Chapter 5

It was not the scolding that made Kyoko cry that night. It was their presence, the look on their faces.

In her life she had only been scolded by persons worried for themselves, scared of her. She had never lived the legendary we've-been-so-worried-for-you-what-were-you-thinking scolding. And that had been close of that.

It was the hard but kind, typical of him, words of Gran Torino, the understanding of the counselor, and the way Principal Nezu had put his paw on her arm to guide her back to her room and his smile when he had given her a tissue to wipe her tears. It was the kindness they had all shown her that made her cry herself to sleep that night. That and the fear of the inevitable nightmares to come.

She startled awaken at the sound of string knocks on her door.

"What the…?" The sun is already high and it's light is peaking through her thick curtains, she takes a look at her phone… No, she's not crazy, it's Saturday, and she didn't have anything today, she can't be late for anything…

"I'm co…" she clears her throat to get rid of her morning frog voice "coming!"

She jumps out of her bed but stops right before opening her door. Wait… Pyjamas, ok. Bed hair, ok. Any traces of make up left, no, ok. she's presentable. She opens the door on the counselor.

"Oh, good morning…"

"Hello, Kyoko, you have visitors, they're waiting for you in the teachers lounge." he says in his usual flat and serious voice, but by now, she can distinguish good from bad news in his mouth.

"Oh! Okay! Give me five minutes!" she closes the door before he gets time to answer.

Who can it be? Who could want to see her on a weekend so early… Is it early? Barely ten. Yes it's early to her standards. She only trains in the afternoons on weekends, and the rest of the day is used either sleeping or catching up on her homework. If it can't be for training, maybe it's Nemuri. She had been harassing her about shopping for the entire week, but she really wasn't in the mood for that now. And he had said 'they', didn't he?

She shakes her head and runs to her closet to change from her too big sweatpants and t-shirt. She must be quick, so black leggings, white tank top, a green knitted comfy vest will have to do. Then socks and sneakers, she hastily gathers her wild curls in a messy bun with her scrunchy, takes her phone and gets out.

The counselor is gone, so she heads for the teachers' lounge, like he had said. The door isn't closed and she can hear voices coming from inside. They're low, not whispering but clearly being discrete on purpose. She approaches slowly, and the moment her head passes the threshold she sees them.

"THEEERE SHE IIIS!"

"Hizashi goddammit!"

"Wow they weren't kidding you're really loud!"

"Guys!"

Nemuri, Aizawa, Hizashi and Oboro. All waiting for her, smiling -well not Aizawa… - with a bunch of plastic bags at their feet and a carton box on the table. She's quite taken aback by that scene. She didn't expect them, she didn't even expect to see them ever again. She had almost killed them, how can they want to see her and seem so happy about it?

"I'm sooo sorryyy giiirl! I ruined your training! You're not mad at me are youuu?" Hizashi whines, coming in front of her with his hands linked on his chest and looking at her with puppy eyes.

"Stop it Hizashi, you're going to scare her." Oboro laughs, smacking his friend on the head. "We're sorry about yesterday, it was completely our fault and we don't want you to think we hate you or whatever."

"I… thanks… yeah I would have thought that you'd avoid me like the plague now…"

"NOOOOnsense babyyy!"

"You have a very powerful quirk, very impressive, but we're not afraid. We trust you can control it, or very soon will!"

"YEAAAH! And furthermore, HE..." he points his thumb behind his shoulder "… can't get away from you so neither can we! We're basically joined at the hips! Right Shotaaa?"

Aizawa grunts from his chair, his head in his right hand propped on the table, and the other drumming his fingers on the glossy wood. Back to his grumpy self then.

"What are you all doing here?" Kyoko asks, a little flustered by all this attention.

"Nezu called me, saying you might need some cheering up!" Nemuri goes, trapping her in a tight side hug, "And when I arrived those three were already there!" she turns her head so her mouth would be right next to Kyoko's ear and whispers - well whispurrs - "You hid me you had your own harem of seductive senpaiii, naughty girrrl..."

Kyoko eyes widen but she refrains from answering this remark. As long as they didn't hear her, she can deal with her teasing later.

"And I had to come, and they tagged along…" Aizawa sighs from his place, rolling his eyes at his two boisterous friends. He had not moved an inch since Kyoko had arrived and seemed to always keep an eye on the box.

"You had to come?"

"Yeah…" he grumble, finally standing up and taking the box to bring it to her. "Congratulations!" his face relaxes, and Kyoko thinks she sees the beginning of a smile on his lips when he hands her the box. It's the size of a small suitcase and a little heavy. "Don't shake it." he adds going back to fall in his sit. How exhausting it must have been to take those four steps and stay standing for twenty seconds… She refrains from teasing him, they had agreed for peace after all. And somehow, he had brought her a… gift?

The others look at her expectantly and not so discretely take a few steps back to get closer of the bags they had left on the floor. She kneels and puts the box on the floor in front of her, she slowly lifts the flaps to discover a deeply asleep Calico on a fluffy red cushion.

"Oh my! But I can't… I have to…"

"No need. I already asked Principal Nezu. She's officially your therapeutic pet." Comes the bored voice from behind the three others, but his face isn't as closed as usual. One could almost think he looks at her with kindness, but she would never believe that. It's certainly to the cat in her arms that this kindness is directed.

"Thanks!" she answers, before going back cooing to the little beast.

"And this is goes with it!" Nemuri says, shoving one of the plastic bags to her face, and followed by the two others.

"What are those?" Kyoko asks, putting the cat back in it's box to take the bags.

"All the necessary accessories! I chose them myself!" Hizashi announces proudly.

"Okay now, I'm worried..." she answers with a wink to the loud blond.

"I was there to arbitrate!" Nemuri adds, laughing at Hizashi pouting face.

She opens all the bags. There's food, toys, bowls, a litter box, pillows, and even little shelves to put on a wall instead of a classic cat tree.

"Oh my god, but it must have cost you a fortune!" Kyoko gasps, suddenly terribly ill at ease in front of all these gifts.

"Not at all! It was all on the school!" Nemuri beams, holding a golden credit card next to her face and posing like some magical girl.

"As I said, therapeutic."

She shakes her head, making a mental note to go to thank Nezu et propose him a way of paying back. She doesn't want to have debts to anyone, she doesn't like to have anything holding her back.

"When did you do all this?"

"This morning! Hizashi and Kayama-chan went to the store, and Shota and me went searching for the little lady! It took us an hour to catch her, she certainly have her character!" Oboro explains, squatting to quickly pet the cat's head before taking all the bags again. "Now, come on! We'll help you install all this!" His smile goes from one ear to another, showing perfect white teeth and making is nose go up.

"Oh! Oh… Okay. Just give me a minute…"

Kyoko shoves the kitten in Hizashi's arms and runs to her room. She tidies up quickly, which means she kicks off some dirty clothes under her bed, and gather all the books and papers scattered everywhere around the room and stacks them on her desk. It's not perfect but it will have to do. Last thing is opening the curtains and the window and she goes to opens her door. Of course they're all waiting behind it.

"What do you have to hide huuuuh….?"

"Nemuri…." she sighs, stepping back to let them enter her shelter.

It's the first time someone enters her room. And not just this room. Her room. No one except for her mother one memorable time has ever crossed the threshold of any of her living quarters. Instinctively she'd thought she would be frightened, but she's happy. There is a feeling of normality there that she had never hoped to experience, and it makes her happy. It truly begins to feel like a new life is ahead of her.

They all work in good companionship. Aizawa grumbles, sighs, and ends up slumped in her bean bag with the perfect excuse of having the cat on his lap. Nemuri makes crude jokes, flirts with literally everybody, and prefers going through her drawers and wardrobe to nailing the shelves in the wall. Hizashi, laughs, scream at the top of his lungs every time he hits his fingers with the hammer and quickly finds more interesting to study Kyoko's CD and movies collection. So in the end, after barely twenty minutes, the dirty work is left to her and Oboro alone.

Sometimes, he's a little envious of Oboro's talent for making friends and putting people at ease. At least he never has to explain people that 'no, he doesn't hates them, that it's just his face'. But he's not jealous of the fact that he had never seen Kyoko smile and laugh that much in all the training hours they had spent together than she has in the last half an hour. No, not at all. He simply wonders why the only thing they managed to do together had been fighting over silly thing and throw barbs at each others, when visibly she can joke and have a civil conversation with anyone else. What the hell is wrong with him?

He had long tuned Hizashi's rambling out, and was slowly drifting asleep, lulled by the purring of the kitten on his lap, the surrounding smell of vanilla and lemon and the wind running through his hair.

"And here we go! All done!" Oboro's voice takes him back from his half slumber.

"Thank you so much! It's perfect!"

"Hey baby! Can I borrow you one or two discs? I don't know half of all these!"

"Oh yeah of course! Suit yourself! That's the least I can do to thank you Hizashi-senpai!"

"You don't have to thank us! We're friends now!"

"And what about me? Can I borrow you that dress?"

… God… So much noise…

Shota sighs, leaving his head falling back and rolling his eyes at their antics. If only he had half of their energy. He had not slept well the previous night and had come early to hunt the cat, and now, he dreams of a good nap.

"Oh I know! I can cook for you if you want! Well, it will be European food but…"

"Oh yesss! I never tasted any!" Her friend -he couldn't bother to remember her name – screams a little too close to his ear as she jumps off the bed.

"We'd love to, if it's not too much trouble! Right Shota?" Oboro gives him a pointed look, to which he answers with a affirmative grunt. Oboro knows his different types of grunts, he'll understand. "You could even help. This time. That's more your field of expertise right?"

Shota rolls his eyes at his friend, but gets up nonetheless, he was right, he had been a little rude, abandoning them like that.

"Yes, I can do that. If you need me to."

Kyoko holds her index in the air while watching in her cupboards and fridge what she's got for them, humming all along, her pitch getting higher everytime she finds something interesting.

He absolutely didn't feel a smile tug at his lips at the sight, not at all.

"AH! Could you please cut these tomatoes for me? Like in little cubes like that!" she asks, making the form she wanted with one hand and handing him a knife with the other. He wordlessly takes the knife and begins to work.

He lets himself get lost in his thoughts as they work in silence. The others being too absorbed playing with the purring baby cat and cooing at every little move or noise she makes.

He remembers the first time he had met Kyoko, and the rebuke he had got from Nezu for his unpleasant attitude toward her.

"Shota, I know you to be a reasonable young man. I think you can easily see and understand that this young girl here is toying with a very thin line. And I think you're also as capable as I am of admiring her strength and resolution for not crossing the wrong side of it. She has been through a lot, more than you know, and she could have everything to be a bad person, and yet here she is, trying to hold all her resentment back, to become a better person.

If, by any misfortune, she happened to become a villain, we both know she would be one of the most dangerous, Shota. I am counting on you for helping her and keeping her on the right path. I know, I can see, that you're not convinced. But I am asking you to trust me, she is worth it. I want you to be her friend, to be a person she can rely on, she will need it. She will need you."

He had hated to be forced to befriend her. He wasn't one to easily make friends in the first place, and he hated the thought of a fake friendship. And he would have hated it if he had been at her place too.

But right know, relaxed in the comfortable silent work between them and the happy chatter of his – their – friends, he begins to think that, maybe, it wouldn't be that forced after all.

Their work ends up taking the form of a tomato salad, with black olives and Greek cheese, and pastas with homemade pesto and roasted pine nuts. Ans for dessert, she had some cookies left she had made the day before and some vanilla and strawberry ice cream.

"It smells heavenly good!" Nemuri cooes, coming to hug Kyoko from behind to take a look above her shoulder. "Wow, it's so beautiful too! Marry me now please!"

"Let's eat first, you don't even know if it's good yet. We'll talk about it later!" Kyoko laughs, setting the plates on the small coffee table next to the bean bags Shota had settled himself.

They eat, talking and laughing, and soon they end up sprawled in their respective bean bags for Shota and Oboro and on the bed for the three others, full to the brim and incapable of speaking. For once, he wasn't the only one craving a nap.

He was dozing off when Oboro broke the silence.

"There's something weird..."

"What?" he grumbles.

"I don't know, that's the thing…"

They think about it for a minute, but in the end, it's Nemuri who answers their mystery.

"Hizashi-senpai has been very quiet since we began eating…"

That was right, he glances at his friend. He has his face to the ceiling and his eyes closed, a smile on his lips.

"That's true. Are you okay Hizashi?"

"Hmmm…. I think I'm in love…." he sighs with a stupid dreamy face. Shota shakes his head but the other burst out laughing.

"Wow! Two proposals in one day? That calls for a duel!" Kyoko jokes, earning an enthusiastic gasp from Nemuri and a snicker from Oboro. "But first, nap."

They're all too happy to oblige.

As he falls into Morpheus arms, Shota replays the days in his head.

Maybe not forced at all…