In a way, Shota Aizawa was relieved by the next address.
Sure, an amphibious animorph opened the door and had to bend nearly in half to fit through the average-sized frame but, despite his frightening appearance, the man seemed at least sixty years old, skin leathery and wrinkled for more reasons than his reptilian-esque quirk.
His voice sounded like the squelching water of a stepped-in a puddle. After a short interaction he handed Aizawa a cumbersome package, gruffly commanding him to keep it sealed until he "returned to Chihiro".
Aizawa didn't correct the error in name; both out of sheer exhaustion and mild intimidation.
Considering where the last address had led him, Aizawa supposed Chiyo scraped through this one without a strike.
The sun kissed the horizon as he returned to his apartment's parking lot.
This had been, quite possibly, the longest day of his life.
And according to Chiyo they hadn't even begun part two yet.
With the boxes piled atop one another and the mysterious package precariously balancing over them both, Aizawa's pace towards the flat was slow; slow enough, in fact, for a bouncing woman to easily sense him well before he reached the door.
A hundred snarky comments -from the irritation of his burnt skin already beginning to peel to the fact she had sent him to the one person he'd rather see less than Emi Fukukado- faded like forgotten storm clouds at the sight of her glowing face, eyes bright and cheeks flushed as she bounded towards him.
"Hey, you made it! I'm so proud of you!"
When Chiyo reached for the boxes a hummingbird heart fell through her fingertips, rushed into his bloodstream like a newfound drug. She didn't seem to notice as the weight of the boxes nearly toppled her over.
"Here, let me-"
"No way! Stay out here for a second, okay? I'll be ready in five minutes, tops."
Without another word Chiyo pivoted and returned to the apartment. Aizawa remained still, trying to slow the whirlwind placed into his system by her flash-and-go smile, her accidental pulse.
True to her word, Chiyo returned five minutes later, still radiating like bio-luminescence. This time Aizawa thought himself prepared, only to once again fall prey to her chipped tooth and the way she touched his chest, leaning up to kiss his cheek. It was his heart that pattered against hers now. A swatch of red blended in well with his sunburn as she pulled away.
"Are you ready?"
"Don't think I'm not going to bring what you did up later, Tsutomi. You're going to be grading Aoyama's classwork for me for weeks-"
Chiyo waved a submissive hand. "Fine, fine. So, are you ready?"
His grim-but-decidedly-quiet expression was answer enough. A force tugged on Shota's fingers where she caught him, her own hand too small to hold much else. Again her nerves played like a xylophone mallet on his spine through the physical contact.
"I needed enough time to get everything ready- that's why you had to go alone. I'm sorry for how awkward everything probably was, but I am really proud of you for going. So I hope this all seems worth it."
Shota Aizawa paused in the doorway, eyes adjusting to the low light and confusing sight before him.
Where his rather barren living room had once been, there was now an entirely different space.
The coffee table and ottoman had vanished along with- bizarrely- his sliding glass door; instead a long, dark sheet covered the entire length of the wall, encasing small, flickering lights that trailed like comets to the ground. The television had also disappeared. A white canvas hung from a wire cross in its place, parallel to an end table holding the contents of Seiichi's two boxes (or, Aizawa supposed, Chiyo's boxes).
A doughy futon lay in the middle of the room, complete with the blankets and pillows from the bedroom, and a tray of snacks took up a portion of space on each respective side.
"Well, what do you think?"
Chiyo moved to the middle of the room and spread her arms wide. Her dress of earlier had been replaced with one of his T-shirts, hair soft around her shoulders, feet bare. Home attire, because she was home.
A sneaky sort of grin pressed against her cheeks. "I present part two, A Night at the Home Movies- or, as I've been calling it, The Introvert's Perfect Date."
He hadn't moved from where she left him. What was with him and hovering in doorways lately?
Chiyo lifted the newly-opened animorph's package, revealing a large silver spool. She drummed her fingers on the edge, suddenly nervous.
Why hadn't he said anything?
"I don't get to keep this, but I found a film collector online who was willing to let me borrow it. Apparently, he's a fan of yours."
The movie reel nearly eclipsed her entire chest when she lifted it for him to see the label. She held it higher until only her eyes peeked out over at him.
"When you first came to the video store, I almost called the police. But then you started talking about Miyazaki films and ensnared me into a debate til I forgot you were a stranger." Her nose wrinkled with a smile. "Well, a sort-of stranger. So I thought, 'what would be a better movie date than the original Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi?'" She paused, eyes shying away from him. "I'll- For you, it'll just be a week, but for me an entire month will pass before I see you again, so I wanted tonight to be special."
Chiyo fidgeted, nerves eating through her original confidence. He continued to stare at her until one hand finally reached up to tuck away her hair.
"The tv's just in the bedroom. I'll obviously move it back later. I didn't get rid of-"
He drank in her soft gasp, careful to take the movie reel from her hands and toss it gently onto the nearby couch, scooping her legs from under her. Her skin still felt warm even after all this time, made golden by the earlier sun. An incorrigible ache bloomed like fireworks in his chest, unable to take another second.
"I thought maybe you were really that mad-" Her words fell short, replaced with a soft laugh when he burrowed into her neck, found the freckle hidden in a sinewy curve. He could barely mumble an answer in return before she pulled his face back to hers. Her hands slipped beneath his shirt, shivered up his stomach.
"It was a bit of a wild goose chase," She said, kissing him all the while, "But I couldn't think of a better date for the Prince of Napping than a movie in,"
She could've been lounging on the couch with two tv dinners, for all he cared, and he still would've been content, so long as she was with him.
"I'd bought a film projector at a street market once but never got around to figuring it out or using it,"
With the explanation Chiyo tugged herself free from their entanglement. His face followed, reluctant to part, and she kissed the tip of his sunburnt nose in apology, lips twitching with a smile. She retrieved the discarded reel from the couch. "-But I watched a video online, and I checked to see if your speakers would be compatible. All systems are a go."
So she hadn't snuggled into a similar situation elsewhere, never rearranged a particular diced-laden room to match the one she currently stood in. The notion gave Aizawa an uncanny amount of smugness that he only felt partially ridiculous about.
"Do we have to return the projector along with the film?"
Chiyo didn't look up from threading the translucent reel onto the silver disks. She picked up on his sulky between-the-lines question nonetheless.
"The projector belongs to me, so no," She withdrew a clump of bubble-wrap to reveal a narrow light bulb about the length of her hand, undamaged due to someone's careful packaging. "It was nice of Seiichi to hold on to this, rather than just throwing it away."
"I'm sure he would've called you before doing so."
Aizawa's coyness of earlier bounced off his skin and onto hers, curving one side of her mouth.
"Jealousy is most unbecoming in a man, Aizawa."
Women were like elephants, with that irritating ability to recall the most mundane of conversations at a moment's notice, just to try and win an argument. Aizawa let out a grunt to fully embrace the unbecoming image. The film projector clicked to life along with her grin.
"You at least saw what I mean though, right?"
He looked at her skeptically, even after she created a pyramid of pillows and pushed him down into them.
"What Seiichi is like. Why it didn't work," Chiyo fiddled with a remote before slipping under the blanket and one of his arms with a sigh.
"Mm," He answered, mostly distracted by the smell of his shampoo filtering from her hair. She had her own fancy bottles of hair junk- why would she chose to use his cheap brand? And why was it so intoxicating on her?
"Again, I know you're probably still a little peeved, but I guess for me it's just a closed portion of my life I almost can't believe even happened."
She slapped a benign hand against his chest. "Which is why I sent you in my place because I have this, like, nagging guilt about it. I wasted so much time- his and mine- in that stupid little bubble, thinking this is how it's supposed to be, or you'll get used to it. But complacency isn't the same as happiness." She sighed. "I hope Seiichi is well, really. But only after did I realize I wasn't in love with him. Not how- not like now. With us."
Chiyo glanced up at him, surprised by his body's betrayal when a snare beat into her bloodstream. Her dastardly lips tightened, trying to fight a smirk.
"The movie's starting," Aizawa complained at her slacked attention.
The desperate attempt to slow his frazzled nerves was eased with her submersion, bleeding directly into his heart when her face rested against his chest. He brushed the hair from her temple and her whole body seemed to relax like a cat settling in.
"The animorph who lent us the film called you Chihiro."
Chiyo snorted in answer.
"I think it's kind of fitting."
"If you're leading up to a joke about me being as flat-chested as a ten year old, I'm moving out."
Her head rumbled along with his laugh.
"You said it yourself, in the movie store. How Chihiro appears average, but finds the courage to save both herself and her family-"
"And Haku," Chiyo mumbled. She didn't turn to catch his slow smile.
"And Haku."
She considered for a moment. "...She is pretty clumsy."
"Mm," Aizawa agreed. "Exceedingly."
"And seems to attract a lot of strange friends,"
"No Face does have a striking resemblance to Toshinori, yes."
Chiyo's dark hair shifted at last, revealing her smirky little face. "You think you're Haku, huh? The Haku to my Chihiro?" She scoffed as she sat up to grab a handful of candy. At least she would have tomorrow to sleep off the sugar crash before training.
Her mouth was grossly overfilled as she continued; "No offense, but I don't think you're cool enough to be Haku. You can't even fly."
He placed a hand over his heart in wounded mockery. She fed him a Kit-Kat stick, giggling when he caught her hand to lick her fingers clean.
"Interesting to know you find a fictional twelve-year-old cooler than me, Tsutomi."
"Interesting to know you want to be the twelve-year-old to my ten-year-old fictional self, Aizawa."
They ate way too much. Chiyo laughed at every other scene as if she hadn't watched this film a hundred times over, and he spent more time watching her than what was happening on the screen, quietly happy every time she nestled in against him.
"Do you think I'll look much different, after?"
She was lying on her back, film safely returned to its original packaging, projector shuttered. The only light of the room came from the falling-star lights glowing on the nearby wall. Shota propped his head in one hand to better face her.
"You probably won't be as soft, after," He gave her belly a pinch. She slapped his hand away, indignant, before he struck her with a severe expression. "Promise not to change your legs."
"I...don't think that's something I can just control," Chiyo tugged up the over-sized shirt to grab at her stomach herself. It was his turn to slap her hand away. "If anything, won't my legs get thicker?"
Aizawa gave a vague hum.
A man could dream.
"What if I'm even more of a ninja than you are by the time you get back?"
"Seeing that I'm not a fucking ninja, I can't say I'll mind."
She contemplated this development. He ran his fingers over the soft curve of her stomach, gliding up to her ribs and back down. Light eyes slid to his face when his hand moved further south.
"What if I grow, like, gills after being in the water so much?"
"I don't think that's how it works," He said into her shoulder, newly revealed when she'd allowed him to pull the shirt from her body altogether. "Though if they were as sensitive as the rest of you, I don't think I'd mind."
"Surely you're not just training twenty kids in a random location with just Vlad King, right?" Chiyo moved away only to tug at his clothes, feeling unfairly revealed while he remained in his shirt and pants. He had not gained her gilded glow, still pale with a singe of pink.
Aizawa made a noise of contempt when she suddenly rose, though the sight of her nearly-bare body walking towards the kitchen served a nice consolation prize. She returned with a cup of water in one hand and a naive smile on her lips.
"So?"
"Hm?" He feigned. She kneeled beside him, smoothing out his limbs into a resting position.
"Are there going to be other instructors? Oh-" Her tone hushed, as if the walls might hold enemies. "Can you not tell me because it's a secret?"
If only he'd realized the perfect excuse sitting before him. Chiyo, however, proved too quick; her eyes narrowed at his hesitance. Shota's cheek twitched.
"We will be meeting a group of heroes at the location. They'll be running the training camp."
Chiyo continued to stare down at him. He sighed, recalling the relentlessness of a bull and what happened when you teased it for too long.
"Have you heard of the Wild, Wild, Pussycats?"
"Pussy...cats?" Chiyo repeated.
"It's a pro hero group of three women and a man-"
"Are they...Dressed like pussycats?"
"...In a way-"
Even without skin to skin contact he could feel the growing tick in her limbs, the tightness in one corner of her face. But from laughter, or-
"You're going on a week-long vacation with three women dressed as furries?"
Definitely not from laughter.
"First of all, it's not a vacation-" He spasmed as Chiyo threw the cup of water at his body. Instead of soaking him in a freezing riptide, though, the water hung in the air, stretched itself thin above him.
As thin as the tightly-pulled lips trying not to reveal the teeth wanting to sink into his vulnerable pectorals.
"Lie back."
He did- mostly out of fear of what she would do if he didn't- and her hands led the suspended droplets across him. She exhaled slowly, eyes closed in concentration, and slowly the water absorbed into his very skin, cool and prickly. Her shoulders slumped upon completing the task.
"I've restored the moisture to your skin, where you were burned. It shouldn't peel now," She swiped a hand across his arm and displayed her dry fingers.
Almost as dry as her expression, though the dragon-like glowering had tapered a bit.
A casualty of spending too much time with Haku, Aizawa thought. Chiyo's eyes narrowed at his slight smile.
"I'm not grading Aoyama's homework. My slight is compensated by your week-long vacation."
If he agreed, she would assume it was an admittance; if he argued, she would just grow more serpentine.
Aizawa weighed his choices carefully- a particularly difficult task, considering more of her soft skin was showing now than even at the beach earlier.
He caught her hands, cooled them between his own.
"It is not a vacation. The objective of this week is the bettering of our students' abilities- namely, enhancing their quirk wielding. If the Wild-'' Shota quickly changed wording; uttering the name seemed an easy way to entice the fire-breathing again. "-If the pro hero group is willing to allow us to use their resources, we would be remiss to forgo such an opportunity."
She hated when he turned into Teacher Aizawa, using fact and seriousness to bore down an argument. Especially when the facts aligned with a point she happened to agree with.
Though the idea of him spending a week in a remote location with a band of wild wild pussycats still didn't exactly fill her with excitement.
He tried to hide his relief when she slid one thigh across his waist. A wasted effort; every muscle visibly relaxed, from his shoulders to the way his abdomen waned out of its constricted stance. Chiyo held her own facade better, smile kept at bay behind a mask of cool indifference. She walked two fingers up his stomach.
"You'll have no fun?"
"Absolutely not." He answered so severely the smile almost won.
"You'll miss me terribly?"
"Worse."
The smile did claim victory and she looked away, honey dripping from the combs of her ribs. The slip gave him enough bravery to brush his hands across her thighs, find the curves of her waist.
"And? What about you?"
"I won't leave you for a fish, if that's what you're asking."
"Mammal."
Shota shifted under her sudden stare, mumbling. "Technically, he's a mammal, not a fish-"
"You're unbelievable."
No, what was unbelievable was her choosing one of the most frightening pro heroes to train her.
At the Sanctuary of Tempus.
For thirty-five days straight.
"They are polygamous," Chiyo offered as she slowly unclasped the last barrier of her upper half. "And I read they choose mates based on competitions of strength, so whoever's the top ranking male-" She paused, blinking at him innocently, even as she dangled her bra off one corner of the futon like a fishing bobber, wondrously naked and looking like a cat who'd found the cream.
"Isn't he on the top ten list of pro heroes in Japan? Are- Oh, dear. I don't think you're on that list, are you, Eraserface?"
He breathed in so deeply she rose with the inhale, observing him with short-lived arrogance.
"That," Aizawa said darkly, "Is strike three."
Author's Note: I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching old film projectors and whether this event would even be possible. So many YouTube videos for maybe two full sentences, ha.
Haven't said his name, but I bet you have a pretty good idea of who will be training our little Chiyo come Monday now.
Another side note, I did an absurd amount of research into oceanic life and the tendencies of a certain type of dolphin. *wink*
