "Yes, she's been home for quite some time now. Are you Captain Todoroki? She's spoken of you both well and often."

Shoto blinked at the women. "Was it the hair?" he blurted because honestly when did he ever have any sense of self-control, like, ever?

The women tittered with laughter, obviously amused by his dumb question. "Well, this has got to be him," the older woman commented. "From what she's told us, that's exactly how he would reply."

(Shoto really wasn't sure how to respond to that.)

"She's out in the courtyard," the woman Shoto now lately realized was probably Yaoyorozu's mother told him kindly as she opened the gate to let him in.

"Thank you," Shoto mumbled on his way inside, ducking his head out embarrassment and tightening his grip on the sword he came to deliver. (Man, was he glad he turned down both Touya and Fuyumi's offers of accompaniment.)

(("Whoo! You can sign me up for the next war!"))

She was right where the older women had said she'd be, out in the courtyard. And yet, she also wasn't quite there, not all the way. It took his breath away, the way she looked, playing with the cherry blossom buds of a low-hanging branch, sitting on a white bench by a pond that stood so still it looked like a portal into heaven. He wasn't close enough to see her face quite yet, and the branches obscured her anyway, but he could hear her laughter ringing clearly through the air, making his heart skip a beat.

She was there, and he was scared. She was real, and he? He wasn't so sure anymore.

Ah, but her sword was real, and it brought his head out of the clouds and back down to earth. Swallowing the fear of a thousand armies, he marched up to her.

"Hey," he said.

She looked at him, her mouth in a little 'o' shape from surprise.

"You forgot your sword," he blurted out before she could say anything, shoving the object in her direction. Then, his face flushed, "Well, I suppose it's actually your father's sword, but I mean, you're the one who used it and—"

Momo took the sword from him with a soft smile. "Would you like to stay for dinner?" she offered with a soft smile.

"WOULD YOU LIKE TO STAY FOREVER?" Grandmother Yaoyorozu yelled, making Shoto flinch. (Both he and Momo blushed too, but both he and Momo were also too embarrassed to notice it on each other.)

"D-dinner's fine."

"FOR NOW!"

Shoto shot Momo an uneasy glance. "Is she always like this?"

Momo giggled. "Only when she sees a handsome young man." She tucked the sword into her belt and punched him lightly on the arm. "Let's go," she said with another smile, this time able to look at him again.

Shoto felt his face grow ever-warmer. "Y-yeah."

Uraraka sat upon a cherry blossom bough, Deku perched by her side, and watched as the two humans walked away together, their hands close but not quite touching. She smiled contentedly, and Deku half purred, half chirruped there next to her.

They'd all get there someday.

Author's Note xx. so i actually wrote most of this on my phone bc from christmas until new year's day i was on a trip to see relatives way up north. and i couldn't bring my laptop bc airplane security. and that's also why this final epilogue was posted to ao3 yesterday but not here to ff bc i'm *coughcough*LAZY.

but yeah i actually finished this in the span of pretty much exactly one year. like, i finished the final words then had to go upstairs where everyone was tittering about the literal last minute of 2018. so yeah this is pretty neat! it's my longest work. and it was finished within a year. for a continuous publishing, that's my record. i'm p proud of this yeah.

so traditionally i like to have thank yous here rather than babble abt the chapter itself, so. thank you amandineylan, thank you happyloveygirl for being Those Regular(-ish) reviewers. thank you to that one guest who said they only really kept track of this story (and then i kept dropping off the face of the earth with updates ahhhh). thank you to literally all eighty-eight of you who decided this was worth a follow because holy shit, y'all. that's a ton! this is honestly by far my most popular multichapter that i've ever published, so frankly it's been an honor to have so many of you along for thee ride.

thank you to everyone who read and lurked; thank you to everyone who followed without an account. thank you to everyone who left me kind words when i cried about my ap score (even though that note is ultimately what let my first year chem teacher find my fanfiction during the fanfiction fiasco lmao); all of you mean so much to me. basically yeah just thank you for everything. i never could have dreamed this would happen to my little mulan au c':

but yeah! there should be a sequel at some point, but i do plan on publishing the school band/soulmate au multichapter until then so. i hope you guys like kamijirou lol. just really be ready for anything i might drop. :)

((that's one of the ominous smiley faces))

anyway. this is HuaFeiHua, signing out for the last time on orchid.

xoxoxoxo