Chapter 33
Principles

All things considered, Aizawa had been frustrated for much longer than he cared to admit – first framing it as fear over the ease with which Rin could disappear from him; now wholly unable to pretend it was anything other than the fact that he was being manipulated and he knew it. He knew it, and he allowed it: buying into Rin's diversions and persuasions as though she were some spoiled child.

Perhaps because he never quite realised it in the moment, taken up by his own feelings and her peculiar charm.

Perhaps because he'd reasoned that she was scared, and that given time she'd – she'd what? Open up like a springtime flower for him to peruse at his will and pleasure? The hindsight appalled Aizawa, and he could do nothing to deny his own maudlin pliability in her hands. Especially now, after she'd abandoned him to the emptiness of his room, where he'd spent the rest of his night sleepless and stewing. With her gone, it was easy to pick out certain abnormalities. Tiny fluctuations in her voice and touch, offbeat cadences to her words which did not seem to be entirely hers.

Indeed, though he'd been swept up by the shock of her new boldness and the excitement of such blunt desire, there'd been something wrong with it from the start. And only halfway through the week did it dawn on Aizawa that Rin had been trying way too hard. She'd lacked the quiet breeziness, the warm affection which made her so beguiling – that genuine softness which marked their early mornings and cups of coffee at the table, and moments of defenselessness in seeing her read some obscurely titled book or watch cat videos on her cellphone or stand barefoot in the kitchen while cooking dinner.

There was none of that when Rin tried to keep things hidden, when she tried to avert Aizawa's attention with a forced flirtatiousness that was mildly effective but quicker to wear off than the high of a strong cup of coffee. As had been the case that night – and though Aizawa didn't have it in himself to be angry with her even now, he was irritated. Somehow suspicious. And it overflowed into the rest of the week, where his stomach would churn and his head would throb (the headaches, it seemed, were stirred by and pounced upon any strong feelings relating to Rin) whenever she did anything mildly charming.

Terribly enough though, throughout the rest of the week, the symptoms of Monday night's falseness receded and it almost pained Aizawa when Rin looked at him – because he knew that she knew that he was being offhanded and colder than usual and that it was, for the most part, her own fault for spinning gossamer threads of half-truths around his eyes. She would smile at him, he wouldn't smile back in an attempt to remain annoyed and objective, and then her face would sink into a grey embarrassment. Blushing, mawkish and apologetic as she went about her business with a restless fretfulness: tapping the coffee cup while she drank, gnawing the back of her pen, fidgeting with paperclips and folders and sticky notes and anything else she could get her hands on.

There were moments though, where Aizawa's new guardedness would crumble – and by no intentional doing of Rin's either. She'd been busy in the dormitory kitchen, making a curry on behalf of Aizawa's students once again; the 2A and 2B girls had squeezed themselves in with her, and were chattering and giggling about all sorts like the teenagers they were. Speaking about nothing important, nothing worth remembering, and as Aizawa stood eavesdropping just outside the kitchen doorway he heard Rin laugh at something Uraraka said. She laughed: the shrill, bubbly playground giggle of a much younger girl, and it drove a relieving weakness through Aizawa's knees.

Then he'd wandered past her office with no intention of going in but only to satisfy his own curiosity. The door was open, he'd peered inside to find her mumbling – pen smooshed against her lip, nose crinkled in thought. He didn't know what she was doing, and the flustered flush across her face told him she didn't really know either. But she saw him, not yet too far-gone in thought, and had wordlessly sprung up from the much-too-large desk to flutter to where he stood. No students in the hallway. No prying eyes. Still saying nothing, she'd wrapped herself against him in a hug – stayed there for a long time, chaste and quiet with her head leaned against his chest – and then in the same unfazed silence unwrapped herself and returned to her frustrated mumblings.

And then on Thursday evening, when his students filed back into the dormitories after a full afternoon of final-prep and practice for the Culture Festival that weekend, Aizawa heard them all in the common area. Making a ruckus, oohing and chuckling and cheering as though at a sports match. And they were at a sort of sports match, it seemed, for they'd all gathered around one of the boys' laptops and were watching archived recordings of all the UA Sports Festival finals. Engrossed, they didn't notice Aizawa staring at them from the other end of the room. Rin was there too, standing some distance away from the couches with one hand squeezing at the other wrist – she noticed Aizawa, as though by some form of enchantment, and turned herself to meet his eye for the faintest moment. Looking miserable and faraway, almost as though she were sick.

And it was that look that tipped the scales for Aizawa. Which made him lose any sense of previous resolve or concern for her adamant insistence that he not be involved. She had been revealing things, he'd give her that, but the see-saw of truths and concealments had made Aizawa just too dizzy to stomach it any longer. He still wasn't angry with her – on the contrary, despite his frustration, he adored her more than ever and wanted nothing more to stand in his way of learning her fully.

He went to see Principal Nezu the next morning. Early, before the main doors to the school had been opened and while a tentative darkness still hung about the air. The view out Nezu's window was hazy and almost dreamlike, lights from the suburbs still burning dimly in the distance while a yellow glow began to crawl itself along the horizon.

Tea ready on the table, three-cheese sandwiches for breakfast – lingering over his spread, Nezu didn't seem surprised to see Aizawa coming into the office. He pricked his ears upwards, smiled flatly over his teacup. "Ah, good morning, Eraser Head!" he greeted. "Bright and early, as usual. Are your students ready for the Culture Festival tomorrow?"

"I should hope so," Aizawa said, hands held deeply in his pockets as he stopped before Nezu's desk.

"Wonderful. I'm sure all the students will outdo themselves once again. Why don't you take a seat, Eraser Head? Tea? You're looking very harried this morning – is there something I can help you with?"

Aizawa did sit, his legs feeling heavy beneath his weight and his pulse doing awful leaps through his throat. As he did so, Nezu watched him with an unusual flatness about his mousey features: nose twitching as though at the smell of Aizawa's unease, black eyes widening and narrowing in some sort of observation of his soul. It was silent for a long time, and Aizawa couldn't shake the sense that he was waiting for permission to speak. Waiting for Nezu's all-knowing consideration of him to be over with so that he could do what he'd come to do.

"Well?" Nezu prompted.

To which Aizawa told him everything. Steady, practiced, but with the simmering undertone which had been building up and swirling inside of him for days now, if not weeks. He told Nezu about the Voodoo Agency. He told Nezu about Yukio, and the things Rin had explained with shadowy chokedness, and her insistence that she was alone. Alone and that she had to stay alone. It all fell out from Aizawa's chest with that enigmatic feeling of relief – it was certainly a load off – as well as dismay: the sense that he was betraying Rin's confidence even though his dominant rationality dictated otherwise.

Somehow though, it came as no comfort how Nezu said nothing in return. Only staring, expression close to unchanging were it not for the slightest twitches at the corners of his mouth. Blank. Sipping his tea at regular intervals and making no sound other than a delicate, low slurp. Nothing seemed to come as particularly shocking, or moving, and it mystified Aizawa because it almost seemed as though he himself was being terribly absurd by bringing all this up in such a desperate flurry of words. Even though he spoke smoothly, maintaining his pretense of level-headedness, an aggressive swelling was homing itself around his innards – vile, sour.

He ended by saying something had to be done and at last Nezu hummed, placing his tea deftly down upon the matched saucer. Placing his paws together against the desk, giving Aizawa a soft and beady eye, Nezu remained in a thoughtful hush. Aizawa's heart throbbed in his ears, the last few minutes faded into the back of his mind like a series of dream-events.

Finally, Nezu said, "You've given me a lot to consider, Eraser. Thank you for sharing it all – this is quite shocking indeed." It didn't sound very shocking when it sounded like that. Nezu clapped his paws together gently. "Does Hiruma-chan know you're here?"

"She will soon enough," Aizawa muttered.

"Actually, if I may, I think it might be better if I discuss this with her myself."

"Oh?"

"Why, yes," Nezu said, the simplicity of his words an insistence in themselves. From the teapot, he poured himself more to drink, speaking casually as he did so, as though with philosophical reminiscence rather than any particular urgency, "It might interest you to know that I used to play chess with Doctor Voodoo some years back. A viciously intelligent man, and viciously competitive to match – our respective wins and losses remained quite precariously tied until the very end of our gaming-days." Surprisingly, Nezu chuckled as he took his teacup, and then became more somber, "His is a situation which ought to be dealt with carefully, Eraser Head. It will require the utmost subtlety and precision. As such, I must ask you not to discuss anything more with Hiruma-chan before I myself have had the chance to."

While not surprised, Aizawa couldn't move from his seat, glaring hard at the principal as though there were a puzzle across his features to be solved. This soft, unhurried approach wasn't uncharacteristic, and perhaps it was only Aizawa's biased eagerness to put the whole situation to rest that made him want to be sick across the floor – Nezu must have noticed it, for he cocked his head and offered a widened smile.

"You've spoken rather more harshly than usual about Hiruma-chan this morning," he just-about cooed, jolting Aizawa. "Has her situation upset you?"

Well, that much wasobvious. "I've never been particularly fond of secrecy," Aizawa said and crossed his arms across his chest. "It's not logical and makes a mess of things."

"Oh yes, quite. Though I do wonder…" Pause. Far-off glance to an arb corner in the office. Then Nezu brought his attention back to Aizawa and, irksomely, didn't continue his train of thought. "You're very fond of, Hiruma-chan. Fonder than even I expected you'd be."

Aizawa didn't know what to say. So he said nothing.

Nezu hummed. "I'm not one to interfere – or at least, to interfere too much–" another warm chuckle. "But I don't think you should be too unforgiving. There are many factors at play here that you – that we – might not be fully aware of. Doctor Voodoo has taken a particular interest in Rin ever since her arrival at UA, and if he has treated her as he would one of his pawns in a chess game… well… she wouldn't be trying to hide things simply for the sake of being difficult. Rest assured though, Eraser Head, the truth has a way of rearing itself. Everything will be revealed in due course."

Despite being intended as something of a comfort, Nezu's certainty offered no reprieve. Aizawa rose from the chair, thanking the principal for his time and turning away in a rush to leave. No satisfaction of knowing a plan had been made. No release from the ominous curtain that closed itself over Rin time and time again. Of course everything would be revealed in due course. Only, due course wasn't fast enough and Rin meant too much to Aizawa, even if she was unnecessarily difficult to be with at this stage, for the truth to only eventually 'rear itself'.

More than that, what if it was a truth Aizawa wouldn't be able to stomach? I could have been involved. What if the secrets to be kept weren't just secrets kept out of fear or traumatized attempts to cope, but something more sinister?

"Eraser Head."

At the door, Aizawa paused. Looked over his shoulder to find, for the first time in his memory, the palest hint of displeasure across Nezu's serenity.

"For all Hiruma-chan's particular strengths, she's still very young. You were always so gentle with her when she was your student," Nezu gave what could only be described as a meaningful look: a loaded gaze of unspoken somethings which Aizawa had neither the energy nor the desire to dig into. Nezu flattened his paws against the table, and nodded slowly at Aizawa. "Do be gentle with her now."

The end of the day came. The final bell. The staff meeting – in which Nezu didn't even glance in Aizawa's direction with anything other than the usual engagement. Nothing was mentioned about their earlier conversation, and Aizawa was allowed to leave with the rest of the staff. With Rin, who'd been quite the same in many respects except for the fact that she'd hardly said a word (not unusual, though Aizawa's heart had sunk at the fact that her silence was unusual) and that when she'd looked at him from across the table, it had been with an affected uncertainty.

Darkened eyes. Lips ever so slightly downturned and lacking in any shade of pink. And when he found her again in her office – slowly filling with curiosities of her own in the form of houseplants, the painting of dogs playing poker now gone and replaced with a pencil sketch of an old man's face – she had her forehead pressed to the surface of the desk. Hair splayed. Back rising and falling steadily with slow breaths. Aizawa knocked. She bolted to sit upright, hands disappearing into her lap as her spine went stiffly straight, and she gazed at him as though in surprise. Her cheeks were flushed to a bothered red. The skin around her eyes was puffy and uncomfortable to look at. She'd been crying. Aizawa felt himself crinkle within himself.

"Are you okay?" he asked despite knowing full-well that she was not okay – suspecting that he also knew why – but being unable to form any other sort of words.

The flesh of Rin's throat tensed and jumped awkwardly, swallowing down on nothing. She spoke and it was surprisingly resolute for such a crumpled expression, for such a guilty undertone. "I've been wanting to say sorry," she said. "Again."

"Sorry for what?"

"You know for what." Her features greyed tiredly, defeatedly. "Hiding things. Trying to make you ignore the fact that I'm hiding things. I've been thinking about how to explain because I know that what I've been doing is not fair and that I upset you even though you never said so, but it's mostly–"

Aizawa interrupted her, "Stop. You don't need to." Under Rin's gaze, as her bloodshot eyes widened in disbelief, Aizawa ran his hand down the back of his neck. "Let's just go home."

Rin spluttered, obviously having prepared a speech and now having been taken off guard by Aizawa's lack of concern – or what came across as a lack of concern even to his own ears, but was really a cocktailed mix of resignation and a resolved, possibly naïve but also tender decision to trust her. Just for the moment. He knew enough at least to think he could. Blinking at him, looking as though she half-expected him to disappear before her eyes, Rin's brow crinkled delicately, "Home?"

"You live with me now. Remember?"

"Oh. Right~" she cracked a dewy smile. "But I was thinking I'd just stay at the dorms tonight. Some of the first years asked me to help them set up tomorrow morning for the Culture Festival. I didn't really understand when they told me what they're doing, but it sounds cute. They said~" She halted, and then bit back on the smile. Looking at Aizawa timidly. "I didn't do that on purpose."

And now it was he who smiled at her, a tight-lipped curve to his mouth that almost felt good. "I know," he said, meaning it. "It's a lot less off-putting when you're not trying to be manipulative."

He meant it as a joke based on truth. Her face tensed as though she'd licked a lemon or had been punched in the gut. "I'm sorry."

Rolling his eyes, going towards the desk and touching his fingers to her cheek when he came close enough, Aizawa spoke frankly. "Just don't do it again. Tell me the truth about things and we'll get along just fine." As seemed to be the fashion, Nezu's words replayed themselves in a tinny echo like listening to a scratched record. Rin stared up at him, lovely and bemused, clear-eyed despite the surrounding swollenness. Still young. She was still young, though perhaps not in the same way Nezu had meant or as Aizawa had initially understood – young body, strange mix between a young mind and old soul, a breakable combination in all its perplexity. Not to say it was an excuse, but Aizawa was feeling more lenient than the last couple of days.

He bent forward to press his mouth against her temple, where her hair was in the way and its strands only ended up tickling the front of his face. "I need to do some things at the apartment," he told her, somewhat amused by the way Rin's fingers rose absent-mindedly to touch at the place he'd kissed. She raised her eyebrows. He regretted to concede to an empty apartment, but didn't want to show any such signs of pining because… well… just in case. "Don't get too tired helping the students tomorrow," he told her. "Eri-chan's going to be coming. She'll want you to amuse her."

And at this, Rin's face brightened considerably.

A/N: Guys… Oh my word. I didn't realise how badly the last chapter sucked, both in writing and in character. I'm so sorry. Please do forgive both myself and Rin, we're both trying our best. XD