You didn’t expect to fall in love during your exchange year.

Not with him, at least. Not with Katsuki Bakugo. The loud, sharp-tongued, antisocial pain-in-the-ass who'd glared at you like you'd personally insulted Japan by existing.

But you needed help navigating UA, and he was half German, so when Aizawa assigned him to help you with your Japanese, he couldn’t say no.

At first, he hated it. You weren’t too thrilled either. He was cold, impatient, explosive in more ways than one. But he was fluent in your mother tongue, and you—after years of struggling with kanji—could finally ask someone why Japanese had three alphabets.

It was a deal. He helped you pass your language classes, you helped him brush up on his German.

Somewhere along the way, that mutual annoyance turned into banter. Banter turned into flirting. And before you knew it, he kissed you on the roof of the dorms during your last month at UA.

Fast-forward six years.

You're twenty-five now. A pro-hero, a mom, and married to the same guy who once refused to lend you a pencil in class. You’d moved to Japan permanently after graduation. Your daughter, Katsumi, was two years old. Blonde like him, scowly like him, but had your eyes.

It was important to you that she grew up with both parts of her heritage. That she knew why her name was spelled the way it was. That “Oma” (Grandma) and “Opa” (Grandpa) weren’t just weird words.

So, you’d enrolled her in a bilingual Japanese-German daycare.

That’s what brought you here. Standing in the hallway, holding your husband’s hand, both of you eyeing the teacher suspiciously.

"Is she speaking German at all?" you ask her, voice low. "Because... she doesn't. At home, I mean."

The teacher blinks at you like you’ve just grown another head. “Of course she does,” she says in perfect German. “We only speak to her in German. She responds, understands, even sings.”

You frown. “At home, when we talk to her in German, she just stares at us.”

The teacher shrugs. “Well, she’s very talkative here. She even teaches the other kids words sometimes.”

Beside you, Katsuki snorts.

“Little scammer,” he mutters.

You’re still processing when the daycare door creaks open and a tiny voice yells, “Mama! Papa!”

Katsumi’s hair is in wild pigtails, her face smudged with chocolate, a crayon clutched in one hand. She barrels toward you in full-speed toddler mode, nearly tripping over her own shoes.

She throws her arms around your legs. “Mama, I drew a cat!” she announces in Japanese.

“Did you, Schatz (= dear)?” you say, switching to German, kneeling down. “Zeig mal. Show me.”

She freezes.

Blank stare. Head tilt. Then slowly, deliberately, she looks over at Katsuki and points at you.

“Papa, Mama speaking funny.”

Katsuki raises an eyebrow. “That funny language got you into this daycare, kid.”

She ignores him. “Mama, talk normal!”

The teacher coughs behind you.

You stand up, adjusting Katsumi on your hip. She squints at you like she suspects you're about to launch into another string of weird words she’s pretending not to understand.

Katsuki leans in close, whispering to you in German, “Maybe she just doesn’t want us in on her daycare gossip.”

You sigh. “You think she’s faking not understanding us?”

“I’d do the same shit if I was her age,” he says, deadpan.

You look down at your two-year-old, who is now humming a German lullaby under her breath while trying not to make eye contact.

“She’s literally speaking my mother tongue behind my back at daycare,” you said.

“Don’t worry,” Katsuki said, cracking his knuckles. “I’ll get her to talk.”

That night, while tucking her in, he whispered something in German. Something about letting her stay up an extra hour tomorrow if she’d say just one thing. Anything.

Katsumi’s face lit up.

“Noch eine Folge Peppa Wutz bitte?” she said. ("Another episode of Peppa Pig please")

You gasped from the doorway. She turned slowly. Eyes wide. Caught.

“Little scammer,” Katsuki grinned.