The Hero Association hosted occasional events to raise money for various charities while simultaneously promoting their heroes. They were quite popular with the public. Less so with the heroes themselves, but there was none quite so unpopular as the Karaoke Battle. Not even the Heroine Auction. Not even Candy or Not Candy.

Tatsumaki refused hands-down, still furious over the new nicknames she and her sister had been given by their alleged fans.

Waifubuki and Tatsumakawaii.

Kawaii.

Most of the heroes refused, but Genos wound up volunteering, because he had a perfect pitch and very little shame. They didn't even need to give him a mic. He just cranked up his own volume.

"He's actually pretty good," said Fubuki, although it was clearly not a compliment so much as an unwelcome realization.

"Your competitive streak is ridiculous," said Tatsumaki. "You didn't even enter."

Fubuki sniffed delicately. "I have a sore throat."

"It's probably from all that yelling you do."

"I don't yell!"

"Yeah, Genos has a perfect pitch," said Saitama, who was there for support and also free food. "He told me so. Right after telling me I was flat."

"You… sang for each other?" asked Tatsumaki.

"Of course not! We were just at the bathhouse, and- You know what? It's none of your business."

She flipped her hair. "I'll just ask Genos."

Saitama winced.

By the end of the evening, Genos had accumulated over five million yen for prostate cancer research and several pairs of panties. He couldn't seem to decide if it was ruder to acknowledge them or not, so he bowed to each woman who managed to land one on the stage. Fortunately, only the first few rows had enough throwing power.

Eventually he made it back to his sensei.

"Nice job, kid."

"Thank you for your support!"

"Stop bowing. The show is over."

"Yes, sensei!" The sibilants were pure static. Saitama winced again.

"Jacking up the volume like that really did a number on you, huh? You want to go home and get some rest?"

"Yes, please, sensei."

Saitama started pocketing food, head turned halfway over his shoulder to address the group. "Genos needs to be recharged, so we're gonna' take off." Without waiting for a response, he turned back to Genos. "Do you wanna' walk or ride?"

"Sensei, as I explained earlier, without cranial support my skull sensors indicate-"

"-Yeah, yeah," Saitama said, one might say fondly, especially if one were also watching him sweep Genos into his arms. A gloved hand supported his knee-joints, the other extending up his silver spine to cradle the back of his head. "I remember."

"I apologize for the trouble, Sensei. I know that my head is heavy and not very well-cushioned."

"You're pretty hard-headed alright," said Saitama, already smiling at his own joke. This caused Genos to vent steam like a teakettle and hid his face.

"Thank you, sensei," he probably said. It was somewhat muffled by Saitama's pecs.

"Yeah, yeah," Saitama said again. He leapt from the balcony, landing in a crouch to soften the impact, and took off at a speed that the other heroes pretended not to notice.

"How are they not dating?" asked Tatsumaki.

"Maybe they're just hiding it from us… badly," suggested Fubuki.

"Then I wouldn't have to suffer through all this damn pining. I feel like I'm back in high school." She grabbed a lock of her hair and tugged, the stinging sensation slightly less annoying than those idiots. "I don't know how they're hiding it from each other."

"They'll figure it out in their own time," said King. He was helping himself to the few refreshments spared by Saitama. He seemed to favor sweets. So did Tatsumaki, but if she ate them in public, there was inevitably some sort of photo, byline, or Tweet containing that word. Kawaii. Like she was an idol.

Like she was Amai Mask.

Tatsumaki shuddered.

"Are you kidding me?" She rounded on King this time. "Caped Baldy just carried Genos out of here- bridal style."

"They had a perfectly rational explanation for that," he said.

"Exactly! They'll have a perfectly rational, heterosexual explanation for everything. The staring, the gifts, the apron. They'll probably have a heterosexual explanation for when they finally break and bone each other. They're hopeless."

King blushed, making his scars look even starker than usual. "I don't think they have a lot of uh- social experience."

"No shit," said Fubuki. "The first time I met Genos, he started talking about crabs."

"You can't really count a revenge mission as normal socialization," said Tatsumaki, who absolutely did not have a protective streak for anyone her junior, no matter what Child Emperor implied. Obnoxious little brat. See if she ever helped him with his neural uploading project again. "I mean, he never even went to high school. What's Baldy's excuse?"

"I think Saitama was a bit of a hikikomori before he met Genos." King offered her his last slice of roll cake. Tatsumaki accepted, but only because his ridiculous shoulders were already hiding her from the press. "He's obviously been training for a while."

"Even though we never heard of him before he and Genos just showed up to break every single HA record," Tatsumaki grumbled through a mouthful of strawberries.

"Still bitter about the Whack-a-Mole score?" asked Fubuki.

Tatsumaki ignored her. "They obviously need some help from their friends."

King raised his hand. "Yeah. No. I was actually a hikikomori too. The only advice I could offer them would come from dating sims."

Fubuki wasn't as surprised as Tatsumaki. She had been to some of Saitama's impromptu parties, after all. Calling them parties was a stretch, since she usually ended up eating (or drinking) her own housewarming gift, but they weren't quite rowdy enough to call riots.

Except that one time.

"Dating sims?"

"It filled the basic human need for socialization without causing me further anxiety," said King.

"I struck up a psychic correspondence with the only other esper strong enough to hear me back then," said Tatsumaki, and it was Fubuki's turn to be surprised. Her sister never talked about Shigeo. "I had the biggest crush on him, but he fell in love with this other esper that tried to kill him, and that's usually my opener."

"I bet he's kicking himself now that you're such a beautiful hero," said King.

Both sisters could have caught flies this time.

King panicked, unaware that the main reason he was able to respect Tornado of Terror as a woman despite her adolescent appearance was because he played a lot of dating sims, in which all the technically-legal girls looked about twelve.

"Is that the King Engine?" asked Tatsumaki.

The King Engine increased audibly in volume.

Fubuki, who had been looking back and forth between them like they were a particularly interesting game of Pong, clapped her hands together.

"Looks like it's up to me."

"You don't have friends, you have underlings," said her sister.

"You have neither."

Tatsumaki's hands clenched into fists until she remembered how childish that looked. "I have fans."

"I have more."

"I'm S-Class," said Tatsumaki.

"I'm D-Cup," said Fubuki.

Fubuki's body glowed green for a moment, but Tatsumaki took a couple of calming breaths and muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like, "Don't point them at people."

"Um," King raised his hand. "I might actually have an idea."