Category: Friendship Fluff
Characters: Koichi Haimawari, Kazuho Haneyama
A sedated smile decorated Koichi's lips as he leisurely strolled across the sidewalk leading up to the spacious mall looming before him. To celebrate the conclusion of his college midterms, Kazuho had invited him to peruse the mall for a few hours. The mall's hero merchandise shop had launched a new line of All Might hoodies, so naturally, Koichi was mega-game.
Heat simmered across the pavement as it soaked up the sizzling summer sun blazing in the azure sky. The bare skin of his limbs very much enjoyed soaking up the pleasant heat provided by the rays spearing down from the atmosphere. Though it was the height of the season, Koichi's trusty All Might hoodie looped around his waist, the sleeves flopping against his thighs with every step. A vigilante never knew when or where they had to spring into action, after all. Since his gain in popularity, Koichi had taken to carting around his hoodie and mask wherever he went, just in case.
"Koichiiiii~!" The young college boy stopped in his tracks, craning his head as his name floated out of the crowd eclipsing the mall's entrance. After a quick scan, he spotted a shock of poofy magenta hair bouncing around a grinning bespectacled face. Koichi found his smile brightening as he spotted Kazuho. He quickened his pace, eagerly trotting up to her.
"Hey. Have you been waiting very long?" Koichi asked sheepishly, his smile crinkling with mild guilt. Kazuho smiled pleasantly as she shook her head. "Oh, great. Ready to go inside, then?" he asked with a gesture towards the automatic sliding glass doors. Kazuho responded with a bright "Yep!" and they strolled into the massive building together.
As they stepped over the threshold, two things struck Koichi: the refreshing blast of the air conditioner and the cacophony of the throng. People milled about the mall's central rotunda or meandered towards their favorite stores, all while chattering incessantly. As it was a Saturday, the nearby settlements' young residents had flocked to the mall to escape the intense summer heat and indulge in some shopping. Shouting slightly to surpass the dissonance of a thousand conversations, he asked Kazuho, "What would you like to do first?"
"Eh? Didn't you want to go to that merch store or whatever, Koichi?" she asked loudly while playing with the voluminous end of one of her pigtails. Koichi's cheeks pinkened at her consideration, and he rubbed the back of his neck as his eyes trailed to the colorful signs and cosplayed mannequins adorning the shop's front. His blue eyes flickered back to the girl, who just regarded him curiously.
"We can go there later," he decided, though every cell in his body vibrated with the need to have his hands on the new limited-edition hoodie as soon as possible. Kazuho had been nice enough to invite him on the outing, so the least he could do was allow her to enjoy herself. "Is there anywhere you want to go?"
Kazuho's cheeks turned the color of her hair as her magenta eyes drifted eastward.
"Well," she offered shyly, wringing her hands and jingling the bracelets around her wrist, "I'd really like to check out the bath products store… They have nice bath bombs…" Kazuho's gaze flickered to him anxiously, as if she expected him to scoff in disdain. The boy just smiled and began walking purposefully towards that end of the mall.
"All right, then! Bath bombs, here we come!" As he strode off, he heard Kazuho squeak, and her flats slap-slapped after him.
"Wait! Koichi!"
The bath bomb store nestled between a jewelry store and a bookstore. Koichi mulled about as Kazuho inspected the various wares piled in the plastic bin, picking up the compressed balls of soap and sniffing them to decide on her favorite aromas. Koichi realized that he was the only male in the store, but he didn't mind; Kazuho's eyes sparkled with delight as she sampled the bath bombs, so he was content as long as she was. As he waited patiently for her to choose her purchases, he meandered around, flipping open random bottles of shea butter lotions and shower gels to sniff them. He had to admit, quite a few of them smelled very lovely indeed.
As he sniffed at a bottle of red apple-scented shower gel, a sudden scream made him gasp and drop the bottle. Droplets of viscous ruby liquid splashed across the white tile as he dashed to the storefront, looking left and right. People shrieked and tripped over one another as they raced away like scattered marbles. Koichi's keen eyes tracked their frantic movements to their origin- the jewelry store next door.
"Put it all in the bag! Hurry up!" A villain cornering a terrified jeweler barked savagely as he brandished a wicked-looked firearm in her face. Upon closer inspection, Koichi realized that the weapon actually morphed out of his hand. He can turn his body into guns? Freaky! Koichi thought as he gawked shamelessly. He only stumbled backward when Kazuho forcibly yanked him, dragging him around the displays of shampoos and conditioners and lotions to the back of the store. The cashiers and other customers huddled behind the register counter, one of them frantically speaking to an emergency operator.
"Koichi! Are we gonna do something?" Kazuho hissed as she squatted down behind a round display, jerking him down into a crouch beside her. Koichi frowned; though he'd brought his disguise, a mall was a terribly busy place. Several pro heroes were bound to be patrolling the complex, and they wouldn't take well to a pair of vigilantes up-staging them. However, he could hear the frightened jewelry store girl pitifully sobbing as she frantically gathered the gold and silver wares at gunpoint.
"Someone has to do something," he resolved, untying his hoodie so he could slink his arms through the sleeve and tug the hood up over his head. He fished his mask out of the pocket and strapped it over his face. "Stay here, Pop. Make sure the people in here are safe," he ordered in a whisper before crawling out from behind the display.
"Okay. Be careful!" Kazuho whispered, her magenta eyes wide as she watched him slowly crawl on all fours back to the front of the store.
The mall was a ghost town; all the patrons had fled en masse, leaving the area silent except for the whimpers of the jewelry shop attendant and the angry curses of the robber. Koichi's eyebrows narrowed in stark peaks over his oceanic eyes as he peered around the edge of the slim wall adjoining the two shops. One gun jutted out of the gunman's leg to pin down the quivering security guard hunched in the corner between two bullet-ridden, shattered glass display cases. It looks like he can control the guns independently and produce them from any point on his body… That could be a problem, he frowned thoughtfully.
Still, time was of the essence. Koichi had to try.
Activating his Quirk, he zoomed across the tile, zig-zagging towards the gunman. Though Koichi'd hoped to catch him by surprise, the young girl gasping "oh!" when she caught sight of him rapidly slithering in made the villain whip around. Three pistols sprung up from his shoulders to automatically pepper Koichi with shots. The vigilante hurriedly hurled himself sideways to roll behind an undamaged display, though a bullet grazed his shin and splashed blood across the floor. He hissed at the sharp sting that bloomed across the nerve endings of his leg.
"Who's there? A hero?" the villain demanded. Koichi heard the girl screech and dissolve into blubbering sobs. Eyes narrowed, Koichi peered into the reflection of a small viewing mirror. Through the cracked glass, he observed the assailant grab the jeweler roughly by the arm and yank her halfway over the counter while pressing the barrel of the gun against her temple. "Don't you get any funny ideas!" he snarled over the desperate wails of the terrorized woman, who probably didn't get paid enough for this. "I'll do it! I swear!" He punctuated the promise with a cock of the gun, making the girl moan mournfully.
"Hey, hey, now," Koichi called nonchalantly, easing his raised hands over the top of the counter with his arms tensed to yank them down in case the startled gunman tried to blow his fingers off. The unstable villain just watched with bloodshot eyes as Koichi inched his head up over the bullet-nicked counter. "Let's just take it down a notch, both of us, yeah? I ain't lookin' for a fight."
The villain's eyebrow twitched as he regarded the teenager skeptically. With his hands still extended over his head, Koichi directed both his index fingers to the crying woman. "I just want the girl, yeah? You can rob the store all you want, but let's just let her go, okay? This is way above her paygrade."
"Yeah, but then I'd be deprived of a hostage."
Finally, Koichi got a good glimpse of the offender. A muscle-bound brute well over six-feet, two-hundred pounds, the young vigilante only hoped to defeat him with a surprise attack with the frightened girl well out of harm's way. Koichi's eyes widened as he heard a few of the guns protruding from the villain's body click, and he waved his hands in a placating gesture. "Look, man! It's all good! I don't have any fancy tricks up my sleeve." He grinned cheesily as he all but lied through his teeth.
"Please," the young girl pleading miserably through hiccuping sobs. "Just let me go. Take all the jewelry and money, I don't care, just please- ahhhhhh!" Her pleas morphed into another round of screaming as the gunman shoved her down into the broken glass. His eyes trained on Koichi, who gradually edged himself to the left each time the opportunity presented itself.
"Shut up, bitch. Finish loading up the goods!" he snarled and shoved her harshly away. The girl tripped over her heels and landed on her rump, but hurriedly crawled to the case to begin shoveling rings and necklaces and earrings into the sack through blurry tears. When the man was momentarily distracted by ordering her around, Koichi dropped back onto all fours. He activated his Quirk to zoom up the wall and across the ceiling.
"What the hell-? Hey!" the man yelled, whipping around the shoot several of his guns at Koichi, who zig-zagged across the ceiling a skittering spider. The bullets narrowly avoided him, punching holes in the thin cardboard of the ceiling tiles. The girl took the opportunity to escape; panting, she clambered on all fours away from her assailant. Unfortunately, the man took notice. He materialized a new set of guns fixed directly on her crawling form. "Get back here!"
As the guns exploded with loud pops, Koichi dove down the wall to scoop up the attendant, wrapping his arms around her middle and throwing all his weight to his left. He carried her with him as he rolled over behind another counter. He deposited her near the rattled security guard, who yelled at their sudden appearance.
"Hold on. I'll get you out of here," Koichi ordered with a stern point of his finger. The white-faced girl just nodded frantically, irises swimming in a white sea. The villain now stamped around the back of the counter, cursing loudly and shooting in random directions as he gathered up his haul. Koichi carefully timed the firing of the guns with his sharp eyes to rapidly discern a pattern. He pinpointed a minute gap in their interval, one that would allow him to scoop up the two hostages and escape. Koichi had no care to combat the crazed, infuriated man; he'd leave that to the pro heroes. He was fast, not bulletproof.
"Now!" he cried, grabbing hold of the man and woman in the split-second gap between the gunfire. He kicked off the counter using his Quirk to boost his force, sending them hurtling out of the jewelry store into the common area. Koichi slammed into a sofa, flinging the two hostages around either side while he slid down the back of the couch with an agonized groan. He quickly recollected himself, rubbing his bruised nose and rising to peek around the spine of the couch. Though thoroughly rattled, neither hostages were significantly injured. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Get back here, you little shit!"
"Oop! Time to dash," Koichi gulped, dropping back down to all fours and firing up his Quirk. He zoomed away, zig-zagging to dodge the bullets raining down around him. He slipped right through the legs of a police officer rushing towards the scene with his gun drawn. It seemed the cavalry had finally arrived, and Koichi had no care to stick around for the conclusion. He'd saved the civilians; that's all that mattered.
Koichi hurriedly slipped into an abandoned side exit hall and stripped himself of his All Might hoodie and mask, stashing it in a decorative plant and playing the part of the frightened onlooker as a few police officers and a sidekick dashed by. After they migrated off, satisfied the stammering boy cowering behind the fern was not their masked illegal hero, Koichi bought himself a bottle of water from the nearby vending machine. He drained it to the dregs in three large gulps. He tossed it into the nearby trashcan and then sunk onto the metal bench beside it, sagging as the adrenaline caught up to him.
"Ahhh… So much for a relaxing trip to the mall," Koichi pouted. Still, as he fingered the fabric of his All Might hoodie still stuffed down between the broad leaves of the fresh-smelling fern, he smiled brightly. He saw the woman and security guard being led to safety, shock blankets hugging their forms. The woman paused when she glanced at him, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. As tears filled her eyes, she mouthed a simple thanks before allowing the EMT to lead her away.
"Koichi! Are you okay?" Kazuho cried as he limped through the glass double doors of the mall entrance. She rushed up at him, grabbing him by the biceps to look him up and down frantically. "The heroes just led the villain out in cuffs. What a brute! Are you sure you aren't hurt?"
"I'm fine, Pop," he reassured her with an amused smile, regaled by her concern for him. "A bullet just grazed my leg; it's nothin' major. It isn't even bleeding anymore." Kazuho's head dipped down to critically inspect the wound on his shin. After frowning at it for several seconds, she stepped away from him, cheeks pinkened.
"You didn't come back immediately… I was worried."
"Yeah," he sighed apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck and wincing at the sweat coating his fingertips, "I lied low for a while to keep from attracting attention… I made a pretty good show of myself, after all."
"You sure did," Kazuho laughed, pulling out her phone. She beckoned him to look over her shoulder as she pulled up a webpage; the video she showed him featured him zooming out of the jewelry store with the hostages in tow. The headline read, The Crawler's Day Off? Heroic Mall Rescue by Naruhata Vigilante!
"Wow," he appreciated with a low whistle. "That was fast."
"Yup," she agreed as she pocketed her smartphone. "I would say that was a productive day, wouldn't you?" At her girlish giggle, Koichi's body sagged, and he released a miserable whine.
"No! I didn't get that new hoodie! They're probably all sold out now…"
"Actually…" As Kazuho shyly spoke up, pressing the pad of her index finger to her lips as she bashfully swayed her hips from side to side, Koichi sprang up like a soldier snapping to attention. She snickered and pulled a shopping bag from behind her back. Koichi's breath left him in an awed gasp.
"Pop… You didn't…"
"While you were laying low, I ran by the store and snagged the last one."
"Thank you!" he trilled, snatching the bag as tears brimmed in his eyes. He cooed delightedly as he pulled the hoodie from the paper bag. He abandoned the container as he raised the article of clothing to adoringly admire it. "It's spectacular… Pop, thank you!" he grinned, dropping the hoodie to reveal his absolutely beaming grin. Kazuho blushed and played with a chunk of her poofy pink hair.
"Of course. I know how excited you were about it, so…"
"But this must have cost so much! I have to pay you back." As he went fishing his wallet out of his back pocket, Kazuho grabbed his wrist.
"No, it's okay," she refused with a soft smile. She pulled her hand back, and Koichi's arm flopped limply to his side as he stared at her in bewilderment. Going shy again, she once more swung her hips slowly from left to right and back again. "I was happy to buy it for you. You can just make it up to me by using it well."
Koichi blinked, humbled by her statement. Then, his grin widened, stretching his cheeks to an almost painful degree. He dropped his hoodie from his hips, depositing it in the shopping bag, before slipping his arms into the new one. "Y-you're gonna wear that in this heat?!" Kazuho spluttered.
"Yep," Koichi smiled as he flapped the front of the jacket to settle it over his torso. He then leaned down to pick up the shopping bag. "Sure am. So, wanna head home? I'm starving."
Kazuho stared at him incredulously for a moment, then laughed mirthfully.
"Sure. How about curry?"
"Yum! My favorite!"
Use it well, Kazuho's voice echoed in his mind as he strolled alongside her. The image of the woman thanking him then came to mind.
Yeah, Pop. I sure will.