Tuesday started off flawlessly for Ibara Shiozaki….
The young heroine took the opportunity to sleep well into the late hours of the morning before finally dragging herself out of bed to make a nice bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. It wasn't often that she got a surprise day off from work. A rare occurrence for full time heroes in general. But with no obligations for the day, she fully intended to capitalize on the chance to have a bit of fun. And what better way to do that than to indulge in one of her favorite hobbies, bowling.
Since it was a weekday, the vine haired woman still had about two hours before the alleys near her apartment opened their doors. Which was more than enough time for her to do a bit of "morning yoga" and wash up.
Those two hours practically flew by for Shiozaki before it was finally time to leave. After throwing on a long skirt, a white hoodie and a knitted hat to cover her hair she secured her pair of personalized bowling shoes and customized ball before walking out the door. Ready to get started on her mid-day excursion.
In roughly twenty-five minutes, the vine haired heroine was walking through the doors of the establishment. Taking a moment to bask in the refreshing aura provided by the air conditioning before casually strolling up to the front counter.
In the few steps that it took to make it there, Shiozaki could see that the place was not nearly as busy as she expected. Roughly half of the lanes were taken as far as she could tell. And there looked to be a large group of what she assumed to be college students having some sort of birthday party by the looks of it. However, the woman also noticed that her favorite lane was clear of any other customers. A positive sign for what was to come.
Standing at the counter was a young man with large, deer-like antlers protruding from atop his head. He seemed to be busy playing on his phone at the moment. But he quickly got himself in order when he noticed the woman approaching him. "Ah, Shiozaki-san! How are you doing today?"
"I'm doing well, Nara-san. How about yourself?" The woman replied politely.
"Same old, same old. So what are you doing here today? Aren't you usually on the job during the week?"
"Normally yes. But I was given the day off today. So I thought that I would spend some time on the lanes." She explained. Nearly all of the employees knew her schedule seeing as she had been a regular here for the last two years.
"Cool." The man nodded. "Well, your usual spot is open. We even just got finished polishing the lanes so you're good to go!"
"Glad to hear it."
After paying for an hour on the lane, Shiozaki quickly changed footwear and made her way over to lane three. The vine haired woman doesn't really know when exactly this became her go-to spot whenever she spent her time here. Part of the reason was because she seemed to have better luck on this one more than any of the others. The other was that it's the closest to the air conditioning vents on this side of the building. But either way, when Shiozaki was in the mood to tear through some pins then lane three was the place to go.
After typing her name into the terminal, Shiozaki opened up her bag to reveal a forest green ball with images of tiny red roses spread out across the surface. Although the woman wasn't a professional bowler by any means, it would be hard for anyone to tell considering the fact that she had her own customized gear. Something that her friends always felt the need to comment on when given the chance.
Now that the vine haired heroine was good and ready, she wasted no time getting right down to business. Surprisingly enough, her first roll was a strike. An indication that she hadn't lost her touch. And with that the woman quickly went to work.
All anyone could hear coming from her lane was strike after strike. Shiozaki was burning through each frame like it was nothing more than a walk in the park for her. And it didn't take long before she was fully in the zone. Letting the world around her vanish while she dominated the bowling pin shaped obstacles before her. Ten minutes later, after scoring yet another strike on her twelfth straight frame, the woman decided to take a break to catch her breath and relax her throwing hand.
When she walked to the back of the lane to take a seat and scroll through her phone, the sound of a set of pins practically exploding down the other lane caught her attention. Out of curiosity, she peeked over her shoulder at the nearby scoreboard to see that the person on lane two was also going to town on the pins. Scoring a pretty impressive six strikes on the last eight attempts.
Whoever this person was seemed to be pretty good. So for no reason in particular, the woman decided to take a gander at who they could be. And when she did, she couldn't help but be taken aback by what she saw.
Standing over the ball return machine was none other than Izuku Midoriya. He was wearing a green hoodie and a pair of khaki pants. Appearing to be fully focused on his phone at the moment. Even though his back was to her, she was fairly certain that it was him she was looking at. The man did have a pretty distinctive set of green hair styled in a clean undercut after all. A far cry from the jet-black style she saw him sporting yesterday afternoon.
Shiozaki remembered the man saying that he also liked to bowl from time to time. But she certainly wasn't expecting to see him here of all places. How it took this long for her to notice him standing there was a complete mystery to her.
"Midoriya-san?" She called out to the man. Causing him to look around for a brief moment before turning around and facing her.
"Shiozaki-san?" The man gave her a surprised look.
"Well, fancy running into you here." She gave him a polite smile.
"Yeah...small world. I didn't even realize that it was you on the next lane." In Midoriya's defense, the woman was wearing a hat that covered most of her head. And her hoodie obstructed the rest of her vines from view.
"What are you doing here?"
"Kaniko-senpai gave me the rest of the week off . And I didn't have anything better to do today, so I decided to spend some of my time here."
"How fortune." The woman nodded.
"Well, you certainly seem to be having a good time." The man then pointed up at the scoreboard above lane three. "I thought that you were a professional judging by how well you were doing a minute ago. I was honestly starting to feel a bit jealous. Twelve straight strikes is pretty impressive."
The woman couldn't help let out a small chuckle after hearing that. "You're too kind, Midoriya-san. I was just having a lucky game this time around. But you seem very skilled yourself."
'That's a lot more than just a "lucky game" though.' The man thought to himself. "Not really, Kaniko-senpai used to drag me out to bowling alleys and karaoke studios all the time before we moved out here. So I guess that I've had a lot of practice."
"Well, I certainly don't want to disturb you. So I'll let you get back to it."
"Thanks, but I think I'm done. I was going to go for another round, but it looks like this place is starting to fill up."
In response to this, Shiozaki took a gander around the rest of the building and noticed that quite a few people were starting to line up at the counter. Even though it was a weekday, most of the local high schools should be getting out around this time. So of course some of the students would come over to hang out with their friends. And by the looks of it, a lot of them appeared to have that idea in mind.
"I see." Shiozaki nodded before an idea popped into her head. "Well then, why don't you join me over here?"
"Huh?"
"I still have this lane for the next fifty minutes. I'd be happy to have you join me for the rest of my time."
"Thanks, but I don't want to impose on you. I'm pretty sure that I'd mess up your rhythm." He waved off.
"No please, I insist. I still owe you for that nonsense that happened a couple of weeks ago with my friends. Think of it as my apology for Setsuna causing you all that trouble."
There were a couple of reasons why Midoriya wanted to refuse the offer. Mainly because it would be kind of awkward for him to be spending his downtime hanging out with a hero of all people. But the green haired man was really in the mood to go another round. Besides, it wasn't like he had anything better to do. He already completed his other errands for the day. And the woman's offer was pretty tempting….
"Sure, why not?" He then gave into his desire to have another go at the pins.
"Excellent!" Shiozaki then stood up from her seat. "Let me reset the terminal for us. Is there any particular name you'd like to go by?"
"You can just put "Midoriya"." He replied. "I don't really do the whole nickname thing."
"No problem."
-(o)-
The next forty-five or so minutes flew by for the green haired duo. Just like the man had predicted, Shiozaki had proven herself to be a master at the art of bowling. They had played a total of five games in the past thirty minutes and she somehow managed to miss only six frames in total during that time. The only person he knew of that could do better than that was Togane. And that was if she was using her quirk to alter the trajectory of the ball itself.
Eventually, the two decided to take a break and sit down at the seats near the back of the lane. There was a group of high school students occupying lane two where Midoriya was previously playing. And the teenagers were starting to get a bit too rowdy for them to focus on their game.
"I must say, Midoriya-san. You're very good." Shiozaki complimented him sincerely.
"Definitely not as good as you though." He countered.
"Thank you. Playing has been a hobby of mine for a while now. But I don't get the chance to come out here as much as I'd like to these days because of work."
"That's too bad." He replied while taking a sip from a bottle of water.
An awkward silence followed that statement, and the two young adults quickly racked their brains for something else to talk about. Thankfully, Midoriya was the first one to come up with a new topic to discuss.
"So, are bowling and being a hero the only two things that you do?" He asked.
"No." She shook her head. "I garden as well. I don't think that you got a chance to see it when you were over at my apartment, but my balcony is almost filled with an assortment of plants that I've gathered over the years."
"I can see you doing something like that." The man joked. "But it doesn't have anything to do with your quirk, right?"
"No, not really. My mother enjoys growing her own fruits and vegetables and got me into it when I was young. But it did teach me a few tips to help me maintain my hair."
That certainly made sense. Shiozaki was pretty much walking around with her own garden on top of her head. So of course learning how to maintain plant life would teach her something about improving her ability. Part of Midoriya did wonder if she had to do anything strange like put fertilizer in her hair to help keep it strong. But he certainly wasn't about to ask her a personal question like that.
"How about you?" The woman then returned the question.
"Nothing special really. I typically spend most of my time working out, watching movies and getting ready to finish my degree."
"You're in school? What are you studying?"
"Quirkology." He answered. "I'm only a few classes away from being done. But I've had to take a break on account of moving out here and all."
"I hear that quirkology is a difficult subject. A classmate of mine who's also working towards his degree said that it has a high dropout rate." The woman said, remembering what Jurota Shishida told the rest of the former 3-B students the last time they all got together.
"That's true. It's a bit difficult, but I enjoy the material a lot."
"That's good to hear." The woman nodded. "Um...if you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your quirk? I remember you saying that you can erase your presence back during our mission together. But you don't see a lot of invisibility-type quirks at that level. The closest thing I've seen is a former classmate of mine whose body refracted light off of her skin."
"Well, mine is nothing like that." The green haired man began explaining. "Basically...I just mask my presence by altering the senses of those around me. It works on everything except for touch."
Although one would think that an NPSC Inspector divulging any information about his quirk would be taboo in his line of work, that wasn't the case. There weren't any policies about Inspectors keeping their abilities a secret. Hell, their identities were public knowledge to nearly anyone they crossed paths with on the job.
Kaniko and Togane were both former police officers. So everyone who had worked with them in the past was aware of what they could do. All of Ishikawa's gaming buddies knew that he was a 'technopath'. And their other member who still had yet to show up, Tomioka, was a former hero course student.
It wasn't like it mattered that much anyway. Any criminal group with a half-decent hacker could just look them up in the public quirk registry. But none of that ever stopped them from doing their jobs.
"Interesting." Shiozaki nodded in understanding. "It's still pretty impressive. From the way you described it, it sounds like you become virtually undetectable."
"That's pretty much the gist of it. But my 'mirage' isn't really anything special." There was a bit more to his quirk than what he told her. But a brief overview was all he felt like giving at the moment.
The vine haired woman was about to ask another question, but the group of teenagers on the next lane started cheering very loudly about something that happened. Breaking her train of thought. Whatever had them so riled up appeared to cause quite the commotion. One that definitely didn't look like it was going to subside anytime soon.
"They all seem pretty excited, huh?"
"Indeed." The woman agreed.
Now that she got a good look at the place, Shiozaki realized that the building was getting rather loud in general. It wasn't like earlier when barely half the lanes were taken and most of everyone in the building were adults with a little more consideration for those around them. As far as she could tell, most of the previous crowd had already left. Leaving a bunch of teenagers and college aged students.
"I do believe that it's about time for us to leave."
"I agree." Said Midoriya. "I don't want to sound rude, but I'm not exactly a fan of the...younger crowd."
"You say that like you're not that much older than they are." Shiozaki gave him a humored grin. She knew from the time that they spent working together that the man was the same age as her. Only older by a couple of months to be specific.
"Fair point."
It was then that the two finally decided to go ahead and take their leave before an even more "rowdy" group decided to take up any of the open lanes. After giving Midoriya a chance to return his shoes at the front counter, the young duo left the building to begin the short journey back to their apartment building. Since they were heading to the same place, it only seemed appropriate for them to accompany each other on the way back.
As they strolled along a semi-busy street, the two continued chatting away about a range of various topics to maintain some semblance of polite conversation. Nothing particularly interesting though. Just whatever happened to pop into their heads. However, while they were doing that Shiozaki couldn't help but wonder about the odd way that Midoriya was speaking to her.
He wasn't rude in any way. The man just seemed to be a bit...guarded...awkward? Yeah, that was the word. It wasn't like he was flat out avoiding conversation with her. Quite the opposite actually. But there were a few times where it felt like he was forcing himself to talk.
Granted, Midoriya was a difficult person to read in general. He was polite and well mannered. Much like how he usually was whenever the two spoke. But considering how this was the first time the two of them talked for longer than an hour, Shiozaki was starting to notice just how peculiar the green haired man was. He never looked her directly in the eyes at any point during their time in the bowling alley. And he did have a bit of tension in the way he moved. On top of that, she still had the information of what Tetsutetsu told her inside her head.
Deciding to just chalk it up to him not having particularly great people skills -much like many other people that she knew- the woman pushed those thought to the back of her mind.
Once they were about ten minutes away from their destination, Midoriya and Shiozaki came upon a food cart selling crepes. Either of them would be lying if they said that they weren't enticed by the pleasant aroma coming from the small establishment. And judging by the way that the vine haired woman was slowly gravitating towards it, Midoriya saw a good opportunity to repay the woman for her earlier kindness.
He quickly offered to buy the woman a crepe as thanks for allowing him to bowl with her. But Shiozaki insisted that he didn't need to. After a rather comedic back and forth, she finally gave in and let the green haired man do his good deed for the day. They quickly walked up to the stand and ordered a pair of strawberry and chocolate filled desserts before continuing the journey back home.
"I'll have to remember to tell Kaniko-senpai about this place. She loves desserts more than anyone I've ever met." Midoriya said after taking a bit of his crepe.
"I don't blame her. Everyone enjoys a good pasty every now and then." The woman responded with a small laugh before shifting topics. "From what I can tell, you and Chief Inspector Kaniko seem to be very close. Have you known each other long?"
"I've known her since before I was recruited into the NPSC. Actually, she was a big reason for why I was even selected in the first place."
"Did you two grow up together or something?"
"Oh no, nothing like that." Midoriya waved off. "I was assigned to her during our student-officer program during my first year of high school."
"Your what?"
"It's kind of like how hero course students did their internships with pro heroes. Shiketsu's police academy students had the same thing. Except we tagged along with officers and detectives from around the country. Basically I just spent a week in Osaka shadowing her and helping with some paperwork."
"How interesting."
"Yeah, we got along really well and she ended up taking me on again during my second year. After that, she was picked up by the NPSC and then somehow managed to drag me along with her after I graduated."
"Well I can see why she thinks so highly of you. Of course I don't know a lot about your line of work, but I can tell that you're very capable and well respected."
"You're too kind, Shiozaki-san."
Eventually, the young duo finally made it back home. It was a little after five in the afternoon and the sun was beginning to make its descent over the horizon. After stepping into the elevator and arriving on their floor, the two gave each other a quick goodbye before vanishing into their respective apartments. Shiozaki had to get ready for a long patrol duty in the morning. As for Midoriya, he had nothing better to do than to shower and get to work on making his dinner. But both green haired individuals went home feeling rather satisfied with how their day ended up turning out.
~Shiozaki's Apartment, Two Hours Later~
After showering and taking care of a few minor chores around the house, Shiozaki dropped herself onto her rose themed bed to begin winding down for the night. All in all, she had a pretty enjoyable day. Sure she didn't get to spend as much time at the bowling alley as she would've liked. But being in the presence of some enjoyable company more than made up for that.
After about twenty minutes of scrolling through some gardening blogs and watching an assortment of random videos on YouTube, she got a text notification from the group chat she shared with Yu, Tokage and all of her other female friends. Curious to see what this was all about, the woman swiped right on her screen and opened up her messaging app.
-(o)-
~Femme Fatales Group Chat~
T-Rex: So Ibara...how was your day today?
Cross: Pretty good. Nothing particularly special. Why are you asking?
T-Rex: Nothing special huh? Are you sure about that?
Cross: What?
Mushroom: Oh no, you don't know do you?
Cross: Know about what?
Fist: What's going on?
Ruler: ?
Ghost: I can already see where this is going.
Mountain: Oh man...this is going to be great!
T-Rex: By any chance have you checked out any of the hero tabloids this afternoon?
Cross: You should know by now that I don't give any of that sinful nonsense my attention.
Cross: Why?
T-Rex: Welllllllll...I just so happened to be scrolling through Instagram when I came across a pretty interesting article that was posted to "Heroes Daily" a little over an hour ago.
T-Rex: I'll just post the screenshots here and let you get back to us.
T-Rex: image attachments (4)
Wanting to see what all the fuss was about, the vine haired heroine opened up the first image attachment and nearly dropped her phone on her face after analyzing it for a brief second. There on the screen was a picture of her and Midoriya at the crepe stand they stopped by a few hours ago. Along with another image of the two of them leaving the bowling alley not too long before that.
Despite already having a pretty good idea of where this situation was heading, Shiozaki decided to just bite the bullet and opened the other two images to see the caption under the pictures.
"Holy romance in the making? Pro heroine, Vine, spotted on an early afternoon outing with a mystery companion. Has Eve finally found her Adam? Or has the pious heroine taken a break from her righteous vows to engage in some more sinful behavior?"
'Oh no...'
Ruler: ?
T-Rex: Care to fill us in?
Mountain: And feel free to be as detailed as possible. ;-)
Mushroom: Is that the Hero Hunter that Setsuna told me about?
Ghost: Hero Hunter?
T-Rex: I guess that job title has a whole new meaning to it now, huh? lol
Fist: Let's not jump to conclusions guys. We all know how these tabloid pages operate.
T-Rex: I just want to hear to scoop directly from the source. What's so wrong with that?
Mountain: Before we start let me go pour myself a glass of wine.
Mountain: I have a feeling that we're going to be talking about this for a while.
And just like that, Ibara Shiozaki's delightful day off turned into what was surely going to be the most annoying week of her young adult life.
~Midoriya's Apartment~
At that exact same moment, Midoriya was right in the middle of stirring a pot of curry when the ringtone on his phone caught his attention. To his surprise, Chief Inspector Kaniko was the one calling. That was odd, the crab themed woman almost never called him when he was off duty unless it was something important. So without hesitation, the man pressed the green button on his screen to see what his boss wanted.
"Hello?" He spoke into the device.
"Oh Izukuuuuuuu...you got some explaining to dooooooo~!" The voice of the orange haired woman said in a suspiciously cheery tone.
"Senpai, what are you talking about?"
"Oh don't try and play cute with me mister! Ishikawa already showed me the pictures."
"What pictures?" Okay, now the man was confused. Whatever was going on definitely seemed to have his boss in a dangerously joyful mood.
"Wait...you don't know?" Kaniko then asked.
"Know what?"
"Oh boy." The woman then let out an amused sigh. "Are you busy?"
"Not really?"
"Good, because you're definitely going to want to hear about what I have to tell you."
A/N: You know...it's actually a lot more difficult writing a post-U.A. AU with an original story line than I thought. I'm trying to find the right pacing while making sure I develop things with Midoriya and Shiozaki without rushing it. While also making sure I hit certain "benchmarks" in a timely manner. And these two aren't exactly the most "outgoing" characters in the universe so that's slowing things down a bit. But, I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could do it properly. And I'm enjoying the creative freedom that I have. I plan on writing my own original work in the near future, so this is just helping me work out the kinks for that. Anyways...ignore my complaining.
1. This chapter is pretty much where we start putting our foot on the gas story wise. Obviously things are going to change regarding Midoriya and Shiozaki's…friendship(?). And this is going to be the start of it. How will this go? Only time may tell.
2. I'm going to try and alternate perspectives between the two each chapter moving forward. Most of these chapters have been Shiozaki heavy, so it's about time that we got a little more into what Midoriya thinks. Someone commented that he's a bit of a hard character to get a read on in this fic. And that's kind of the point so far. So I'll be diving more into him moving forward. I just wanted to make sure that I get my bases covered.
3. Writing Shiozaki as an MC is pretty challenging. I don't want to overdo the religious references. But I don't think that I've been doing her in-canon character justice. So I'll do my best to improve on that in the future.
Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. And have a nice day!