Chapter 32
Sweet Dreams

The weekend had marked itself as perhaps one of the worst weekends of Aizawa's life: underlined in black in the processes of his mind and committed to memory as one disaster after the next – as if Yukio and the Voodoo revelation hadn't been enough, Rin had also spent the whole of Sunday being horrendously moody and unaffectionate. Skulking from kitchen to bedroom to bathroom with either strong coffee in her hand or her hand over her mouth, she'd said close to nothing. Had hardly even glanced in Aizawa's direction. And though she'd puked and slept most of the day away, almost tempting Aizawa to put it all down to the unpleasantries of a hangover, she had also locked herself into stiff and steely silence before he'd even left the bed.

Aizawa didn't press her for answers, the taste of vulnerability perhaps still too raw upon her tongue. However, it had been with his own tight-headed sense of irritation that he'd left Rin to bite back her words. After he'd asked her about the nightmares – after he'd pried a little too much and apparently struck a nerve – she'd shot up to sit, eyes digging into him though her hand floated against his cheek in a gentle uneasiness. "People have nightmares about all sorts of things," she'd said, too impassioned and perhaps too quick, failing to be lulling.

"Yes," Aizawa had muttered in reply. "But what do you have nightmares about specifically?"

And as he had come to realise, she was a bad liar. "I don't know."

"Don't you?"

She'd stared at him dully, and without another word curled herself back into the entanglement of the bedsheets. Their bedsheets. Ever tousled, the smell of her and of him melding into something perfect in all its natural rightness. She'd bowed herself tighter, as though pressing herself into a defensive shell, when Aizawa ran the backs of his fingers down her nape; she'd said nothing when he told her not to be so self-protective. That he only wanted her to let him in.

But she sank further into herself – and so Aizawa left her alone.

What sort of answer he'd expected from her, he still wasn't sure, and as Sunday melted gradually into Monday Aizawa began to wonder why he'd even wanted an answer in the first place. Rin left the dormitories too early for him to see her, and she didn't leave her office for coffee or lunch at any time that Aizawa knew of. His class was focused – he was not, grumbling through his lessons with a disengaged frustration. Too much had happened. Children were being stolen from right under their noses – and though Aizawa resisted likening those children to his students – it could have been them – the sneaking anxiety still clawed at him. Here he was teaching, walling himself in with some ridiculous attempt at normality, while he was perhaps one of the few people who knew that Doctor Voodoo was alive.

That his jaws were poised over any number of unsuspecting victims; that he was dazzling in his hearty warmth all for the sake of luring children down a road to hell. Children. Children – and how young were those children? Toddlers? Babies? At random moments throughout the day, Aizawa shuddered. He nearly vomited after lunch, his neck going numb upon his shoulders as he leaned over his desk in the teachers' office. Trying to be subtle as he clutched his stomach. Controlled his breathing. Saying nothing when Yamada pointed out how much paler than usual he was.

And at the back of his mind: Rin's face. Though in the moment Aizawa had perhaps been too anaesthetized by shock to really notice, it was possible now to look back with piercing clarity. How her features had crumbled like sand in water, or flowers wilting, or wood burning up into ash. The monstrous thud of her heartbeat, and how desperately she'd clung to him against the icy tiles of the kitchen floor. I could have been involved, she'd said. The intonations brutal as they rung themselves through Aizawa – not simply in his mind's eye, but within every bone in his body. He didn't believe it for a moment. He couldn't – but that wasn't to say her words didn't plague him, that their tragedy and terror didn't poison his veins at every moment of the day. She could have been involved – No. Never. Even the devil himself couldn't have convinced Aizawa, though his teeth had already sunk themselves into Aizawa's chest.

It was both a remedy and a malady to hear Rin's voice again that night. His students had all gone to bed some time ago, and he was glaring hard into the computer screen without managing to do any actual work. His cellphone rang. Her name across the screen. And when Aizawa answered it was a struggle to speak, for his voice seemed to be lodged somewhere between his stomach and his heart. "Are you honestly calling me from only one floor up?"

"I wasn't sure if you were still angry with me," she said, and it was a relief to hear the slightest trace of a smile in her voice. "It seemed safer this way."

Aizawa leaned into his chair, rubbing his eyes. "What makes you think I was angry?"

"You ignored me all day yesterday ~ you didn't even seem to want to cuddle even though I was bedridden."

In spite of himself, the corner of his own mouth perked upwards. "You were the one ignoring me."

"Never. I like you too much." A pause. In it, Aizawa's stomach churned once again – not so much from the affliction of thought as from the relief unknotting itself throughout his insides. When Rin spoke again, it was a sweet, quiet plead. "Is it alright for me to come talk to you in person?"

"Please do."

Her head poked itself around his door mere moments later. Hair swept back in that messy ponytail, a pale green turtleneck sweater to hide the hickey in her neck which had grown darker instead of lighter. She watched him, lips curled in a restrained and endearing smile, and stepped coyly into the room. Closing the door behind her. Fluttering to seat herself deftly in Aizawa's lap as though it were the most natural place in the world for her to be. Arms around his neck, nuzzling her face against his like a kitten demanding attention, she spoke into his skin, "Are you marking?"

"Writing reports," he said, and curved his own arm around her back. There must have been an additional two or three layers beneath the turtleneck, her frame somewhat bulkier, and the sweatpants she wore were floppy and oversized. The only clue to Rin's fine build, like little white flowers peering out from underneath the mass of clothing, were her feet. Bare and boney, flexing and pointing in a girly restlessness. Her toe nails were painted pink. Dumbly fascinated, Aizawa touched his free hand to the top of her foot and was shocked to find it no more than freezing.

Rin turned her head to eye the computer screen. "Sounds fun," she cooed.

"Not really." And Aizawa shut it down before she could get too much of an idea of how little work he'd managed to do. He turned to look at her more fully, the colour of her eyes nearly the same as that of her sweater and still more heartbreaking in their luminous beauty, making Aizawa weak. Shadows of the weekend hung in her expression as she returned his gaze: the rings around her eyes having darkened by a shade of grey-purple, the firm-set line of her jaw and lips making her look tense and uncertain. "Just for your information, I wasn't angry with you," Aizawa said, and after a second's debate within himself added, "But you're too secretive for your own good."

Rin frowned. Leaned her head onto his shoulder with a tired sigh. "I know. I'm sorry." Her voice suddenly somber but still soft and lovely, she loosened her arms from around Aizawa's neck. "I am sorry. I try not to be. Secretive, I mean."

"You do a terrible job."

"So you are mad."

"No. Not mad, as such," Aizawa twisted his head to kiss her forehead. He did so, and felt an inexplicable satisfaction as Rin relaxed against him. "However, you do need to stop behaving like a problem child. I don't know what you think you're going to achieve by locking me out, but I can tell you it's not going to be much."

Rin lifted her head, resigned as a sheepish flush befell her cheeks. "I just don't want you to get involved. You can't get any more involved than you already are."

"So you've said. But you've never told me why."

"It's complicated."

Aizawa huffed, pressing his hand to Rin's cheek so as to keep her from looking away. "You're doing it again. It's exhausting listening to the same thing over and over." And though he meant it, doing nothing to restrain his butting dissatisfaction, Rin pouted and looked so genuinely doleful as she leaned her face deeper into his palm – like a small dog scolded for chasing its tail – Aizawa could say nothing more. He sighed, dropping his lids in some sort of submission. "If it's a matter of trust…"

"I trust you more than anyone in the world," she said quietly, touching her own fingers to his. "But Shouta, it really is complicated. I wish I could tell you but I just need you to trust me when I say I can't."

He frowned more deeply. "Will you ever be able to tell me?"

Once again, she smiled. It was odd and slanted, and left the rest of her features with a lackluster flatness quite uncharacteristic. Nonetheless, it wasn't particularly off-putting as she sidled her legs onto either side of Aizawa's waist and traced the tips of her fingers down his chest – the touch of it only just too soft for him to feel it completely beneath his shirt: a tease. "I don't know," she said with strange lowness. "But I promise not to keep anything else a secret ~ besides this, I'll tell you everything. I won't ever stop talking. I'll tell you so much you'll eventually be begging me to keep quiet."

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards, though he tried to keep his voice steady as he said, "I'm serious, Rin." Even as he did so though, he snaked one hand onto her thigh and the other around her wrist as it travelled ever downwards.

Rin tilted her head. "So am I."

"Then tell me something. Tell me what kinds of things you dream about."

Unexpectedly, she smirked at him. This time, it set an ominous glimmer about her eyes, and as she leaned in to touch her lips to his ear Aizawa internally berated himself for not having been clearer in what he'd said. Because indeed, Rin told him the kinds of things she dreamed about – lewd, sensuous things that probably weren't really the fruits of her unconscious but were certainly enough to make Aizawa swallow his words, to fill him with a warming sensitivity as Rin continued to murmur into his ear. She said these things in purring whispers, and allowed her hand to linger suggestively in his groin. Stroking, curling her fingers in a gentle beckoning. And when she pulled away again, she giggled at what must have been the absurd redness across Aizawa's face.

He scowled at her. Rolled his eyes. Said nothing for a while until the heat had receded from his cheeks and forehead – in that time though, he swayed between being shocked at the refined filth that had come out of her mouth and being thrilled by it, banishing the inkling thought that she'd been his student only some years ago. That these were the kinds of things she'd been thinking in class. Was that possible? That that reserved, awkward teenager could have been so carnal? Aizawa didn't think so, and somehow got no pleasure out of believing otherwise.

That Rin as an adult could manage such dirty talk was a different story though. "You're very annoying," Aizawa huffed, pulling her face towards his so that their lips were but a breath apart. "Do you know that?"

"You might be surprised to learn that I do in fact know." And like a satisfied feline, she slinked out from his lap, cocking her head in a malicious show of sweetness. "But you have work to do, it seems ~ I only wanted to come by to make sure we were still friends and that you weren't as uptight as you were yesterday." She spun on her toes to meander towards the door, looking terribly pleased with herself – which both irked and confused Aizawa, given the current circumstances. He remained rooted to the chair, hands suspended in wait for Rin to turn around and come back even though she smiled while opening the door and spoke with the honeyed temptation that most certainly meant she intended to leave him dangling. "Goodnight, Shouta. I hope your dreams will be sweet ones~"

A/N: Sort of looks like a filler chapter, but is important if you look close enough. ;) Also wanted something just a little more light-hearted after the draaaama. Follow, favourite and review lovely readers! Follow, favourite and REVIEW~*