"Are you done crying, or should I get the bath towel?"

"I am done, sensei."

"Are you sure? Motor oil is so hard to get out of two-way tricot. I knew I should have gone with the peach skin..."

Genos was still rattling slightly, but he said, "I am sure, sensei."

Saitama had still been awake when Genos woke up screaming.

Usually Genos was the first to rise and the last to roll out their futon at night, but the Karaoke Battle had taken its toll, so Saitama offered to bring in the laundry. Genos hadn't gotten five minutes of sleep before the nightmares started. That was the only drawback of his sleep mode: instant nightmares, do not pass REM stage sleep, do not collect fifty-thousand yen.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. "No word limit."

"...Is there a word requirement?"

Saitama made a face and folded another pair of socks. "Of course not."

"Then no, thank you, sensei."

Saitama added five more socks to the darning pile. At least they were easier to repair than shoes, although Saitama liked it best when Genos went barefoot. He looked so young with his metal toes poking out as he sat seiza or bustled about the apartment. Saitama shoved the pile into a closet. The darning could wait awhile.

"Go back to sleep," he said, rolling his own futon flush with Genos'. "I'll go with you this time."

Genos draped himself on top of Saitama like a very weighted blanket. His sensei was taller, but with the way Genos curled into himself like a mecha prawn, he still managed to fit his head under Saitama's chin.

"It's 'cause they made you sing that Morigushi song," Saitama grumbled. "I knew it would give you nightmares about your family."

Genos didn't respond, not knowing if the true subject was any more or less rational than fear of an event that had already passed. Saitama was the strongest man in the world, but challenges had already come from other worlds. Something in this macroverse might be able to-

His thoughts lagged. Genos buried his face in the crook of his sensei's neck and held him tighter- tighter than he could have held a normal man.

Saitama could not reciprocate without denting something, but he seemed to squeeze back a bit, before running one finger along the knobs of Genesis artificial spine, like a child dragging a stick across a fence.

Genos shivered again, though this time it was less of a rattle, and more like-

"Are you vibrating?"

"Yes," Genos lied through his polycarbonate teeth. "I just got a text message from Doctor Kuseno. He says hi."

"That's weird," said Saitama. "He usually signs off with the stuck-out-tongue-emoji."

"Well, I wasn't going to make that face," said Genos, offended enough to forget he'd been lying in the first place.

"Did your doc watch the karaoke thing?" Saitama's shoulders tensed under his head. "Is it something else? Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine," said Genos. "The doctor simply wants to make certain that I haven't frayed any of my vocal cords. I go through them with some regularity, even without the added strain of continued usage at 63% volume, or doing my own backup vocals."

"I wonder why," said Saitama. He dropped a kiss on top of his student's head, sensors barely registering it through the mop of synthetic hair. Genos still vented steam like a broken teakettle.

"Sensei," he mumbled into a sweaty collarbone. "Can we stay home tomorrow and watch anime?"

Saitama sighed, already half-asleep. "I thought you'd never ask."


"Well, spit it out."

"I don't actually have any ideas. I was just trying to change the subject," said King. He couldn't even hear the King Engine over the rushing in his ears, which he thought might be the wings of Death. Stranger things had happened. Like, just last week.

Tatsumaki looked at him like he was an idiot, which seemed fair. "I had already changed the subject."

"It took me a few minutes to work up the courage. You're very intimidating. I mean that in a feminist way."

"Aren't you supposed to be the strongest man in the world?"

"Aren't you supposed to be psychic?"

The look increased in its intensity. "I am psychic."

"Can't you… you know… read my thoughts?"

"Telekinetic not telepathic, nitwit."

"Oh," said King, followed by a much more italicized, "Oh."

"I have an idea," said Fubuki, it was so italicized that Tatsumaki automatically reverted to a favorite fantasy in which she ran away and started a new life under a false identity. It would be easy enough to lie about her age. For once, her negligible growth- forever stunted by a head pat from Blast- would be a boon. She could go back to primary school. Things were so much simpler in primary school.

"What is it?" asked King, who didn't know better.

"The reason those boys are so clueless isn't because they have no social experience. It's because they have no dating experience. They've never been exposed to a healthy couple before. Surely Saitama was not raised by normal parents."

"Get to your point," said Tatsumaki, crossing her arms, and levitating just a little bit higher. Telepathic or not, she could see exactly which direction this conversation was heading.

"Someone simply needs to show Genos and Saitama that their behavior is more normal for couples than friends. The only question is: Who? Now, unfortunately I am a member of an organization in which fraternization is forbidden among members."

"What does that have to do with it?" said Tatsumaki, who should have known better.

Fubuki smiled. "I made King an honorary member of the Fubuki Group during the whole monster Union thing."

Tatsumaki glared at King.

"Intimidating," he whispered, then even more quietly, "Feminist."

"And we're sisters," Fubuki added helpfully.

"You know what?" said Tatsumaki, thinking about Tatsumakawaii. "Why not?"

"...Why not what?" asked King.