#i actually had a stupid comic idea in my head about heromari in this au (kinda) but i never got to drawing it

[kiisaes]

Are Mari and hero dating in the catholic school au or do they not know each other?

they're neither! they're best friends teetering on dating, but aren't officially an item. they knew each other from high school (went to the same catholic school as sunny, kel, aubrey and basil do now) and shared a few honors/AP classes together. they found out they went to the same college through random coincidence and grew closer there!

i'd imagine that since hero and mari weren't extremely close buddies growing up, there was less of a reason for them to hang out outside of school. they were both super busy with academics and religion and mari's dad wouldn't let her hang out with any boys anyway. gotta love that good ol' conservative separation of the sexes (totally not speaking from my own experience here)

in college, they're content with being friends, even though both are pining for each other pretty non-discretely tbh. like they're platonic enough but also lowkey flirty and their college friends all think something going on here. since their relationship started later in their lives than it does in canon, i like to think that both are almost too self-aware at this stage in life where they don't want to risk their stroke-of-fate friendship

anywayyyy here's some catholic school au heromari, bc holy shit? i haven't drawn them at ALL????

they're kinda just college interpretations of the characters, not directly connected to catholic school au, since the catholic school aspect of this au doesn't regularly relate to them anymore. but this is how i imagine they'd look and act

(also, bc hero and mari didn't hang out outside of school during their high school years, neither of them have properly met the others' sibling, making sunny and kel's meeting more coincidental too. not like hero or mari could ever inform kel or sunny about their friend's sibling prior to meeting; they're in college lol, why would they care)