"Out of all the people you could've chosen- a faculty member- All Might would've even been willing to train you-"
"He's the best suited."
"He's going to obliterate you-"
"I'm sure that won't be the case."
I observed him take another serving from the center bowl. Had he gained a little weight? What were his average meals like before this week?
Mr. Health-and-Fitness, always nagging about my diet. Wasn't living off protein bars and rice just as bad as soda and tv dinners?
Even his hair looked a little healthier, practically glossy in the dying sunlight when he looked over at me.
"Stop smiling like a dope, Tsutomi. We're in the middle of an argument."
"An argument insinuates a conflict- of which we have none, Aizawa. I'll be perfectly fine," I held up an arm in a flex. "The next time you see me, I'll be completely jacked."
I tried not to take his snickering personally.
"What time do you leave Monday?"
"I'll be at the school by seven."
One week together before being separated yet again; now, only two days remained of our little stay-cation. I corralled a piece of broccoli around my plate.
All things considered, the past few days had been nearly saccharine.
Waking up with a careful space between us, as if even in sleep he was aware of my fading injuries. I'd scooch closer anyway, pull his unconsciously-obliging arm around my waist, only to flop it open by morning as I sprawled across the middle of the bed and he barely survived on an edge.
Watching the disgruntled night owl hero finally stir, hair like a tornado around his grumpy face and annoyance festering with the sun. He didn't even speak for the first ten minutes each morning- just sat up to pet Nasu and Endo when they crawled over to receive his admiration, grumbling about the unfairness of reincarnation.
He fully utilized my recovery naps to justify his own, blissfully comatose so long as my hand remained in his, regulation working through us both for nearly two full days, rising only when absolutely necessary.
By day three I'd recovered enough to plug in my game console and challenge him to a favored brawling game I'd spent most of my teenage years obsessing over.
Apparently, Shota Aizawa had played a video game before.
And by apparently I mean he kicked my ass repeatedly without so much as a single pity-win.
He'd looked at me, smirked a slow, curving line that turned his face boyishly sly.
"What would you learn if I let you win?"
There was no boyish smirk in the present as he looked between the dejected vegetable and my face, clearly disproving.
"In case you forgot, Recovery Girl cleared me," I defended. Shota rolled his eyes. "Quirk use is now a go. Tasty foods can be eaten once more." I pushed the plate away, cleared my throat. "Rigorous activities, back on the table."
It was like the teacher turning the lights on after a documentary clip, blinding and sudden. I could all but hear his brain's gears finally processing my hidden meaning. I offered an innocent little shrug of surrender. "But you're right, I didn't actually get a full serving of vegetables- are there any left?"
He stood abruptly, moved to the kitchen.
The clear and obvious sound of the garbage can being opened and a bowl's contents being poured inside filtered across the apartment.
He leaned against the door frame, features serious.
"No."
I sidestepped the deviousness pinching my cheeks and began stacking our plates and utensils. We'd fallen into a routine: if I cooked, he washed the dishes. Similarly, he didn't seem uncomfortable doing the laundry; I in turn had no issue folding and putting it all away.
If I wasn't careful, I'd fall into the groove of this life like a well-loved record, unwilling to hear anything else ever again.
"Did she say-"
"I wanted to ask you-"
We both paused, having interrupted the other. I grinned. "You go first."
A hand went to his hair and I steeled myself for whatever nerve-rifling comment was about to come my way.
"There weren't any complications, then? Your arm is healed? No further infection?"
Another question rested in his throat; several, maybe, with the way he subtly shifted from one foot to the other.
His refrigerator possessed more items than it probably ever had in its lifetime, now. I played a quick game of Tetris to make room for the newest addition.
"My arm is as good as new. Better, actually- kind of like a scar, the tissue grew back stronger. Which doesn't mean I should try and purposefully blow them up," I quickly added before his eyes could burn like a Defcon Five beacon. "Ribs are all healed, organs all functioning with their new normal. No infections in sight. Recovery Girl was keen to point out, yet again, to stray away from adult film actions, but otherwise I'm physically a-ok."
Surely she realized the cinematic drama of pornos though, right? They offered a fantasy version of real life- not an actual depiction of sex between two non-actors.
...Unless she had some sort of experience similar to something in one of those films I'd so awkwardly doled out over the years at the video rental store. The idea of petite little Recovery Girl doing something so wicked filled me with both nausea and depraved fascination.
"Mentally?"
Oh, I was mental all right. "What?"
Long legs wandered to where mine kicked back and forth off the kitchen counter, stopping just within reach.
"You said you were healed physically. I'm asking how you are otherwise,"
No one had really asked me that yet. I took my time in answering, wrapped a bent leg around his waist so my hands could catch on his shirt. He complied and my fingers snuck under the hem of said shirt, tickling across his abdomen. I watched their movement absently.
"I've got some issues to deal with, certainly. With my mom, and the League of Villains, Toshinori's fears. My- the surgery, and what that means." I let out a deflating sigh. "I think more than anything I just want to move forward. It's like I'm trying to climb up an incline made of mud, and the rain just keeps on coming."
"It must be hard, not being able to talk to her like you could before."
He didn't need to say her name.
Or mention the subject I so desperately wanted to confide to her in, knowing how difficult it was to discuss with him.
My forehead landed against his sternum, hair curtaining my face on either side.
"I should go visit her. I need to go visit her. But I'm...I can't. Not yet."
"You'll go when you're ready; there's no rush," Fingers shivered down my spine, pulled me closer to the edge to keep me close. I fought back the stupid tingling in my nose; when had I become such a crybaby? I tried to focus on something- anything else. His heart pounded against my temple, slightly quicker than before. I closed my eyes and focused on its walk-turned-run pace.
"There's a...fertility clinic, in Yokohama. It's new, but they've done research into regenerative quirks, from those similar to Recovery Girl's to those with enhanced circadian rhythms."
He didn't waver at my raised, wide-eyed gaze, lifted up only enough to assess his sincerity, nor did the fingers softly drawing patterns across my spine falter.
"Apparently, there are quirks that increase the speed of a person's internal clock and, by affect, shorten the time between bodily productions. Like sleeping patterns...Or pregnancy."
Two very different subjects, that. Would a shortened pregnancy be worth shorter sleeping times, though? I guess it all depends on what kind of person you are.
"So this clinic hires them as surrogates?"
He nodded.
"If they didn't remove both of your ovaries, you're still technically able to have a child. You just can't carry it."
"How- where-" I took a deep breath and tried to sort the snowstorm in my mind, differentiate the crystals before they melted into the unknown earth beneath. "When did you learn all this? Why did you look into this?"
There was a hiccup in his chest; a fraction of sudden doubt. My own breathing had turned shallow as I looked into those charcoal eyes, ones that had followed me even after Mom erased them.
"There was a pamphlet at the hospital. And since you've mostly been sleeping the past few days, I started researching alternatives online while you were out. Like the Yokohama clinic."
I could swallow the lump in my throat, hold the floodgates at bay, but just momentarily.
Because there was a nagging blackness, seeping between the seams.
"Why?"
He didn't answer. My edges unstitched, weak in his reprieve.
He let out a slow, quiet exhale.
"Remember the last Friday we were together? When Toshinori and the others went home, and you pulled me onto the couch. After you bit me," He noted the last part dryly. I tried to pretend to be apologetic, even as his crinkled eyes saw straight through my guise.
"I knew then, that I was in love with you. That no matter how complicated life would be, with school and our sociopath friends and the drastic transition between what my life was before and what it would look like with you, I wanted it. I wanted you."
Shota looked away.
My fingers turned him back in quiet demand, even when his heart shot through my veins with the force of an entire summer's season of cicadas. Because he was nervous, doubtful of himself, dark eyes so sincere I nearly drowned in their depths.
"I just see you, and everything you are. And I can't take away all the pain you feel, but I can help."
They rose like mercury, broke across his face and floated onward, destined for the moon.
"Happy thought?"
I laughed. A dozen more drifted away without even a glance back.
"I love you, too."
Why was he blushing now?
"Stop," He was even whining like a teenage boy, hands covering the smaller ones pinching his cheeks. "I'm going to slide you off the counter if you don't knock it off-"
"So? I know you'll catch me."
I let out a shriek anyway, even when he kept me safe in his arms.
"You never told me what you were going to say."
I breathed a long sigh, brain sluggish from the rollercoaster of sensations its neurons had gone through, more tightly coiled than I'd realized. The mouth still searching out the strewn freckles of my body also wasn't helping.
"Before, in the kitchen." He found the one near my navel. I let out an indecipherable noise.
Thoughts. Coherency. A hand moved dangerously close to Number Fourteen. What had I wanted to tell him?
"I think we should go on another Official Date," I dug a hand into his hair and pulled him back up because, by Eraser Head's prowess, how could anyone concentrate like this? A dimple winked at me before pursuing the mark near my bottom lip.
"All the takeout dinners and movies don't count as dates?" He found the other by my ear, breath warm against the curved shell. "This doesn't count?"
"I don't think it's an official date unless you leave home," I used abrupt movement to take him by surprise, throwing him into the pillows and pinning down those damned hands. He didn't even have the decency to hide his smirk.
"I'm not sure Recovery Girl would approve of such aggression."
"So then don't resist."
He went decidedly still, either by the prompt or the feel of my hair against his bare chest when I leaned over, found the curve of his jaw with my teeth.
"I've already thought it all out. I even bought supplies."
"Mm." A hand grazed my hip; I slid lower, deflected the caress through submersion.
"It's- You're going to probably think it's silly and not really your thing, but haunted houses are definitely not my thing, and again, I've bought supplies to compensate-"
"Was this part of your plan?"
I paused, propped my elbow on the curve of his hips to hold my tilted head. He was doing an interpretation of my deep breathing exercise, obvious from my vantage point as the birdcage of his ribs rose and fell. My lips slid into a crooked little grin.
"No, this is just me, enjoying you. I can stop, though, if you're afraid I have an ulterior motive."
He didn't answer.
In fact, Shota Aizawa seemed to have taken a vow of silence as I moved down his body and proved exactly why I'd always considered myself a better giver than receiver.
Looking at his lithe, boneless body, though, I came to the conclusion this might as well have been a part of the plan; he was at his weakest like his, barely able to form a string of coherent sentences, let alone a full-scale argument. The flush in his ivory skin was almost gift enough.
Almost.
"I've never been to the beach. I understand why, now, why Mom never took me, but I've seen enough movies to know I'm definitely missing out on an experience."
Two grey eyes slowly found me, wary but flaccid. I struck the opportunity.
"I bought the highest SPF sunblock available and Manami has a beach umbrella we can borrow. You can lounge in the shade and I'll bring you snow cones when necessary. I can stand in an actual ocean, rather than the drowning one in my old nightmares. And, as the real compensation, I have the infinite Part Two, which will be your ideal portion of the date."
"Which is?"
I gave my head one sharp shake. "You'll only get to know when it happens. No exceptions."
"Why are there exceptions when you want them," He mumbled. I patted his cheek before bouncing to the edge of the bed.
"Deal or no deal?"
"Is this a game show now?"
A disgruntled sigh answered my hard stare.
"I'm not taking my shirt off."
"I wouldn't want to share the sight with others, anyway."
Again with the surprising tint of red crawling into his neck. My lungs seemed to float with helium. "Now get up and come brush your teeth."
"I did before we came in here."
"You did fucking not; we came straight from the kitchen-"
"I'll do it in the morning-"
"Shota that's disgusting. Get up."
And so the night finished in our new normal, fighting over sink space and his snickering when I accidentally spit toothpaste in my own damned hair, then shouting in irritation when I blew up the faucet in his stupidly handsome, smirking face before racing to escape his pinching hands.
