I can't believe I kneed him in the balls.

Granted, it was a light tap- no more than a graze, really- but of all the actions I could've done, why that one? Ever since a middle school field trip where I'd witnessed a classmate fall like a sack of potatoes after such a blow, I realized maybe all males weren't the brooding drama queens Manami always claimed them to be. Maybe- just maybe- it really did hurt that badly.
And I'd just inflicted that blinding pain on a professional hero- on Shota.

Waves of emotions had swept away any figment of coherency, each feeling crisp and so startling I'd almost crumpled on the spot, forgoing my investigation altogether just to stare at his slender figure, the way his face seemed like a mirror's edge with the angled goggles on. My marrow fought to return to his bones.
But something just as powerful, red and tender on the edges, swallowed the breathlessness and filled my mouth with embers instead, reminded me of his cold shoulders and accusation of unfaithfulness.

He wasn't why I left, but his behavior certainly hadn't slowed my steps out the door, either.

What was Shota Aizawa doing here?

Rain clouded the sidewalks. I couldn't even enjoy the damp air; I hadn't remembered an umbrella, and using submersion would play contrary to Akua's seemingly quirklessness.

Was he really here to solve the drug case? Who had sent him? I didn't even know he had an affiliated agency.

You're a hard woman to track down.

Had he come here for me? And if so, under what pretenses? Because he found out what I was doing and didn't think I could handle such a case on my own? The questions piled like ungraded essays I was growing more and more reluctant to sort through.

Or he came here for you. Just you. Because he-

"AKUA!"
An iron-fingered grip pulled me back into reality.
Eyes the color of warm vanilla drank me in, wide and frightened. Another pair, blurred in shades of a dying sunset, watched from underneath the pink lip of an umbrella.

My thoughts had carried me right past the theater. Would have continued to do so, if not for this elegant giraffe gripping my forearms. Who the hell is this?

"Er, thanks," I shrugged out of the girl's - woman's?- hold while simultaneously asking Sara who this foreign accompaniment was, eyebrows raised loud enough to not need the audible question. Her irises settled on burnt orange.

"I called out to you several times and you didn't answer!"

That still didn't explain this person who, the more I peeked at from the corners of my eyes, the more I realized I'd seen her before. Her age was hard to place with her pastel-pink hair, half pulled up in space buns and dusted in a fine glitter, and eyes like a fawn's, large and seconds away from fleeing, even as she smiled at me.
Sara moved close enough to shield me from the rain. She was careful not to brush against my skin; was it because of her quirk? Was that why this rose-colored girl had reached for me instead?

"This is Rozu, Rozu Nishin. You've actually met her-"

"At group, yeah," My brain placed her at last, three chairs down to the left. She'd looked just as tentative then, too. I gave a small wave and she returned with a similar-sized smile. "I'm Akua Tsurihito." I turned towards Sara. "But- you two didn't sit together yesterday, did you?"

Which sounded dumb as soon as I said it- Sara and I hadn't sat anywhere near each other and yet here we were.

"Rozu's actually the one who told me about the grief meetings,"

"I grew up around here!" Her voice wasn't as soft as Sara's but still held a petal-level quality. Young adult, I decided. Her buns bobbed when she put an arm around Sara's shoulders. "Sara and I have known each other for quite a while now, but didn't sit together because- well, because-"

"She didn't want anyone to mistake us for a couple," Sara finished with the blunt force of a meat cleaver. Rozu's limbs gave an embarrassed little jump, worsened by my confused glance between them.

"Because-? You were afraid people would think you'd brought the person you wanted to complain about with you?" I joked.

Rozu evaded to the safety of the theater's doors without a response. She disappeared from sight before Sara could even finish a sigh.

"That's not what she was afraid of."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend her. Are you two-?"
"That's not it either."

Sara made no move to follow Rozu quite yet. Which was fine, I realized- we'd all arrived good-girl early, like total dorks. Another sigh escaped her and a thought of someone else's sighs whispered through my brain like a phantom wind. "Rozu was in an abusive relationship and attended counseling before, in another district, but- let's just say she became too close with another woman in the group and people took notice. So now she's very careful about appearances,"

A fire-skinned entity opened her eyes in the pit of my stomach. "I don't understand."

The deep blue of her eyes made it seem as if she knew I did, though. My head gave a shake.

"Are you saying she ran away because people thought she was in a relationship with the woman? So what?" I could feel the snakes of anger fishtailing up my vertebrae. There were subjects that instantly made me feel like a loaded gun; already I could feel a finger curling around the trigger. "Because of what other people would think?"
"Not everyone is as forward thinking as you are, Akua."
"Are you?"

She looked like some terrifying fae creature, the way her irises transformed into black marbles.

"I don't believe in feeling shame in whom I give my heart to, no. Love is eyeless- isn't that the saying?"

It was like putting stepping out of the blazing sun into frosty air conditioning, the way she blew out my anger with such a goofy translation. A smile cracked despite my best intentions.

"Blind. They say love is blind,"
"A minuscule difference," Sara muttered, but her mood-gauging quirk noted her true feelings.

Maybe it had something to do with Rozu's quirk.
Maybe she really was living in reverse, despite the day and age and sense of reasonability.

Either way, at least one of them recognized the uncontrollable desires of the heart.

I opened the door and ushered Sara in, barely dodging her folding umbrella that seemed keenly honed in on drenching my clothing.


-We're connecting the profiles of drug mules via the quirk database. Interrogations are moving slowly, as these new ones are quickly falling into withdrawal from Cure. We need to meet up. Tomorrow.

I'd only communicated with Gang Orca's Hokkaido agency via text; now I would be meeting with the prime correspondent. I didn't even know if it was a man or woman.

Sara and Rozu continued to squabble over whether the boyfriend from the film deserved to die as my contact texted an address and time for tomorrow. I glanced between the two women- Sara's lime-colored eye-roll and Rozu's pursed lips claiming everyone makes mistakes- before responding.

-I can't make it at that time. Can we meet at 19:00?

-I'm missing the part where your schedule is my problem.

What an asshole.

-I was told to integrate myself and blend in- I've done that. Skipping a public event I'm known to attend would look suspicious.

The mystery being texted back the place of meeting and the changed time without further comment. My feelings of victory were quickly overridden by the thought of Sakamata's affiliate harboring all his fierceness without a speck of the dolphin kindness. Were all his top sidekicks marine mutants? What if he's a fucking Great White? Did sharks hold grudges? He might just be waiting to take this all out on me in person tomorrow.
Better enjoy my singular night off in peace, then.

"He was very clearly drugged-"
"He took the drugs willingly. No one made him do it."
My attention caught so sharply both women startled. "What are you talking about?"
"In the movie," Roza said slowly. "Sara thinks the boyfriend deserved the pyre. I think that's too extreme,"

The movie, Chiyo. Get a grip.

The film had been as beautifully mind-distorting as promised. I'd enjoyed every moment and probably took two single breaths upon the final act, too submersed in the unraveling of the protagonist's mind to focus on anything else.

After the credits rolled and they scooped up my puddle of a body from the sticky theater floor, Rozu harassed Sara in soft-filtered voices until she'd caved and invited us both over to what I could only describe as a wealthy person's idea of a "modest city apartment".

It was a fucking penthouse.
Sara had shrugged with a shade of embarrassment only wealthy people could manage.
"It wasn't my idea. My boyfriend insisted on leasing it to me, even if we're not currently on speaking terms."
Mm-hm.

"What do you think, Akua? Did he deserve to die?"

"Without a doubt," I answered flatly. Rozu balked and Sara all but preened, pleased to have an ally. I fell into the soft cushions of her couch- ten times nicer than the box-spring bed I currently spent my nights on.

"Just because he forgot her birthday? Really?"
Sara shifted closer to me. "He did more than just forget her birthday, Ro. He cheated on her."
"It's more than that, though,"

Their undivided attention slouched my nerves. I was the outsider here; maybe I should go out of my way to not be argumentative. Too late, I guess. "He was going to leave her because she had "baggage". Because she needed him too much and he wanted a happy-go-lucky girl to have fun with and not deal with all the real work a relationship is. He wasn't committed to her. And that- that's gross, to me." I swallowed a breath. "I don't think he really loved her. Maybe once, when he thought she was just an airy fling, but when the honeymoon phase ended, so did his interest."

Something was happening. My ribs hummed with the sensation down to the root, until everything between them trembled too.

What was Shota Aizawa doing here?

"Akua-"

"I'm sorry," Autopilot answered for my flurried mind and reflexes took flight, lifted me up, away from this too-close encounter of real life, away from who I really was and what I was pretending to be. "Do you- where's the bathroom?"

Sara pointed. I barely caught the indigo of her eyes before I bolted out of the room.

He wouldn't have come halfway across the country just to pursue a case that didn't already involve him- I couldn't even get him to cross the room for the television remote, always choosing the lazier choice of snoozing together in the quiet than catching up on our reality shows.
Which meant that he'd come here for a reason, and that reason actually was me.
At a glance, this seemed pretty obvious- the forlorn knight chasing after the lost princess, hoping to find her, bring her home and live happily ever after.

But I wasn't lost, and hadn't he all but kicked me out of said "home"?

I was caught somewhere between screaming and emptying the contents of my stomach into Sara's ridiculously elegant sink when the door slid open. A waif fluttered through the crack, and for the first time I took real notice of Rozu- uncannily elongated, like she'd bled from the mold and stretched her limbs out further than creation intended. Even her hair seemed longer than it should, falling in rose-colored waves like a classic film had been cross-hatched with footage of Woodstock.
With her wide, golden eyes and full lips, Rozu was that ethereal sort of beautiful I'd always scoffed at, believed to only be tricks of photoshop and magazine editors. But with her standing in front of me now, tilting my face up to hers as a goddess would to a feeble peasant, perhaps not all film stars were made of make-up and fantasy.

"Hey, hey," Rozu soothed, brushing the too-long bangs from my eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah- no, sorry to freak you guys out with that dramatic exit," I stammered at half-mast; her hands felt like satin against my cheeks, smelled faintly of spring. It was highly distracting. "I'm fine, just caught in a whirlwind of thought, I guess."

"Well it was a pretty mind-fucking movie, right? I can't believe Sara picked something so weird-"
A bubble of defensive nervousness popped in my belly. "I chose it, actually."
"Oh."

Rozu hadn't thought of this possibility. I laughed.

"I still think it was really good. Divisive endings lead to great conversations, don't you think?"
"I think the last thing society needs is division."

The comment came to my surprise; Rozu, with her woodland features and bouncing energy, didn't seem the type to give much thought to society as a whole, or its structure. Hadn't Kugo taught me some ridiculous fish-phrase about this sort of blunder?

Mistake a blue-ringed octopus for a common cuttlefish and you'll be dead within the hour.

"Do you feel our society's divided, Ro?" I sounded innocent enough, even as a different persona looked through my eyes, seeped into my instincts. Gang Orca's new little accessories let out soft breaths around my wrists and the pendant hidden under my clothing all but hummed. A chironex fleckeri wafted through the little air between us.

"It's always been divided, hasn't it?" She asked softly. "From genesis, men have been ten leagues ahead of their female counterparts. They stood tall, proud, as history warmed their faces. All while standing on our necks."

A curtain of angel-hair tentacles descended, checked the electrical current of her waters. She is not an enemy. She is the aftermath of someone's violent delight. There was a reason she attended Group, after all.
I gently took hold of her wrists. Rozu startled, as if awakened from an unsavory memory involving teeth and boots. Her hands, like everyone else's, felt cool in mine.

"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Rozu's smile fought to build a blush in my cheeks. "But you're right, I think."
"About?"
"The boyfriend. He- people like him- they shouldn't get happy endings."
"You think death is an acceptable punishment for neglect?"
"He deserved what he got, if he couldn't see what was standing right in front of him."

With the way her eyes drank me in, her statement seemed to have little to do with the film.
A once-familiar rise in my stomach took flight now, with the way there was suddenly not enough air between us, she was so close. Each slow blink brought her lashes against rosy apples; with the next one they paused, half-lidded, as they focused on the lower half of my face, on my slightly-parted lips which were struggling to make sense of what was happening and how to breathe and had I ever kissed a girl before and if not did I want to? Would it be any different than kissing a boy? Would our mouths fit together the same way, taste sweeter than the salt of a man's?

A cerise curtain fell to shy away what her face was leaning down to do. Without thought my own features angled, wanting to accommodate hers.

"Akua? Ro- Rozu."

Rozu startled back as if physically struck by Sara's voice. A rush, like a shower's rain moving abruptly from scalding to arctic, raced down my spine, body gaining unbearable weight compared to their outer-world sensation of a moment ago.

Holy shit.

"Sorry! Sorry. I guess we just got to gabbing and totally forgot you were in the living room all alone!" Rozu beamed like some sugar plum fairy dressed in street clothes before performing a graceful jete towards her stone-faced counterpart. Anger processed almost audibly across Sara's face. Neurons worked vigorously to recalibrate my short-circuited mind, unable to follow whatever was passing between them.

What the hell was that?

Was Rozu about to kiss me? Was I going to let her?
No, my brain firmly answered, utilizing sense and logic.
Maybe, my heart admitted, still in overdrive.
If I concentrated hard enough, I could almost see the two boxing it out somewhere near my larynx.

"Akua, I apologize for whatever spell Rozu put you under- she has that effect on people," Sara still carried disproving in the pinched area of her cheekbones, even as she tried to comfort me. "But please, will you stay here with us tonight? I have extra clothing as well as a spare bedroom- I'd love the company."

"Oh, I don't want to impose-"

"You're not imposing! Rozu is imposing," Sara ignored Rozu's tantrum-level snort behind her. "Please? We didn't even get a chance to place bets on what life-shattering problems Jushina will bring to the table tomorrow."

I could already feel my conscience writing a twenty-bullet list of why I should feel guilty about what almost jsut transpired- a pair of dark eyes and a shy, slow smile written all in bold at the top. Staying here felt like just another event my brain would use against me later.

But then Sara looked at me with those canary-feather eyes and Rozu clasped her hands in prayer like I was some kind of saving grace, and my constitution slipped into disarray easier than Mineta's at a Sweet Sixteen party.

Even if our conversations were colored with morbid strokes and I'd probably have to do a hundred sets of sit-ups after tonight's doubtless binge of snacks and soda, a part of me felt eager to have friends to laugh with, be accepting by, again.


Hopper's Recycle Shop

I knew we wouldn't be meeting in some ritzy skyscraper agency building like Sakamata's in Kanagawa, but the dilapidated building of a recycling facility wasn't exactly what I had in mind, either.

The streets were mostly quiet. Skeletons of shops spoke of a time past, probably before the interstate was put in and these routes saw more human flow. Only a few people speckled the scenery now- all locals, by the looks of it. A sort of bitter sweetness grew in my stomach; I hated seeing the consequences of urbanization on small town livelihood, even if the highway shaved twenty minutes off my travel time.

Two idiots flanked the entrance.
Their faces were mirror images of one another, down to the incisor grins and subtle dimness of their expressions. The right-sided one went to tip his hat, only to realize it was on backwards.

"Hey there. You looking to recycle something?"
What was it that made them look so dumb? Their boxy jaws? "A few fish scales. If you have the right tools here, that is."

The two immediately turned to one another, caught in a flurry of barely-whispered debating.

"That's the code, isn't it?" Idiot One sounded in need of reassuring.
"Nah, nah, dude. She was supposed to say tool, not tools. You only need a fillet knife to descale a fish-" Idiot Two explained before the other argued back; "No dumb ass, you use the filet knife to remove the skin inside the fish, from, like, the meat-"

I waited patiently ten, twenty seconds, before noticing their faded attention to the entry door itself and why said password had been necessary.

They didn't even spare a glance as I waltzed through; somewhere into minute two they'd both taken their shoes off and were now using them for fish descaling demonstrations.

It was the too-large span between their eyes that made them look stupid, I decided.

The room appeared empty to my eyes, but the sonar effect of submersion acknowledged another presence lurking nearby.
I don't know which is worse: this building or its occupants.

"Do you know there's two idiots outside, asking every passerby whether they want to recycle something?" I asked by means of greeting. Dirtied, unmarked cabinets surrounded us. One fluorescent fixture seized as if under a permanent hex. "Did you suggest this place because you think it's also a drug-pushing facility?"

"I see you're quick to forget our Master's teachings about the squid and the octopus. Or maybe you just didn't understand it."
It (his?) voice slithered like a serpent through reeds from a darkened corner. My eyes still hadn't adjusted; he scoffed, took a leisure step forward.

Pale as a dead fish with a set of milky eyes to match, the only color on Gang Orca's primary sidekick was the set of raw-looking gills on either side of his neck, a fleshy red peeking through with every fluttering breath.

Shinda Sakana. Known professionally as Toro, for Lantern Fish.

Sakamata had mentioned him a few times during our training with great pride. Based on his more-aquatic-than-terrestrial physique, I bet they never even left the pool. Probably shared the same abysmal humor, too.
Looking at him was like biting down on metal.
But I couldn't let him know that.

"Know a lot about tentacled cephalopods, Toro?" If he couldn't pick up on the tone, my smirk should point him in the right direction. "I'm sure you've watched a lot of- ah, documentaries."

"Don't be disgusting," He spat at my feet. Or murmur-hissed, I guess, considering I might need hearing aids just to catch his comments. Bits of scaled skin glimmered between what I assumed to be his hero costume, perfectly fitted against one another like chain mail. What would it feel like to run my hand opposite the groove, I wondered, walking a slow circle around my curious teammate. He didn't even blink.

Does he even have eyelids? Do fish blink?

"So why bring me here, Toro? Hopefully not to ax murder me."

Another scoff at my expense. "I wouldn't use an ax, firstly. Give me more inventive credit than that," What a thing to be insulted by. The opalescence of his eyes roved back towards the entryway. "And it was his idea to meet here, not mine."

"Who-?"
An all-too-familiar heartbeat pulsed its way into the building, along with the man-children from earlier.

"Tell him, Eraser. Tell him there's a difference between a descaling knife and a filleting knife-"
"No you idiot! Eraser's not gonna to agree with you because you're wrong, wrong, wrong; you can descale with any kind of knife-"
"Guys, I really don't care either way. This isn't a rational argument to begin with; you completely missed the objective of being told the phrase-"

"You were right, she did slip right through!" Idiot One exclaimed, hat still backwards like an outdated street punk. At least my angler coworker seemed as exhausted by their energy as I was. The idiots jumped at the sound of Toro's nails-on-a-chalkboard sigh.

"You know these idiots?" I couldn't help but ask.
"You know our man Eraser?" One of the idiots asked back. A flicker of old nerves paused my answer. Toro smirked at the hesitance, gleaning my expression as he would meat from fish bones. How much did Sakamata tell him? Is he the one who told Eraserbreath where I was?

"Your man is an instructor at UA. So am I," Not technically a lie, even if it barely grazed the surface. They seemed happy enough without me adding more detail.
I turned to the hero in question, who- without his goggles on and dressed as he always was- looked more Aizawa than Eraser Head, adding another two-second delay to my prompting; "You chose this dilapidated old building to rendezvous in? Just because we're undercover doesn't mean we have to meet up in filth."

"Hey hey hey! That's our shop you're shitting on!" Angry fists rose at the injustice of my comment. Toro, in the most surprising act of chivalry, moved to stand between me and the brothers. I shouldered past him a little gentler than I would have ten seconds earlier.

"Oh? So tell me, boys: do you only recycle here?"
"S'right," Idiot One said firmly.
"You don't sell anything?"
"Sure don't," Idiot Two said a little less surely.
"So if I were to go through any of these cabinets," Liquid called out from one of them- an unlikely item for recycling. "You're telling me I'd only find nice, normal, completely legal goods?"

"Th-this is the problem with heroes! No faith in nobody!"
"That's a double negative," Eraser Head pointed out helpfully.

I curled two fingers around a cabinet's handle. Idiot Two began to buckle. I gave the drawer a light tug, and-

"Okay! Okay. You win, alright? Now get outta our goods!"
"We'll take it from here. Go make some coffee and stay out of our way," Eraser wandered towards a lone table before he paused. "Two coffees and whatever soda you have, actually."

"Since when does he drink soda?" One grumbled.
"Right? Goes to his fancy school and comes back a prick," Two agreed.
A set of red eyes sent them both scampering.

"If we may proceed," Toro made his disdain evident by slapping a map onto the table with the force of a flyswatter. I raised my eyebrows over his bent shoulders. A shallow dimple answered. "Now, as you can ascertain from my careful markings..."

Sleep had taken a backseat to board games and junk food last night; my head didn't even graze a pillow until two or three, and even then Sara and Rozu spent an additional forty-five minutes swapping life stories in hushed whispers, as if the past could be awoken and pull them right back in to those memories.
Whatever Rozu had done in the bathroom didn't happen again, and I wasn't brave enough to ask exactly what her quirk entailed. What if she didn't have control and that's why she'd left the last group? Or, worse- what if she hadn't done anything to me at all? How humiliated would I be, accusing a woman of enchantry when it had been nothing but normal, human attraction that pulled me to her?

But it wouldn't have been right. My woeful heart still lived within the ribbed forest of someone else.
Someone standing so close I could pick up wafts of his body wash, the rogue shedding of Endo and Nasu on his dark sleeves. I maneuvered around to the other side of Toro as if to examine the map.

"A recurrent issue with the drug busts has been the level of damage the Cure has dealt to the mules; most have been unable to recall who they are, whom they have been in contact with, and how to even wield their quirks-"
"But the quirks aren't erased?"
"They still have their quirks, though?"

Toro didn't react to our synchronized questions. He, like Sakamata, possessed a blank expression that couldn't be easily read. Infinitely annoyed, I guessed.

"...They do still possess quirks, yes, but it's near impossible to determine a person's quirk without some sort of detail; you can't force a telepath to read one's mind any easier than you can invoke invisibility from a chameleon-type. Animorphs make it far easier to identify, but few mules have had such features."
"So you can't cross reference the quirk database until their quirks become apparent," I mumbled to myself. Was that the goal, or just an unfortunate side effect? "You have identified some, though?"

Toro gave a solemn nod. A fish-bone-thin finger prodded one of the black pins tacked into the map. There were five in total, spread from Nagasaki to Tokyo, with a few embedded in low-population towns. Oddly, there was only one tack in the entirety of Hokkaido.

What the hell could connect all these random locations?

"The residencies of each mule, as figured through the database."
"Should we- Are we going to go to these places and investigate?"
"There are underlings for that."
Did that mean Toro didn't consider me an underling? I almost felt flattered. What a kind way to talk about your coworkers, though.

"You two are needed here." Toro straightened, emphasizing the importance of his next words. The curl of his kiss-of-death lips was more unsettling than his resting fish face. "It appears Jamon Azakuku will be hosting a soiree here in Naruhata. This weekend, in fact."

Staking out a fancy party? Sounded manageable enough. Practically ninja-esque, really-

"I've acquired both of you tickets."

Wait.

"What?"
Toro's hair seemed to grow sharper with the raised volume, like a pufferfish startled by a scuttling crab. But there was a glimmer in his eye, as if realizing the crab had a soft, easily-torn-through shell, noticing he possessed exactly the right tools to cut straight through.

"I was under the impression you two have...worked together, before. Was I wrong?"

Sakamata surely wouldn't have indulged such personal information to this clown; he was fishing for details. I worked the angles of how to abort this undercover date with the man I still could hardly look in the face, too afraid of what I'd find in the slate of his eyes, hanging from the silvered moon of his scar, all without alerting Toro of my discomfort.

"We work together at school- a famous school, where people have surely seen our faces. Just because I went underground doesn't mean people won't still recognize me-"
"Ah, but with your new haircut and...unique color, you're practically unrecognizable, no?" He could carve ice with those piranha teeth, the bastard. "Besides, practically no one knows what Eraser Head looks like under all that- with his current aesthetic. You'll be fine."

"Why not you? Why don't you go with me?" Was I desperate enough to beg the most unsettling hero I'd ever seen on a date like this? Apparently so.
"Aw, Chi-chan. I didn't know how much you admired me-"
"We'll be fine," Eraser moved to snatch the forgotten tickets from Toro's hand. Dark, unruly hair obscured me from seeing his face. Not that he'd looked over anyway. "Relay the objectives."

Toro broke into a fifteen minute play-by-play, by which we, Katsumi Ito and Akua Tsurihito, would partake in a fancy who's-who party, taking note of patrons and their affiliated works as well as the demeanor of The Boss himself, all in hopes of extracting a few details to build a better profile of his drug empire.

Toro suggested showing a little leg to loosen Azakuku's lips.
I suggested removing a certain object from a certain location to loosen his personality.

The largest downside involved the fancy clothing- of which I had zero, and wouldn't be given anything more than a refund upon receipt by Gang Orca's agency. If Sara or Rozu caught wind of a shopping trip, they'd surely want to tag along. How would I explain away their company?

"Where the hell am I supposed to get a tux?"
Toro glanced at me. I raised my eyebrows because, whose idea was this again?
"You can rent one."
"From where?"
"Er, a men's clothing boutique? Though many formal attire shops carry items for both sexes..."

Now Eraser was looking at me, disgruntled and probably even more confused. I sighed.

"I'll take him."
"Thank you," Toro said quickly. Probably the first and last time I'll ever hear those words. "Until then, keep patrolling the loading docks and other highlighted areas. I have reports for both of you on the identified mules. I don't expect much, but piece together what you can in terms of connections."

"It's like he doesn't know I'm a pro hero," Aizawa muttered in disbelief.

Toro dismissed us before folding into the shadows, his fatigued sigh sounding like a drowned man's dying breath.

"Not going to stay for the coffee?" Idiot One hollered at the dark stain on the wall. Had he phased through it? I didn't remember that in Sakamata's chats. Maybe a hole in the floor? Maybe he's sitting in the rafters, just watching us.

"I should go, too," I decided with a glance at said rafters. "I, um. Have somewhere to be,"

Anywhere but here, basically.

The idiots complained about "table manners" and "common decency" behind me. How much time had passed? The evening sun had already said goodnight when I reentered the street, though the hot tar smell of the interstate still lingered. Sara and Rozu expected me to be star-gazing ready by ten; I hope I hadn't missed the time.

"Hey," Someone spoke right as my ride pulled to the curb. I held a finger up, requesting a moment. The driver tapped his wrist before rubbing two fingers against his thumb. Tightwad.

Shota stood a healthy three feet away, hands hidden in pockets almost as well as his face was behind all that aesthetic. I didn't know whether or not to smile. I settled somewhere in between.

"Hey yourself," I answered moronically. One side of his lips twitched at my smile-gone-grimace before calming over.

"You kneed a professional hero."
"You nearly cost me my objective."

Another mouth twitch. A little violet bloomed in one lung, politely prodded to ask the question bothering my heart most.

"You would rather go out with Toro than be seen with me?"
The violet paused, digested, then closed her petals for the night. "You didn't want to be affiliated with me, right? If someone recognizes us, it could still hit some public outlet." The driver physically relaxed as I grabbed the door handle, ready to move on. "I was trying to do you a favor-"

"Chiyo,"

His hand was still so warm, falling over mine. I remained facing the car; what else could I do? Look at him and be struck down. Move and prove I'm yet again running away. His heartbeat was calm, like the flow of a steady river. Mine beat back like a rapid.

"I've got somewhere to be-"

"I'm sorry."

Sorry he's making me late or sorry for something else?
I took a slow breath, turned. He didn't let go of my hand with the movement, but his touch was sensitive enough to be broken if I decided to. All that meditation and self work seemed to ignite and die out, quick as a firework, leaving just the overexposed nerves for his dark eyes to take in. I swallowed the embers before they burned me alive.

"You told me to leave. So I did."
"You know this isn't what I meant. I thought-"
"That I'd cheated on you? Loved someone else?"
I took a moment to calm down, even as the muscles flexed in my cheeks, pulsed the nauseating vein near my eye. "I can take and understand your desire for privacy; I'm sorry for having pushed you into a corner like that, even if you choosing to leave me stranded at the very scent of the media hurt, a lot, but you just- how could you think I loved anyone the way I love you?"

The rhythm in my hand quickened; I pulled away from the white hot brightness of it before I went blind all over again. Like some sixth sense, I could always feel when water began to gather, alerting of the deluge right before the true signs appeared. I tore the car open before the dam finally burst.

"Chiyo, wait-"
"I can't. You're here, and now you're part of this, so- So you're Eraser Head and I'm Chiyonex, okay? Because I can't let this blur my focus or Azakuku will slip through our fingers."

The driver had the good instinct to immediately drive off, meandering up and down streets and alleys, lacking purpose, killing time until his dewy-eyed passenger stabilized. Which in turn made me actually cry, because it was always the smallest acts, hints that the world isn't as cold and dark as we think it is, that really tips us into the deep end.


-Meet with Eraser Head on the Northern Square today at 1100 hours. Try not to be late.

I wondered if Toro was born an asshole or just became one to fit his aesthetic.

Bright sunshine vanquished the shadows along with my mean thoughts and I tucked my phone away, heading in the direction of the street perpendicular to our meeting spot. I'd arrived too early, milling about in sweet shops and funny little antique stores, aimless, when a head of dark, messy hair caught the corner of my eye from across the street. What time was it? How long had I been wandering? It didn't matter; if we were both here, we might as well get to work.

"Aiza-Ito!" I called, halfway through blowing our cover. He didn't slow, but why would he? Aizaito sounded like someone stroking out halfway through a sentence. "Oi, Ito!"

He'd only had this alias for a few days; I'd been answering to Akua for weeks now. The pedestrian light blinked down my time limit and I hurried across, grabbing his sleeve to catch his attention.

"Hey, you're early-"

He was the right height, pallor like the sun was a foreign concept, the same five o'clock shadow scruffed along his jaw in mockery of tedious hygiene tactics.

But the eyes looking back at me were not Shota Aizawa's.

I froze. He seemed just as surprised.

And then a bicycle ran me over.


Author's Note: If you've read the MH: Vigilantes series, you should be able to recognize the Hopper Brothers! Our favorite Eraserbreath spends a healthy chunk of time around their Recycling Shop, mooching their coffee and using the establishment as a rendezvous point. I believe he even makes a comment about growing up somewhere nearby...
Sometimes when I use names with important meanings it all backfires and the translations don't work the same way again (?!), but Katsumi can mean overcome, or win over, and I swear in some language Ito means sea, so Shota's alias, Katsumi Ito, would translate (roughly) to "win over the sea"; interesting, considering Chiyo's alias and quirk affiliation. (I'll stop grinning at my own cheesiness anytime now).
I like that they're both a little unsure around one another yet Shota still asked for soda, knowing Chiyo's disinterest in coffee, and Chiyo's first response to Toro's attitude is to make faces at Shota. Ahck, mein herz.