I thought my purposes for living were exclusively protecting the people I loved, educating the heroes of tomorrow, and possibly finding a way to live happily ever after with a certain Eraser face.
I was wrong; I knew so the minute he walked into the room.
A towel wrapped around his ears, white fur fluffed from a massage, a children's robe tied snugly beneath his round middle.
Principal Nezu gave new meaning to life and the word adorable.
I bit the inside of my cheek, squeal eminent.
"Control yourself," Class 1-A's homeroom teacher muttered from the corner of his dimpling mouth.
How was I expected to do that? His feet are as fluffy as his hands, for shit's sake.
Thirty-four students submitted requests forms; enough to fill two buses, each tittering with excitement.
Training, Eraser Head and Vlad King gruffly reminded.
Relaxing Mini Vacation!, decided everyone else.
I ended up on the "1-B" bus, content in a seat to myself, when three familiar, dark heads of hair popped on, two bashfully choosing the seat parallel to mine. I raised a cheerful hand in greeting before the third voyager enveloped my head in her informally-attired breasts, arm tied around my neck in an affectionate suffocation. Her sing-song voice about a long overdue girl's night sounded underwater will all the mammary surrounding my entire cranium.
"Midnight, I can't-"
"Won't this be a delight, Chiyo-Chiyo? To think- us, together, the silken hours of night ours for the reaping-"
"Er, Miss Midnight? I don't think Tsutomi-Sensei can breathe-"
"What?" Kayama half-purred, half-hissed, allowing my face to crest her...embrace. I gulped down air before she buried me again. "This is how we'll be sleeping tonight; of course she can breathe. I practiced with my cat for this very occasion-"
I hadn't even thought about sleeping arrangements, but Midnight's lofty idea of nighttime festivities might prove more real than fiction; we would have one room, while Aizawa, Vlad, Nezu, and late-addition All Might took another. Unless we each get our own room?
Based on the possessive way Kayama was stroking my hair, I doubted I'd be sleeping alone even if that was an option.
In an act of genius Tsuyu asked the crazed woman about her early career days and, basking in the glory of having an audience, Kayama released me to use full body language for her storytelling. By the time Mt. Fuji rose to fill the bus's windows, Yaoyorozu and Tsuyu wore matching crown-braids, woven by my grateful-to-not-be-part-of-Midnight's-role-playing hands, and carried far too much detail about their Art History instructor's wild, wild youth in their young brains.
A knock from her knockers nearly knocked me out of my seat as she waved after the escaping girls.
"It's never too early to experience the tantalizing sensations of-" Kayama called before a personal rain cloud pattered her face into silence.
"Odd weather," I commented, hand raised to catch the rogue droplets.
A smile didn't give me away until I stepped off the bus, noticing a boy with ashen hair doing the same not fifteen feet away, hands balled in his pockets, eyes locked on the concrete he stomped onto.
Katsuki Bakugo had indeed joined us for the Mt. Fuji trip, just as he had joined us for yesterday's OS training, pissed off but determined enough to enter the pool for lung capacity training fully clothed. He stubbornly remained underwater, arms crossed around a sunken weight, forty-five full seconds longer than Mineta, and pointedly thirty seconds more than Midoriya. Either he'd trained the night before via internet tutorials or sheer, unadulterated fury at falling behind his "side characters" for even a second kept him under.
I didn't peg Bakugo for the YouTube-watching type.
The spark plug in question suddenly tensed, either feeling my gaze or somehow sensing my thoughts. A bend cut my lips just as he noticed me watching him.
Maybe he'll be different now, after the talk we had-
"The hell you gawking at old lady?" He called out in the most Katsuki Bakugo way possible.
Then again, maybe not.
After a quick rundown of the itinerary, the setting of rules, and a handful of threats directly solely towards Minoru Mineta, the students and chaperones parted for individual treatments to start the Relaxing-Training-Mini-Vacation.
Which is how I ended up here, pretending to yawn as I bit down on my knuckles, fighting the unbearable urge to stroke Principal Nezu like a fluffy house pet.
"I'm quite pleased with this extracurricular event, Chiyonex!" He tempted me like the devil with a pink-padded paw, held up so he could admire their newfound sheen. "I don't believe I've ever felt so at ease."
"I agree. Something in the water, maybe," Kayama said, lifting one shapely leg from the fish-filled foot bath. My own legs were neatly tucked beneath me; according to Gang Orca fish might be friends, but my skin was definitely not food.
"The students seem to be enjoying themselves, as well." I'd never seen Vlad King without his yellow visor or crimson hero suit. He looked...basically the same, reverse fangs reminiscent of an old bulldog, legs as bulging with overworked muscles as I'd expected. Shota nodded beside me, agreeing with Vlad. I still couldn't believe he put his pale-ass feet in the water. How did they not scare away the fish with such a blinding color?
"Are you still doing the waterfall training later today?"
"Hm?" Don't stare at his paws. Don't stare at his paws. "Oh, yes. I am." You sure are.
"Excellent! I would join, but I'm quite afraid the water's pressure might knock me into a ravine," Nezu chuckled, then paused. An iron grip found my shoulder as our fury principal hiked up his robe and dangled two perfectly fuzzy legs off the pool's edge. "Of course, there aren't any real ravines, but as you may know, hydraulic power has been proven to-"
There was no escape from Nezu's talking this time, but at least I had the entertainment of Shota Aizawa falling asleep upright, nearly slumping into the fish pond before Toshinori caught him by the hair, to liven up the lecture.
In, out.
In, out.
Water made me feel infinite.
In, out.
Sakamata may have put me on the right path, but the quiet mystics of Yokohama awakened an alternate reality for me; one of fluidity, conscious of the intimate tethers keeping each of us adjoined.
In, out.
Every molecule a person; every person, the composition of millions.
In, out.
Thirty-eight hearts beat against the flow of the crashing water, back into me.
In, out.
I submersed.
Principal Nezu had been correct- there were no dire ravines to drown in, but each individual's stone pedestal did boast a hefty drop into the waters below. I closed my eyes, found every curved spine, kept them safe as they experienced a full dousing of my submersion.
In, out.
A face I knew had been waiting for us halfway up to the cascades, smile pleasant but not altogether surprised to see me. In fact, when the monk embraced me, I could've sworn he whispered welcome back, into my hair.
The monk led each student into a state of meditation, voice like a soothsayer, lulling even the most temperamental into calm until there was sound and silence, weightless souls and grounded vessels.
Free yourself. Breathe in acceptance, exhale that which cannot.
That's what they taught; that's what the water gave me.
And through it, I learned to walk upon its surface.
"Sensei?"
I blinked, lifted a hand to block the fierce, warm sun haloing the silhouette before me.
When had everyone moved out of my submersive grasp?
Or, stranger, when had the downpour ceased?
The monk's smile looked three centuries old, wise and warm.
Every stone remained untouched; instead the air glistened with nine million crystalline tears, weeping without sadness above and around us as a living garland.
Oh.
Had I done this? The kids seemed giddily intrigued, collecting as many droplets as their hands could hold, slicing through others to multiply the madness. Kendo swallowed gallons in her enlarged hands. Poor Monoma never stood a chance.
"One's inner peace and the vitality of one's quirk are as connected as salt to the sea; achieve one, and the gates of the other, too, shall open," The monk wisely noted.
"The hell does that mean?" Bakugo grouched.
I stood on my cool-stone pillar, blood tingling through every vein. It's weightless. I shouldn't- have never- been able to control such mass before. "It means you have to master your own mind before you can fully control your quirk. If you bottle your emotions instead of understanding them, let others' actions decide your own-" The water flowed in time with my conducting, returned to gravity for its final adagio performance. I'm weightless.
Bakugo couldn't hide his intrigue, eyes glued to mine. "-then you will never succeed in the hero world."
"Wow sensei, I didn't know you were so spiritual," Momo's glowing praise led my foot astray. I slipped on the dampened rock and caught myself in a half back-bend- the perfect angle for a returned waterfall to choke out the real truth behind my serene bullshit act.
"Nah, she's still a mess," Mineta pointed out dryly.
After a family-style feast between shared classes and teachers, everyone chose between the options of visiting the hot springs, lung capacity training, or journeying into the unknown with the mystics who spoke more with their eyes than anything else.
The majority- in particular, those who'd shouted Relaxing Mini Vacation the loudest throughout all of this- went with Shota and Kayama to the hot springs, while a small handful followed me back to the falls for capacity training. In a surprising turn of events, Shinso, Todoroki, Momo, and Bakugo went with the monks, each student solemn before even hitting the trail. The temptation to abandon my duties and stalk them was monumental.
I'd spent less than fifteen continuous minutes with Shota today without a student between us or pestering for attention, or Kayama dragging me into some bizarre scheme of hers to "lead a pious disciple to the wicked garden of youth", which seemed to involve a lot of "accidental" run-ins and loosely-tied robes catching on door handles.
By the time the students settled in for the night, the girls giggling with their sleeping mats turned towards one another, lights and voices relatively dimmed, I found myself without another chance to enjoy any sort of togetherness with my elusive counterpart. Like most of the students, I'd considered this a sort-of vacation- a do over for our fragmented summer spent apart. A few weeks had passed since Hokkaido, and our time had mostly been divided between preparing for classes or the licensing exam- albeit preparing together and mostly from the comfort of our bed- but still, I'd hoped for at least a little downtime together.
Apparently, Kayama harbored similar thoughts.
The soft thud of her knocking over an end table drew me up from bed. Her hair shimmered with sin as she hopped about, trying to yank something onto her legs.
"Kayama?"
"Yes?" She purred. Distinct horror filled my throat when she pivoted back towards me with a sly smirk. I pulled my blankets up to my neck.
"What the hell are you wearing? Are those fishnets? Where- what-"
Kayama buttoned my lips.
"You believe I can't turn a man of discipline. Well, my precious little protégé, tonight will be the night we trek that midnight path, and then tomorrow, you'll be eating those disbelieving words."
I never disagreed with her? I didn't even comment, watching her sashay out of the room like some Aphrodite incarnate. Man of discipline?
I had no idea why people feared the devil when Nemuri Kayama walked the very planet.
But maybe she was on to something.
You should go to bed, Logic played Sage.
Fuck that. Go prank Shota, Fun Chiyo argued.
It wasn't even a competition, really.
The door opened soundlessly. No one even glanced at the dim light from the moon on my back, too deep in slumberland to feel my presence. What a letdown.
Weren't these supposed to be professional heroes? I could kill them all in thirty seconds flat without Vlad King's snoring ever pausing to notice. The nightcap is kind of adorable, though.
One bedroll held no human shape. I tiptoed between the bodies of Nezu, a burrowed-in ball of fluff (he slept in the nude?), and Toshinori, bedecked in a pin-stripe blue suit like a nighttime businessman, to investigate the blank space of sheets and pillows.
The linens were ruffled; he'd definitely been here, but based on the cool feel of the blankets, a significant amount of time had passed since then. What time is it, one, two? I pressed a palm to the floorboards.
A heart, soft and slow, answered.
I followed the road map pulse, ignored the "Men Only" sign and slid through the entrance of the hot spring.
A dark head of hair rested against the water's stone edge, two long, ivory arms stretched out on either side of him, face tilted in peaceful observance of the full orb hanging low in the sky. He was, delightedly, alone.
Prank him, Fun Chiyo cheered.
Do something scandalous, Midnight-Chiyo purred.
Do both! They decided together.
His towel- the one supposed to be wrapped around him- sat neatly folded on the ledge. In one fluid movement I stripped out of my own bathrobe and pulled a spindle of water from the spring- the perfect distraction as it caught his towel and caused a splash before disappearing the material under the surface, loud enough to make my own slip into the water near-silent in comparison.
A body made of moonlight rose in surprise, cursing at the soaked towel. I casually slung my arms across the rocky backrest as he'd previously done.
"Having trouble?"
"Shit, Chiyo," Shota nearly jumped out of his skin, hair an electrified field of dark static, swiveling to catch my coy smirk. I held his gaze for two seconds before giving him a slow, suggestive look-over. He splashed down, annoyed enough to keep a scowl but not quite enough to move further away, a blush burning in his neck. I sank down, mirrored his earlier posture, enjoyed his side-eye when my leg brushed against his.
"Where's your towel?"
"Where's yours?" Came my innocent response. Charcoal irises rolled.
"You're aware this is the men's section, right?"
I did my bed impression of Midnight's bedroom eyes, head tilted in confusion. "Well, you're a man, aren't you?"
A direct hit: his face became a great, blooming hibiscus, looking away before he slumped back next to me.
Kayama will be so proud.
"We'll have to move my clothes and items into the dorms tomorrow," I said, realizing there really wouldn't be a better suited time. "With the Licensing shindig Saturday, I'll probably be too tired to deal with the move Sunday, and after that..."
UA had built an entire faculty dorm, I'd found out this week, with enough individual rooms for every teacher, should they wish to stay. Shota hadn't lied- my room and Kayama's seemed significantly larger, snug on either side of the floor's shared kitchen.
He claimed sexism; I held personal beliefs that Kayama's room, at the very least, was situated to insulate any carnal noises and made larger to make sure her "youthful acts" didn't pour out into the public areas.
Maybe we should trade. Maybe Kayama should have the weekends off.
"What are we going to do about Nasu and Endo?"
Ever the cat-dad. I rested my head on his shoulder, soaked in the atmosphere behind closed lids. "I already asked Principal Nezu. He has no problem with house pets, so long as they're "not being mistreated" and are "fully informed of their rights." Exact quotes. I kid you not."
The gentle pressure of his temple resting against my hair, his vibrating hm of an answer, mixed gold dust into my stomach.
This. This is what I had sought for today. My bones slept in the watery weightlessness, happy at last.
"That monk recognized you," Shota barely broke through the warm fuzz of my brain. I'd forgotten he'd observed the first waterfall meditations.
"Mm. Which makes me infinitely more of a terrible person for not warning him about Kayama."
"What about her?"
"She intends to...pursue him." It was the nicest phrase I could think of without sounding like some smut paperback novel made for little old ladies. "So when she left I decided to be a femme fatale, too, but you're an elusive one, Eraserface. I went through your room and everything. Did you know Vlad King's stocking cap matches his slippers?"
He didn't praise my impressive sleuthing; in fact, the weight of his leaning body seemed to be slowly increasing, breath a soft sigh every few seconds. A smile warmed my lips.
"Based on the evidence, it seems you had been in the bed, at some point. Were you expecting to meet someone else out here? Have I sullied your rendezvous?"
A snort alerted Shota's still-conscious state, but barely. "Who would I be meeting in the men's section of a hot spring?" A hand swam in a make-believe undercurrent, waded up my forearm until catching between my fingers. He gave a slight squeeze. My lungs returned the favor. "I couldn't sleep."
"Not without your night echo, huh?" I teased, realizing my mistake a heartbeat too late.
Oh Chiyo, you absolute fool.
Whatever drowsiness flourishing in his nerves dried up like a well, senses suddenly razed. Submersion, regardless of my usual moral code, tried to seep into him like quicksilver to kill his motivation.
No such luck.
Damn, damn, damn.
I feigned swimming only to find out our hands were still connected- tightly, an iron snare around my fleeing hand. At least his eyes aren't glowing red...yet.
"Chiyo," He asked so benignly- wounded, practically- watching as I tried and failed to slither out of his unrelenting grip. "Why are you trying to run away from me?"
"Wh-what?" Damn it, calm-and-collected Aizawa seemed even more dangerous than the usual crab apple one. I reinforced my footing with the water to take a healthy step backward.
Shota lifted from his seat to slowly follow, hand in mine and eyes set in dark clouds, promising a weatherly terror. The slight curve of his open lips was particularly terrifying.
"Chiyo," He said again, like a death toll. How many strikes of the bell are there before the execution? My back hit stone, trapped unless I wanted to make a naked sprint for the changing rooms.
His wrists pressed against either side of my hips, one hand smoothed against the underwater seat, face a mere tilted inch from my own. I sucked in my bottom lip, gave myself away. The incredulous curve grew a little sweeter.
"Why do I get the feeling you had already met my parents before the night of the soiree?" He murmured across my vulnerable skin.
I fidgeted.
"How do you know they didn't tell me that while you were knocked out?" I defended cleverly. The chuckle breathed against my lips wasn't reassuring for my fate.
"Smart not to pinpoint which parent told you, but I know who it was." He released my hand, braced the wall in case the idea of escaping became somehow palpable. "She wouldn't have told you on a whim. Which means either she was testing to you, assuming you were under your Akua alias, or-"
"Or?"
I didn't know this expression of his.
The hot spring felt cold compared to my flushing body, the overworked workings of my heart.
Was he scared? Why did I feel scared? No, not scared. A kinetic anticipation.
He seemed to wake a little when I brushed my fingers across his jaw, followed the carving of bone until one hand held his face. Submersion made all of him abundantly obvious to my senses, the ways his body and lungs and heart and blood was reacting to this confession.
Before Shota Aizawa could express what he feared his mother revealed, a great, idiotic head of purple balls bounced out of the changing room towards us.
I'm going to kill him.
The water felt like bursting glass against my face as Shota suddenly forced me under. I sank to the farthest bottom corner in a state of stunned, horrified panic.
Mineta hadn't seen me, but I'd seen enough of him to last three lifetimes over.
Can you vomit underwater? Can you drain a hot spring for clean-up?
Watching Shota's rigid body float through the water should've- would've- been hilarious, given my underwater seat, in a different scenario. Whip out Teacher-Aizawa. Send his ass to bed. What was he even doing up at this hour?
A floating jellyfish caught my eye; Shota's discarded towel. It rode over on a submersed roll, wrapped around me snugger than a dress. One less worry, I suppose. But my being here alone would be enough to earn a write-up; this was a school trip. What had I been thinking?
What the hell were they talking about? How long did it take to send a kid back to bed?
He wasn't leaving.
In fact, he seemed to move closer and closer, toeing the pool's edge, squinting into the depths.
We're fucked. We'd be totally, ceaselessly fucked.
But I refused to give up my teaching license over one little purple-balled pervert.
I felt his body cannonball into the air before crashing the tranquil surface.
I was already waiting for him.
Gossamer spindles floated, showed slivers of another world between the blue waters, danced around my shoulders and drew him in close.
Minoru Mineta moved towards the angler's delight, transfixed. I smiled.
And then, within reach to strangle, my hair grazed his cheek.
I resurfaced on the opposing side of the spring with a cough. A grown man stood, frozen like a statue, until the bubble-butt of his student floated to the top of the water. I grimaced.
"Is this- Could I go to prison for this?"
"What did you do?" Shota breathed. I snorted before waving off his horror.
"Just a little submersive tap. We'll put him back in bed and when he wakes in the morning, raving about an underwater Tsutomi smiling at him, practically naked, Bakugo will stomp him into a pancake and everyone will go about their business. No one will believe him."
He looked even more incredulous than he had over the night echo slip-up. To make sure it stayed that way, I pulled the towel from my body and held it out to him. A sweet trickle of color made as quick appearance as his eyes did across my skin before he glanced away.
Damn you to an all-boys boarding school, Mineta.
"Wrap him up in that towel. I'm sure his robe is probably in the changing room."
Shota carried him like a dead body, bagged completely in the sodden towel. At least Kaminari hadn't been with him. I pulled the water from our bodies and left Mineta damp, covering my eyes so Shota could stuff his creepy little child-body into a robe.
"Why didn't you make him leave?"
"He claimed to have gotten lost heading to the bathrooms-"
"Naked?"
"-And then asked why I was out here alone."
"If we carry him up the mountain, I'm sure a kind family of goats would be willing to take him in- Ahck, don't carry him like that,"
I slapped one of his arms to dispel the haunting image of Shota Aizawa cradling Mineta like a real child, heart jumping in the most aggravating of manners. Chill out, don't make this even more weird than it already is.
"You sneak in, toss him back on the bedroll, and I'll keep an eye on the others with submersion."
Sleeping came in many postures and forms; for teenage boys, apparently, this meant starfish-sprawled on top of all the blankets, not a pillow in sight, air thick with a gruesome amount of mouth breathing.
I really, really hoped this wasn't what I looked like every night.
"You're smaller, and a girl, so when you do it, it's sort of cute," Shota whispered to my accidentally-vocalized comment.
Did he just refer to me as a girl? I couldn't even be indignant as I monitored a roomful of teenage heartbeats while my boyfriend replaced one of our students into bed after having nearly caught us with our pants down- literally.
The dying summer sang an elegy of cicada calls in the crisp night air. The moon had already walked more than halfway across the sky; there were few hours left before morning.
We stood outside the sliding door of my shared room, where nothing but abandoned pillows and blankets waited, toes cold on the wooden porch floor.
It started as a hiccup, then the tremble of a giggle.
Before long Shota's mouth became a crumpled line, breaking down into hushed laughter right along with my pulled-apart seams. If we weren't careful the entire facility would awaken and find the tears in my eyes, the opening of Shota's robe as I wrapped myself inside.
"You're warm, for once."
"We were just cooking in a hot spring." The answer rumbled through my cheek, pressed up against his bare chest. We looked like a fluffy snowman with two different-heighted faces. I looked up; he kissed my forehead.
"If you try and go to sleep now, I bet you'll be successful."
A crinkle in the dim light. "You think so?"
I kissed the skin over his heart; it answered, tapping a quick cadence in hello. Shota shifted. I caught on to the movement's purpose, grinning at his uncomfortable expression before wrapping my arms around his waist. He was narrow enough for my hand to lock around the other's wrist, tying him to me.
"I'd invite you in, but Kayama may still sneak back in and I don't feel like also knocking out a fellow instructor." Shota exhaled when I moved against him, a peek of my own skin coming loose from my robe to tease against his waking body. "Plus, the After is kind of my favorite part. I wouldn't let you leave me, and then we'd be really busted come morning."
"The After?"
Was that a dumb thing to say? A gentle hand through my hair didn't allow me to flee again, brushing away any sort of obscuring. He drank in my blush like a fine wine and I was struck with intoxication.
"Um, just, you know. Being together." Now I just sound stupid. So I dug a deeper idiot hole; "Some people just like to roll over and go to sleep, but you always stay close. I never knew sharing a pillow could be so- could make me feel like I...I don't know. Belong. Like I've found the space I'm home in."
I couldn't read his ocean-deep eyes, or the message hidden in his pulse.
But I knew mine, and how my feelings for him filled me down to the marrow.
I pulled his robe closed, retied the belt before taking his hand. "Go to bed. Tomorrow we'll work out a plan for your insomnia when it comes time to move in the dorms." I felt my face pull up in a lopsided expression. "As exciting as it sounds, I don't think you'll actually be able to sneak through my window every night."
"Ye of such little faith," His smile was soft against the palm of my hand. If I didn't leave now, right now, Kayama would be coming home to a scene even her overzealous self wouldn't be prepared for.
So with every hormone screaming in protest, I turned tail and hopped into my cursed, shared bedroom. Two, three heartbeats, then his careful footfalls headed back down the hall.
Both beds were empty.
I crawled back into mine, suddenly more tired than I realized, and dreamed of fuzzy Principal Nezu floating down the waterfall in a barrel of tea.
A/N: I like to provide soft fluff before flinging a wrecking ball of emotion into your psyche.
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