"That's so lucky that Shiketsu was willing to allow your work study," Ashido said, biting a fry in half as she watched Momo.
Momo gave a bit of a shrug, shifting slightly in her seat and she pushed her own food around her breakfast plate with her fork.
"I hadn't expected them to, honestly. UA and Shiketsu deliberately don't overlap their work study schedules — but since Shiketsu already did their second work study, if they didn't allow it I'd have been behind. I'm also still scheduled for the provisional exam — so I guess I'll be seeing you there, too, hopefully!"
"How do the classes compare?" Uraraka asked.
"The work is about the same," she admitted. "The teachers are the biggest difference. The Shiketsu teachers are more…" A pause while she searched for the word. "No, not more. Less. Less chaotic."
The other two girls laughed, knowing exactly what she meant.
"How have classes been at UA?" Momo asked. "Is Mr. Aizawa still sleeping through homeroom?"
"He's been even harder on us than before," Ashido admitted, tilting her head back and closing her eyes in dismay. "Iida made a comment about being too in the class and Mr. Aizawa nearly took his head off. We had to vote for a new vice representative, too — Todoroki won."
"I shouldn't be surprised, Todoroki is an excellent candidate," she said. Momo took a sip of her tea, then, as nonchalantly as she could, "Why was Mr. Aizawa so angry?"
"I think he's just upset that you left, honestly," Uraraka said. "I heard that over a dozen students have left UA in the last month — and a lot of them didn't even wait to transfer to a Hero school. They just left. But I don't think any of them were as high ranking as you."
Momo felt a smug satisfaction at Uraraka's words. She'd wanted to know Aizawa was affected by her leaving. She hadn't returned to class since he'd taken his phone back, and she wanted to know he was suffering from his own decision to reject her. She wasn't his student anymore now, though, and she'd had her birthday. She was of-age for her prefecture now. If he wanted to be with her, he could. If her leaving affected him this much, then maybe his rejection had been posturing because she was still his student. Well, that had been resolved easily enough.
"Hello?" she said, brows slightly pinched as she answered a call from a phone number she didn't recognize.
"Miss Yaoyorozu?"
"Yes?"
"This is Saito Ren. We met recently through your father."
She'd paused then, and her father's warning was loud in her head — 'You take a penny from him, Momo, and you will not be allowed to return home.' Her father certainly knew Saito far better than she did, and such a stern warning could not be without merit.
"I remember you," she replied, crossing the room to close and lock her bedroom door.
"I am following up on the issue of your transfer. Has it been approved?"
Momo hesitated now. "No, it hasn't."
"A shame, but I thought that might be the case. Would you like me to see what I can do?"
Momo hit mute on the phone then and took it away from her ear. She bit her lip and stared at her desk for a long minute in consideration, leaving him waiting. Did she want this last chance with Aizawa badly enough to make this bargain to get it?
She unmuted the phone.
"What will that require from me?" she asked hesitantly.
"I've watched the tapes from the Sports Festival now," he mentioned, and he said it so casually. It just rolled off his tongue like it belonged in the conversation. "You have an impressive quirk. I'm sure we could come to a fair agreement."
"Todoroki asked for your phone number," Ashido said without looking at Momo. "Cool if I give it to him?"
"Todoroki?" she repeated, confused, as she nudged her plate away with a finger, no longer interested in her meal. "Why?"
"Probably in case he ever needs your help with something. You two made a great team in the final exam," Uraraka said, and Momo's cheeks felt warm as she remembered her exchange with Aizawa during it.
"No, he definitely likes her," Ashido laughed. "Oh, look at you blush! You like him back!"
"What? No," Momo said quickly, embarrassed. At one point she had, earlier in the year before her infatuation with her teacher had begun.
"Please let me give him your number. You two would be so cute together! You're too of the class, his father is the Number 1 Pro Hero, you both got in on recommendation. And now that you go to Shiketsu, it has Capulet-Montague vibes," Ashido said, leaning her chin into her hands, dreamily.
"I mean, I guess you can," Momo said with uncertainty, but not really sure what else to say. She had no reason to refuse. "I don't think we'd be as good of a couple as you think though."
"Why not?" Uraraka asked sincerely, pushing her plate away.
"He's so…" She didn't know exactly.
"So long as you don't listen to that rap music around him, it'll be fine," Ashido interjected.
Uraraka's eyes went big. "You listen to rap?"
Momo was blushing hotly now.
"Will that be cash or charge?" a voice asked over her shoulder.
Momo immediately tensed, holding her breath. It took a moment for the tightness in her chest to relax, and she saw the expressions on the other girls' faces as they watched her reaction. It took a moment to process for them, but when it did, Uraraka blanched and Ashido looked away.
"Charge," Momo answered at last, and took her purse from where she'd draped it over the back of her chair. She handed her card to the server and they left with a courteous bow.
"I'm sorry," she apologized quickly. "I just—"
"No, it's okay!" Ashido said hastily. "I just…I haven't thought about what happened in awhile."
"Me either," Uraraka agreed. "It was a close call. I'm just glad that was the end of it."
Momo coughed and covered her mouth with her napkin to hide her face. "Yeah," she said after the seconds it took her to compose herself. "Me too."
It hadn't been for her though. That night had opened doors that she would have never passed by at all, let alone entered. That night had changed her entire life, and she didn't want to go back to how it had been before. Looking back, she saw herself as naive and impractical. Too soft. Even with all of the terrible things that had happened, she didn't want to return to that. Not at the cost of losing the time she had spent with Aizawa and how he'd opened her eyes.
She wondered now though what would have happened if it had been Ashido or Uraraka who had discovered Aizawa's secret. What would they have done differently. She had the sinking feeling that they would have turned Aizawa in; they'd have gone to All Might directly with their discovery, and the former Number 1 Hero would have kept them protected and safe while he investigated. How many more of her classmates would have sold Aizawa out? All of them, she was sure, now that she was thinking about it. She seemed to be the only one whose moral compass didn't point north.
Did she have a predilection for this sort of behavior? Was it in her blood that she should live on both sides of the line, like her father did? When Aizawa had told her he knew she was capable of living with the guilt of duplicity, what had she done that had given it away? Was it something others could see? Smell? Would Heroes look at her and sense that she might keep the confidences of people she shouldn't?
On her patrols with Majestic and his sidekick, Dropshot, they had occasionally pasted the places that held those sharp memories of Aizawa — the places that held his secrets. The street they'd been kidnapped on, the neighborhood near where Aizawa lived. They'd gone past the restaurant once, and she'd watched the windows apprehensively, worried about seeing the face of anyone she knew through the glass. But she kept her thoughts to herself. Even with Aizawa's icy rejection, even if he had meant it, she would not betray him out of spite.
The server broke her out of her thoughts when he offered her back her card. Momo squeezed her former classmate's hands as they parted ways with promises to do this again — soon. It had been invigorating to spend time with them, and she had missed their kinship since leaving UA. They parted at the door, and she had only gotten around the corner when her cellphone began to ring. She glanced at the number; it was Dropshot.
"Hello?"
"We need you to come back to the agency immediately," he said without preface.
She still had ten minutes before she had to be to work for her internship, technically, but she didn't think it appropriate to argue.
"I'm on my way back now. Is everything okay?"
"We need you to gear up. Sir Nighteye's agency is engaging a Yakuza faction to execute a rescue. We are on crowd control."
Momo sucked in a sharp breath, walking faster.
"Which faction?" she asked.
"Shie Hassaikai." Immediate relief — it was not Aizawa's organization. "The offensive is being led by Sir Nighteye's agency, with some outside support. When you get here we will head over, but make it fast."
"I'm on my way!"