Once upon a time, tracking Aizawa had been the most reckless thing she'd done in her entire life. But this may take the cake.
Momo's hands were shaking as she watched the building across from her, so she tapped a finger against her leg to relieve the anxiety. Her ears were pounding with the sound of her heartbeat. But she'd made a decision, and she was going to follow through with it.
She had made a tremendous mistake with Mr. Aizawa, she realized that now. She didn't know if he had been telling her the truth when he'd told her he would never look at her the way she looked at him — and there had been so many small moments, she was still on one level convinced he did. He had been tender toward her. He'd saved her life. He'd killed for her. He believed in her — and he believed she could be duplicitous, like him.
But he was right. He was her teacher. There was no dignified way for them to engage in a relationship so long as she was his student.
She watched the door awhile longer, then at last she steeled herself and crossed the street. Her heels clicked steadily on the blacktop, then the sidewalk, and up the stairs to the restaurant. The graffiti had been pressure washed off, but something newer, fresher, and more lewd had taken its place. The window was untouched. The bell over the door rang as she pushed it open.
She knew where his table was from her weeks watching this place, and even though her heart was hammering frantically in her chest, Momo kept her footsteps steady as she approached his table. Dark eyes came up to meet hers — widened in surprise. Her father pushed himself back from the table hastily, but Momo didn't give him the opportunity to chase her away. Kobayashi sat up straighter in his seat, and a third man she didn't recognize looked her over with high interest. She pulled out the last empty chair at the table and sat down.
"Daughter." He looked more confused than angry, but she could hear it laced through his words that he would get there if she gave him the opportunity. "I wasn't expecting you."
Of course he wasn't. Momo reached inside her purse and took out a lighter and a cigarette, placed the cig between her lips, and lit it. She could read her father's face like an open book as she took a drag, balancing it carefully between her fingers as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. She'd jarred him from his approaching anger, keeping him off balance with shock.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," she said with all the coyness she could muster, and she looked at him with big, doe eyes. Then she bowed her head to the stranger sitting at the table with her father and Kobayashi. "I am Yaoyorozu Momo. Please forgive my intrusion."
He was striking in a way she hadn't expected of one of her father's associates. He wasn't Japanese; he had thick blonde hair, and his eyes were a blue so flat and pale they were almost gray. He wore a pair of silver frames glasses. Everything about him seemed sharp. He had high, prominent cheekbones. His nose, his jawline, even his forehead were angular and cut. He might have been a model if he didn't choose to sit at this table instead. There was a gray suit jacket draped over the back of his chair that matched his slacks, and he wore a black button up and a black tie that fitted tightly around his throat. But she saw a few lines of ink exposed above the collar — he had a throat tattoo. The cuffs of his shirt were folded up his muscled forearms, and she could see some of his tattoos. They did not hold the same allure Aizawa's did; they were a foreign style, and seemed more menacing than beautiful. Intricate knots curled down his arms and wrists, and onto the backs of his hands. Runes were tattooed on his knuckles, which were pale with scar tissue. He was deep-chested and broad shouldered. The man seemed more amused than put off by her interruption. He smoked a fat cigar rather than a cigarette, and kept it between his lips as he spoke.
"Saito Ren."
He offered his hand in response to her bow, and the gesture managed to catch her off-guard. Handshakes were not something that was offered often in Japan; he had the edge of a foreigner, but one who purposefully chose to shuck their traditions. But she only hesitated for a moment before accepting. She wasn't sure she'd ever shaken a person's hand before, and it sent a thrill through her. How nouveau. Her father's brow was creased in disapproval;
"Father, I have to ask a favor."
Her father opened his mouth — to protest, she was sure. He was going to tell her this wasn't the time or place, but her decision to confront him here had not been accidental. Her interrupting a meeting was not by mistake.
"I want to finalize my transfer to Shiketsu," she interjected. "Immediately."
There it was. She'd laid her goal face up on the table in front of her father's peers. He would have to flex his muscles to make it happen, or he would face the shame of their judgment. But the sooner she was no longer a UA student, the sooner Aizawa wouldn't have that as an excuse.
"Shiketsu?" Saito repeated. He puffed on the cigar briefly. The man's bright eyes went to her father, brows lifted in interest. "Your daughter is an aspiring Hero, too?"
The question hadn't been for her, and it might have been rude for her to do it but she answered anyway.
"I began attending UA this year, but it's become so turbulent — I was present for the USJ attack, and I was at the training camp when a student was abducted," Momo said, although she'd been through much more significant trauma since then.
Again, Saito didn't seem put off by her.
"UA? You must be very adept to have been accepted to such a prestigious school, and I understand why you would want to leave in the current environment."
"I was accepted on recommendation, too," she added.
She was smart enough to know what she was doing; she knew she could use her father's connections against him now. Momo remembered the conversation she'd had with Aizawa —
"There are no old, free gangsters, Danchou."
"I'd ask how many retired gangsters you know, too, but I'm aware I'd be asking the wrong person."
Because she knew one. Approximately one. Her father had made his bones in Yakuza before he'd pursued his path in Hero work, but she knew he would never — could never — sever those ties he'd forged in his youth. As much as she'd wanted to deny it, she knew Aizawa had been right when he said he couldn't just leave. Her father walked a fine line, upholding his place in Hero society and appeasing the people from his past. She was smart enough to realize she had the opportunity to leverage it against him now to get what she wanted.
What she couldn't know, however, was the danger she was leveraging it with.
"Were you in the sports festival?" he asked, holding the cigar in his fingers and glancing over it as though inspecting it. The scent of the cigar was fragrant, almost sweet underneath — more pleasant than cigarettes. She nodded. "Now I regret not watching this year."
Saito turned to her father then: "Another generation of Pro Hero in your family, that much make you proud." He said it with a smile that wasn't directed at her. He was no longer speaking to her at all, only her father. "Is there an issue with her transfer? I can't imagine Shiketsu declining to take a UA student."
"They require additional recommendations from UA staff, and have stipulated that she obtain her provisional license," her father explained with reactance.
"How far out are those exams?" Saito asked. Her father glanced to her for the answer.
"Over a month," she supplied.
Saito clicked his tongue in disapproval.
"That's unnecessary, wouldn't you say, Yaoyorozu?" Momo looked to her father expectantly, and he glowered at her. "What's the hold up on transferring her before then? Is it a money issue?" Saito tapped his cigar on the ash tray between them and leaned in confidingly. "If it's a money issue, we can talk."
Her father scoffed hard, and sat up straighter as he pushed himself a little further away from the table. He gave Saito a smile that, to an outsider, looked kind before he leaned across to him.
"Who do you think I am?" her father demanded in a whisper. "Who the fuck do you think I am that I would take money from someone like you."
"I know who you were once upon a time — a long time ago," Saito smiled, easing back in his chair casually. "I just wanted to be a friend. But if you have issue with taking my money…" Saito's cool eyes went to her. "…maybe your daughter wants to foot her own loan."
Her father shoved himself to his feet and threw his arm out, inserting it between his daughter and Saito. A vein pulsed in her father's forehead.
"You go too far."
"Can you handle a minor task like transferring your daughter's school or not?" Saito demanded, unaffected by her father's frothing rage. He puffed away on his cigar, almost merrily, for a few seconds, then a wicked smile teased at the corners of his lips. "If you can't do a small thing like that, then maybe it's fair for me to question what else you are and aren't capable of. Maybe you've lost your touch, Asao."
Her father turned away and Momo heard him cursing under his breath. Saito Ren, who'd climbed out from the depths of Hell with his Devil May Care attitude, gave another puff on his cigar and, as he did, he gave her a knowing, smug wink.
"You take a penny from him, Momo," her father suddenly threatened, turning his attention on her, "and you will not be allowed home."
The harshness of his words caught her entirely off-guard, and Momo couldn't get her tongue to work as she gaped at him in shock. The depth of his threat was still sinking in when Saito spoke again.
"So you'll handle it, this little transfer issue? Because I would hate to have doubts about your usefulness. Maybe you've outlived your glory days."
"I will handle it without your interference," her father snarled, and he rose to his feet, beckoning for Momo to follow suite. She obeyed. "Mind your own business, Saito."
The blonde man smiled as her father led her away, and he gave her a cool, controlled smile, then looked at her more warmly.
"We'll be in touch, Ms. Yaoyorozu."
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and Momo felt him watching them as she followed her father out.