Chapter Twenty-Three: Summer's Smother
It was an undeniably hot day in Japan. Red hot.
Summer smothered the two girls standing, hesitant but standing, at a faceless building's entrance, the stoic focus they presented at the forefront gleaming under such weather. Their murmured words and strained skin were drenched in sweat (hero suits didn't help), aspiration and perspiration jumbled at the exit in the midst of frenzied nerves. Although the trees swayed a bit and the sky was clear, the sun's unforgiving rays brought a particular stench upon the scene, tainting everything in brown, a brown which went easily unnoticed. Shrubs and weeds in the surrounding area appeared youthful, all the while rotting internally, the hot hand of the sun slowly dulling the plants' vibrance that once came effortlessly. The sweltering heat was relentlessly agonizing, not stopping at the silent withering of plants, but reaching further and clawing at unaware people who dared step foot in its territory. To make haste in such conditions would be idiotic; to move meticulously was torture.
Sunlight brought a heaviness to the girls' limbs, both of whom detested its invasive nagging, nagging that eventually weighed on cramping muscles enough to warrant desperate gulps of air. They hadn't even begun moving, yet the build up of heat inside the lungs, on the skin, within the muscles threatened to paralyze them if the two didn't think quickly to act. Splashed with green, eyes large and calculating, the two hero students were victims of the summer, however, neither allowed the glaring sun to spoil them completely.
Asui sighed, training her gaze to the crabby grass flattened beneath her feet, avoiding the sun's tirade as a means of self preservation. She whispered, carefully as not to provoke the heat, "I'm a water frog..." The frog girl's words, though rather quiet, were sharp enough to slash at the the heat, giving her the confidence to speak more: "Thankfully we'll be inside, but I'm not sure it'll be much cooler in the facility."
"Yeah, it's hot." Ayumi's words were barely audible over the sweat soaking them, bloodshot eyes clinging to the shady area of the surrounding forest with envy. The sickly girl was accustomed to living in the shadows, most of her childhood spent taking solace while bathed in that of her brother's. His hopes, his dreams, his dependability - Ayumi worshipped them, cloaking herself in Jin's desires which felt so real, so strong, desires which, ultimately, were mere shadows, present, but paper thin. As such, the wide eyed girl was pierced by the sun's rays, like scathing water rushing through a limp, expecting tea bag. The mix within her didn't matter, as Ayumi's permeability never failed to give way when pressure was applied. Needless to say, things got under her skin frequently, the wordless and sweaty girl a result of such foolishness.
"Hey, Ayumi, let's go in there and give it our all." Heat.
"I didn't think we had any other option." Heat.
She'd witnessed Kirishima's devastating defeat before being escorted over to the facility, where she and her fellow green splashed companion were left to wilt, depressed under the heat of the moment and the heat of the sun.
"I trust you," came the blunt, remarkably thoughtful voice of Asui. The frog girl gazed intently as the the bloodshot one who wouldn't look back at her, hoping for some sort of offering in response. She didn't expect Ayumi to react harshly, the way her eyes flitted to the sun quickly being the only sign she wasn't frozen in the midst of heat. Thus, Asui pried more: "I've trusted you since USJ, and I haven't doubted my choice once."
Neither noticed, however, as the tides of conversation churned between the two, the air around them cooled, bringing Ayumi's gaze to the round eyed peacemaker across from her. She never hated Asui, the girl who'd assisted her as she sucked every drop of morphine out of gauze to keep their teacher alive. It had to have been the color they shared or their stretched eyes which brought them together, but either way, the air around them cooled, and each found the other closer than they were before. A buzz cut through the crisp air around the pair, signaling the beginning of their trial.
As the two walked over, stepping inside the building in tandem, the bruised girl spoke, words larger than a whisper this time:
"Thank you."
—
"You're not really hard to talk to, kiddo!" Minty green opened the eyes of the exhausted girl next to her.
Nighteye was relentless with his planning and preparations, every aspect and possibility accounted for by himself, all the while withholding the future an inch above the team's heads and asking for trust in return. The only intern on the case would be Ayumi, as involving more than necessary would be utterly detrimental to the operation. After being kept up the entire night by planning and simulations, Ayumi was holding on by a thread - her last cup of coffee. Aizawa had cut her off a while ago - "It's not healthy for you!" - so the wide eyed girl was struggling to keep said organs from failing on her, unable to fathom the thought of sleeping with others around. Sleep was a sign of fragility, vulnerability, both of which were private matters to be kept locked in the room at the end of the security wing for Ayumi. She couldn't sleep around such a rambunctious crowd anyway, Fatgum's boisterous snores and Nighteye's aimless sleep ramblings both bouncing around her ear canals, nipping at her mind, aiding her refusal to rest wide eyes publicly. Though she resisted, her body only allowed her eyes a centimeter open, fatigue forcing slumber into her obstinate bones.
So when Miss Joke, wide smile and a constant fidget to her leg, approached with a conversation on her mind, mint on her tongue, cool words made the brunette feel more than awake. She was awake, unwilling to falter in front of those she had no comfort with. Thus, the melancholia Ayumi held within her oozed out fluidly between her words, as she plainly replied, "Oh yeah?"
Unfazed, the jokester continued brightly, "There's something about you..."
"I'm usually quiet, so that's most likely it."
"It's not that." Comically deep thought cleared in an instant, a giddy chuckle following. The mint haired and tongued woman exclaimed, eyes excited and looking towards the roof, "When you speak, you make people want to listen! It makes me want to go 'Gwah' and talk to you! I'm pretty sure that just happened to me right now before I came over!"
She must be referring to the briefing I did earlier.
"Well, sorry to disappoint, but that's not me."
Ayumi was used to breaking smiles with the sound of her words, to clipping wings with the tone of her voice. The green girl wasn't particularly proud, but she did hold pride in the fact that she was her own type of force to be reckoned with.
Miss Joke, however, wasn't shaken, the broad smile stretching across the width of her face extending past what her skin allowed, covering all corners of the room impossibly. Cheerily, she claimed, eyes still glued to the ceiling, "You might not think so yet." The mint she spat became frigid, the cooling effects now appearing to freeze everyone who wasn't involved in the one sided Ayumi and Joke conversation. The hero's eyes drooped a bit, smile drooped a bit, shoulders drooped a bit. "I used to be that way. People used to laugh around me all the time. Back then I didn't have control over my quirk, so I wouldn't know if they actually liked me or if my quirk was acting up again."
Curious. Ayumi was now curious about the hero who seemed so content with everything. "How'd you do it then?"
"I let go of all that made me feel bad, silly! And, I learned that if they approach you first, they're keepers."
The room was alive again, the snoring and ramblings reaching and registering within the bloodshot girl's nervous system once again. The woman had the ability to change room with just a glance, just a splash of emotion - Ayumi looked on in admiration. If only she could let go as easily, spill the blood which poisoned her daily and go on with no worries. She knew she would never and could never be Miss Joke, cackling with others following suit naturally, or Kirishima, who made the world a brighter place with a red tinted smile. But, nevertheless, the bruised and bony girl would be damned if she didn't give her all, give her all to pack away haunting thoughts of Jin and her mother, of the way her class was uneasy around her.
"What about you an Aizawa?"
"Girl, that's love. Even I can't explain that!"
Until then, mint on the mind, Ayumi resolved to bleach the bad and cling to the good. The itch in the back of her mind would kill her if she didn't.
—
The water feels nice.
Under the shower spout, Ayumi stood tall, washing away the summer which smothered her earlier. She'd emerged victorious with her new friend Asui - call her Tsu, but as a price, exhaustion was further impressed upon her drug ridden frame. As water hit, the fatigue plaguing her prominent leg and arm bones poured out of her skin, joining the water rushing down the drain. The liquid hit her body and slid off it easily, racing other streams to their oblivion in the sewage system, carrying away the exhaustion and impurities and dirt and anger of a hard day's work, all to rot away underground. The brunette found herself longing for the relief which bathing brought, feeling pleasure at the warm sensation of the water covering her burns, healing them for the challenges awaiting. The mouth of the shower whispered comfort into strained muscle fibers and blitzing neurons; Ayumi smiled to comfort the doomed water on its way to its putrid destination.
The aroma tranquility bled seeped into the locker rooms, wafting into the air vents and spreading its wonders across the UA campus. If you were at the school at that moment - anywhere from the training grounds to the classrooms - your nose would be completely plugged with the scent of cannabis and coffee, and you wouldn't mind. Not one bit. The second hand smoke caused by steam billowing off of the bruised girl's burnt body turned heads, but that was it. Everyone was content, especially Ayumi, who washed it all away. Bleached it all away.
And then it was over, deflated chocolate strands sticking to the sides of her neck, crying out for the miracle liquid which it had been so quickly deprived of. Skin softened became tight and callous once again, backbone straightened, Ayumi's guard readying itself, poised to deflect the bullets life sent her way. She stepped out of the shower, the one in the corner of the locker room, where the tile was beginning to crack near the drain, hastily wrapping herself in a towel. The cloth embraced her, absorbing excess of the stray water droplets left on her skin, poisoned with her problems. Ayumi treasured such intimacy, as she knew the item was inanimate, yet, the warmth she felt was so humane. Closing her stretched eyes, the complacent girl pondered the idea of having someone close, to touch, caress, love - to embrace her poisonous impurities and all the like. And, although it was dark behind the shield her eyelids provided, all Ayumi could see was -
Red.
Eyes flew open in a panic, disarmed and shaky from the contact of such a bold thought. The warmth of the towel increased, Ayumi beginning to sweat the bullets she thought the world would be shooting but had come gunning, rapid fire straight from her own nerves. Somehow, by merely thinking of Kirishima, not even a completely cut-out lucid thought, she'd torn down her defenses without hesitation. But then again, almost everything she felt for him was without hesitation, boundless and raging, the way she could cry if he needed her to or laugh at his signal. Within such tight defenses, crimson had managed to leak through, leak through to a place where Ayumi thought the reds of her blood would be enough of the color.
Kirishima had found a way into Ayumi's thick-walled heart, a goldmine of drugs and sorrow so perfectly concocted. He was there, and oh, how Ayumi knew he was there to stay, despite the pain, despite the agony.
I need to cool off.
She couldn't tell if it was his crushing defeat or the beatdown she'd taken under the sun, but the skin over her cheeks was red. Very red.
—
On her skin once wrapped in a towel was a t-shirt and jeans, in her hands was a cone of ice cream, a new flavor this time for good luck. Strawberry was Kirishima's flavor; there was no hesitation when she asked the vendor for it, no blink or sweat to disrupt the decision. She was glad she didn't have a second guess to spit out in panic.
Walking along the road back to UA, strawberry bits enchanted her tastebuds, the synapses firing off excitedly between tastes of the dessert, sticky sweet sentiments felt all over. Does he feel this way when he tastes it? Although Ayumi silently inquired, she desperately hoped it was more than just a flavor that brought them together ultimately. She hoped he too clung to their training sessions, to the dinner nights they'd had at her place, to the laughs over failed tests, to the unbreakable things they had. Both were red in the eyes, red in the heart, always looking to the other - the bruised girl was spiraling, outside and in the midst of a summer storm of her own, hot rains and humidity incomparable to the burning flaring up within her. There was nothing to grab hold of as she flew, thrashed about in the force of her own emotions.
And yet, when she took a lick of the cone again, Ayumi's whirlwind bottled itself back up obediently. Maybe the sensation of strawberry was enough for the night. Bubbly, fresh, sour -
Unease. As she licked her cone, unease licked the back of Ayumi's mind, the sickly girl shivering as the warm blood of another approaching. Hypersensitivity had become second nature for her at that point, the weary girl whipping herself around automatically, hoping to shake whoever was on the prowl.
But, when met with bleached hair and a scar stitched by her own, bruised hands, did she really want to shake Bubaigawara Jin for the third time on that road? Her bloodshot eyes pained by the hurt she felt at the sight couldn't decide, and thus, Ayumi mimicked the strawberry treat she'd purchased with unrealistic hope in control of her hand. Ayumi froze, slowly melting, melting in a mess of bleach, sweat, and hot summer rains cooled by the sun's cold shoulder. She froze, the raw and beaming red leaving and replaced with pale and reaching green, the color (unknown to the younger Bubaigawara) her brother knew and loved so much.
The color that made Bubaigawara Jin approach once more, with a message on the mind this time.
