"There should be a ticket waiting for me," Momo said, folding her sunglasses and tucking them away in her purse. "Theater 4."
"Name?" the attendant asked. It was a girl not much older than her, and she couldn't have seemed less interested in looking at Momo for verification.
"Yaoyorozu Momo."
"Ticket's right here, seat 8F." The clerk slid the ticket through to her, and Momo saw her name had been scribbled on a corner in familiar handwriting. "The movie started a few minutes ago."
"That's fine, thanks."
Momo took the ticket and went ahead through, handing it off to the teen boy who was checking them before proceeding to the theater. It wasn't until she reached the entrance and saw the movie poster on the wall that she saw what movie it was. She rolled her eyes, and pulled the door open.
The theater was already dim — not nearly pitch black as the movie played on the screen, but dark enough for her breath to hitch for a moment before she focused on the lights along the floor and stairs, guiding the way. Most seats were empty; it was a weekday afternoon, so it didn't surprise her greatly. She found her seat near the far end of one of the higher rows, and she had to squeeze past Aizawa to settle into her seat.
"Godzilla?" she murmured, glancing from the corner of her eye.
"Your movie education is severely lacking. This isn't Godzilla — it's Mothra vs. Godzilla. But I'm didn't tell you to come here to fix your movie tastes."
His tone wasn't quite playful; it teetered on the line of jesting, but wasn't there. The light nearly reached his eyes…yet it didn't. He felt both close and miles away.
The text he'd sent to the burner phone had been plain enough. "Kiyashi Ward shopping mall. 1pm theater 4. Ticket will be at the counter."
Her father had been out, and her mother at her tennis lesson so it had been easy enough to leave her home. If they'd seen her, they would have protested that she needed to stay home and abide her doctor's orders of bed rest. She was glad to have left without complications.
She'd worn another disguise to meet him; today, a blonde pixie haircut, and it had been hell to get all her long, dark hair tucked up inside the cap well enough for her to wear the wig. She wore simple jeans and white tank top, and a brown leather jacket over it. Just a face. Forgettable. He, too, had dressed to not be noticed — gray-washed jeans and a black button-up, a blazer over it. The top half of his hair was pulled to a messy half bun at the back of his head. A few pieces around his face had come loose.
"You look tired," he said.
"Why am I here?" she asked instead of answering, settling into the seat beside him.
He shifted and reached inside his blazer, for the breast pocket, and his hand came back out holding a stack of tri-fold papers. He didn't hand them to her.
"You went through a traumatic event," he said, watching the movie screen as he tapped the papers against his knee. "The school is going to have you undergo a psychological evaluation."
"Wha—"
She sat, stunned into silence, just staring blankly at the movie screen, unable to take in any of what was playing. Beside her, Aizawa was watching still with casual interest. He chuckled softly at it.
"What do I do?" she asked quietly. "You know I'll fail…"
"I know you'd fail," Aizawa said back, as though that nuance mattered. "But you won't."
He held the papers out for her to take then.
"What are these?"
He didn't answer. When she got nothing from him, she unfolded them and glanced them over. Her eyes rose back to him, dropped to the papers, then lashes fluttered as she looked back up again.
"If I sit there and parrot off these answers, that will be the biggest red flag," she said, realizing what he had given to her, and putting the paper away in her jacket pocket.
"Everything you need is there. You have enough information in front of you, and I know how smart you are — you'll know what to do. I trust you."
She swallowed hard, not sure what was hitting her the hardest. That she wouldn't be able to stay at UA if she didn't pass this assessment, that she knew she would fail, or that Aizawa knew she would fail — and he didn't want her to. He was helping her cheat Fate when she wasn't deserving of the allowance.
"Yaoyorozu." She blinked, head jerking up to see that he had turned his head to face her, and her lips parted. Fire crept up her cheeks. "What's been happening?"
"I—" She averted her eyes from him, unable to withstand what she was seeing in his eyes. There was so much concern, like he genuinely worried about what she saw on the insides of her eyelids every time she blinked. He sat to face the movie screen again.
"Do you want to go somewhere more private?" he asked cautiously, but she shook her head. If they were somewhere secluded she very well might cry.
"I, uh, I'm having nightmares," she started."I can't be in the dark, I can't."
Her throat felt swollen as she spoke, and Momo paused to turn away and cough quietly into her elbow. She heard a person shift in their seat toward the front of the theater.
"What happens in the dark?" he asked softly, leaning his body toward her confidingly, watching her from the corner of his eye, attention fully on her.
Momo covered her mouth with one hand and turned away, shaking her head. The tears were coming whether she wanted them to or not now. He began to rise, touching her shoulder to indicate for her to follow him, but she shook her head deliberately to indicate her refusal. Aizawa lowered himself back down to sit.
"You don't to do this now," he reassured her. "But you'll need to practice to be ready to get through this during the evaluation."
"I see the man hanging in front of me, dangling from meat hooks," she whispered as quietly as she could, every syllable trembling. "And as I watch him, he blinks."
Aizawa inhaled, nodding.
"When I sleep—I see him when I sleep. He-He blinks, and then I see his chest rise. He's still alive. I'm standing there looking at him, and I realize he's still alive. I make a step ladder and climb up. I have to t-touch him." She paused again, her eyes darting to everywhere but him. "He's so cold. I put my arms around his chest and I lift. I swear I can feel his heart beating against my chest. He's so heavy, so heavy, and he doesn't come off the hooks. The hooks come off the bar instead. I almost drop him as I try to get him to the ground. I start trying to treat him and he's looking at me. He's just blinking and breathing, watching me. I'm doing everything I can to save him, and he just stares up at me, blue, breathing, and he blinks. He blinks and I just scream—"
Aizawa put an arm around her and tucked her into his chest, and she took the shelter he offered. He was safety. An anchor. He was strong enough to hold that weight of her burdens when they were too much for her. She let him take it. She let him chase away the dark. Momo cried quietly until the well had run dry.
She knew she was teetering into something dangerous. Not many weeks ago she's been convinced Aizawa — Danchou — needed to be stopped, even turned in. But now she was finding that the more she learned, the less she cared about stopping him. She knew why, too. Don't romanticize it, he'd said, but it was too late for warnings. She was falling for him. After all that had happened between them in the past few months, it'd be more of a surprise if she didn't. Everything that had transpired between them, all these secrets, brought with it an emotional intimacy she'd never touched before. They were keeping each other's secrets. Protecting one another. He'd been there in her most vulnerable, raw moments. Don't romanticize it, he said. Here, meeting clandestinely in this dark theater, with a comforting arm around her shoulder, Momo allowed herself a moment to do just that.
"I'm sorry you experienced what you did. But I want you to know I'm not disappointed in you or your decisions that night."
She glanced up at him, and realized in that moment exactly how close he'd allow her to get as she'd sought refuge in him. His arm was still around her shoulder, and her body was turned inward to his. Her hands…one was on his shoulder, and the other on his chest. She held her breath, not wanting to speak for fear of breaking the moment, fearing him pushing her away.
"Why?" she asked.
"You made a decision to keep something from me — to do something questionable, that you know I would've stopped if I'd known."
"And you're proud of that?" He nodded. "Why?"
"Because you proved you can, when you want to, live duplicitously." A long silence settled between them, until he said, "In light of all that's happened, the school will be establishing dorms. If you don't want to do that, then this eval is your easy way out. That's all up to you."
He withdrew his arm from around her, to her great disappointment, and shifted away in his seat. She immediately felt cold. He said nothing else as the movie played, and when the credits started he stood, pausing to give her shoulder a squeeze, then walked out the theater while everyone else in the audience remained seated. She took her cue and stayed put until everyone else began to file out, and she joined them then. Aizawa was no place to be seen as she left the mall.