NeonHorizon: Not going to lie. I feel kind of bad for Kurono in this chapter...


Sayuri almost tripped over her own feet in her rush when she got home from her day job. She had limited time before she was supposed to go see Eri. Normally, she would just go straight to the girl's house after she left the school, but today was different. What was supposed to be a calm afternoon of arts and crafts had turned into an all-out paint and glitter war among kindergartners.

Dabi was lounging on the couch and lazily looked over when she came through the door. He watched her kick off her shoes and start stripping off her clothes as a smirk settled on his lips. Getting up, he approached without a word and looked her up and down. She was hopping as she tried to get her pants off and almost fell, but he caught her.

"What's the rush? Just can't wait," he teased.

The pale-haired woman shivered, feeling his warm breath skim over the curve of her ear. She bit her lower lip as she felt him grind against her bottom, his arms wrapped around her from behind. "I can't right now. I'm sorry!" She tried to pull away, but his hold tightened.

"Seriously?" Dabi slid a hand up along her chest, his hot fingertips skimming over her sensitive skin and making her bite back a whimper. "What if I don't wanna share you tonight?"

"It isn't like that," Sayuri argued. She managed to pull free and turned to face him, her eyes narrowed with determination. The young woman gripped both of his shoulders and leaned up to steal a kiss before she hurried into the bathroom.

She washed quickly; scrubbing away paint and glitter the best she could and washing her hair. Sayuri could feel his eyes on her and she found him leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. He smirked when she started to blush. Flustered, Sayuri tried to focus on towel-drying her hair. "What?"

"You look cute when you're panicking. Makes me kinda excited."

Warmth rushed through her and she hurried into her room for clean clothes. She put on a v-neck lavender shirt with long sleeves and a pair of black pants. Sayuri tried to walk past Dabi to leave her room, but he gripped her wrist to stop her. "I'm in a hurry-"

"That's what quickies are for," he pointed out. "C'mon. You seriously wanna go? Just say you're not going today."

"I can't do that. Dabi, I'll be back in a few hours." She could feel her cheeks burning and she looked away, a small grin tugging at her lips. "When I come back…maybe we can have some fun?"

His own grin returned full-force. Dabi threaded a hand into her snowy hair and he leaned down, covering her lips with his. He pinned her against the wall, hips grinding into hers as he groaned into her mouth. When he broke the kiss, he looked almost wicked. "Making me wait? I'm not gonna go easy on you."

Sayuri's heart skipped a beat with excitement and she let her grin turn into a faint smirk. "Maybe that's what I want," she replied in an attempt at flirting.

She had to basically sprint half the way to Eri's house and by the time she reached the house, she was feeling exhausted. The mental toll of leading a class of more than twenty kindergartners. Running to try to get to her tutoring appointment on time.

Kurono opened the door and raised an eyebrow. He almost looked amused. "You're fifteen minutes late," he commented.

"I'm sorry, Kurono-san. The last project of the day was…messier…than I thought it would be. I had to stop at home to shower." She slipped into the house and looked in the direction of Eri's room. "Is Eri-chan waiting for me?"

He closed the door behind her and started toward the little girl's room. "Yeah; she's been waiting on you. Keeps asking if you're not coming." He glanced over at her and seemed to be smiling just slightly. "You smell nice."

The compliment made goose bumps rise on her skin. "Ah…thanks." She was unsure of how exactly to respond to this sort of unsettling comment. Normal people did not say that kind of thing to someone. Is he just awkward? He's usually pretty quiet and he stays close to Chisaki if Chisaki is around. Is he trying to be friendly right now?

Smiling back at him politely, she decided to go along with it. "You smell nice, too, Kurono-san." They were at Eri's door now and she was waiting for him to open it. She would do it herself, but he always opened the doors for her or Chisaki whenever she visited.

"It's Sayuri, right?"

I just want to see Eri. She looked from him to the door and her smile faltered. "Yeah. It's written as "small lily"," she answered. Getting uncomfortable, she reached for the door to open it herself and entered the room.

Eri was sitting at the little table and her eyes lit up when she saw Sayuri. The young woman crouched down to her eye level and hugged her. The child hugged back, but gently. Much gentler than how most kids her age would hug. "I missed you," the girl said, staring up at her when she sat in the other little chair.

Sayuri smiled and dug around in her bag for a special gift she had picked up the previous day. When she and Dabi went to her aunt's neighborhood, Sayuri spotted something particularly cool. A cat café. Dabi had refused to go in, but she went in and got a small souvenir for Eri. As she pulled the cat stuffed animal out of her bag, Kurono sat on the floor to her right. What is he doing?

"What…is that…?" Eri tilted her head curiously when Sayuri put the toy on the table between them.

"It's a present. For you. I went to visit my cousin yesterday. Sort of. And I saw this really cool place. It was a cat café. They had a bunch of different cats inside and they had really cute desserts and stuff." She felt like her heart was going to burst when she saw Eri take the stuffed animal in her little hands.

"How do you "sort of" visit someone?" Kurono questioned.

The pale-haired woman frowned and lowered her head. "I'm not exactly close with my family," she admitted. "They thought I should've become a hero."

"That's-" Kurono looked toward the open doorway, his lips turning down at the corners. "Did you hear that?"

Sayuri glanced over at Eri, who was still examining the fluffy cat stuffed animal. "No. What is it? What did you hear?"

He stood and started toward the door with caution. "Just wait here. I'll be back." Kurono closed the door behind him and set off down the hallway.

What was that about? She tried to shrug it off and rummaged in her bag for the new coloring workbooks she got for Eri to work on. Sayuri brought her chair closer to the child's and let her choose what subject to start with.

Eri picked a math workbook with cute characters in it that demonstrated how to solve simple math problems. It was impressive; the little girl really focused on trying to understand the equations and she was careful about coloring inside of the lines. Sayuri felt a burst of pride each time Eri was able to solve a problem and it was made even better when the child's eyes seemed to sparkle.

She's a quick learner and it seems like she really enjoys learning. She wouldn't have too much trouble catching up to the kids in my kindergarten class if she was in it. It's the socialization part that might be difficult. Sayuri ran her fingers through Eri's hair to remove the tangles and she pulled it back into a ponytail so it was away from her face.

"Eri-chan, I have something special planned for tonight's snack. The question is: bunny or bear?"

Her large, red eyes widened as she looked up at Sayuri. "A…bear?"

"You know. A bear. Like…"roar"!" Sayuri lifted her hands and curled her fingers, gnashing her teeth like an angry bear. "You know?" The girl looked alarmed so she was pretty sure Eri was confused. "Bunnies it is, then. Bunnies are cuter anyway, right?"

The little girl nodded. "Bunnies…bunnies are cute!" she agreed.

Before she could say anything else, the door opened again. Kurono's normally pale face looked even paler and he momentarily looked at Eri before staring down at the girl's tutor. "Sayuri. I need you to come with me."

"Oh…okay?" She stood and gave Eri a reassuring smile. "I'll be right back. Try to solve a few on your own while I'm gone, okay?"

Following Kurono out into the hallway, she waited until the door was closed before questioning him. "So what is it? What did you hear earlier? Is everything alright? Did something happen-?"

"It's Kai. You'll see. I just need you to take a look at something."

Sayuri reached out to grab his sleeve and frowned when he looked over his shoulder at her. "Is Chisaki-san okay?"

"Do you like Kai?"

The question threw her off so much that she actually stumbled a little. He made her nervous and she had been sure that this was no secret. "Like…?"

Kurono's eyebrows knit in irritation. "You know what I'm talking about."

Sayuri, still not quite sure what his relationship with Chisaki was, held up both hands in defense. "No! I mean, not like…"like". Kurono-san, I think you should be able to love whoever you want as long as no one's getting hurt!" she blurted out, her face going bright pink.

In her mind, him asking that question answered her question of his relationship with Chisaki. She was sure he had feelings for him and he was getting jealous of Sayuri so that was why he was asking. Sayuri, wanting to keep the peace and dispel any misunderstandings, wanted to reassure him that Chisaki was all his.

The pale-haired man blinked slowly and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I just…" She rubbed the back of her neck, still blushing and looking away. "Look, you should be allowed to love whoever you want. I think so, anyway."

They had reached the kitchen doorway and he still looked confused. "What are you saying? Are you confessing to me?"

"No! I didn't mean it like-! I just meant that if you like him, I'm not going to judge you!" she protested.

Before Kurono could say anything else, his attention was pulled to the figure moving toward them from within the kitchen. "Sorry, Kai. Here's Sayuri."

She was now uneasy on top of feeling embarrassed. Turning her head, she saw Chisaki gripping his wounded left arm with his right hand and approaching them. Even wounded, he still seemed intimidating as he made his way over to his two white-haired companions. Her gaze was soon drawn to the deep slice across his outer wrist, his blood staining his glove a dark red.

"What happened?" Sayuri felt goose bumps rising on her skin as he came to stand close to her.

His narrowed golden eyes lowered to the gushing wound and then back to her. "A kitchen accident."

But how?! This doesn't look like a "chopping vegetables and slipped" accident. This is more like you shoved your hand into a full sink that had knives in it. She hesitantly reached toward his arm before glancing up at him. "Do you mind? I can heal it. I'll need some bandages for myself afterwards, but I'll have to touch you-"

"I'll take it." Kurono rolled up his left sleeve and held out his arm. "You can transfer wounds, right? You've got your teaching job so if you took this one, it'd slow you down. Give it to me."

Sayuri nodded. "I guess I can do that. You're sure, Kurono-san?" He nodded once and looked to Chisaki as she did. "And, Chisaki-san, you're okay with me touching you? I have to make skin contact for my quirk to work."

There was a faint twitch of a facial muscle behind his black medical mask. "Just take care of it. I've got a kid, don't I? So it wouldn't be good for her to see me hurt like this. We wouldn't want to make Eri worry. If Kurono takes it, he can hide it better than I can."

"Okay…" She tentatively set her left hand over Chisaki's wound and put her right hand on Kurono's arm. Sayuri felt a tingling in her spine, a twisting in her gut. More goose bumps formed on her as she let her quirk work its magic. She watched Chisaki's injury seal up so it just left a scar and then felt the slice on her own wrist in the same place. Biting back a hiss of pain, she redirected half of the damage to Kurono and heard him grunt at the agony of his flesh being sliced open.

Sayuri was looking at Kurono as he held his arm, staring down at his partially-healed wound with a strange expression on his face. She jolted when her left wrist was taken by a gloved hand and lifted. Her head turned toward Chisaki and saw that hives had broken out on his skin, but he seemed otherwise fine.

Turning her wrist to examine the half-healed wound, he held his own left wrist next to hers to compare. "Identical. It's impressive. I didn't think it worked that way. When you said you could give someone's injuries to someone else-"

"I don't usually do it that way, but…it was a deep cut. I split the damage between us," she explained. "Those hives-?"

"I see. It's a useful thing, isn't it?" Chisaki released her wrist and his eyes settled on something below her face. A gloved hand reached out and traced along the scar on her collarbone, making her wince. The scar that matched one of Dabi's. "Was this a wound that you took from someone? I've never noticed it before."

Sayuri took a step back, frowning. "That's…personal, Chisaki-san."