xii.

Only after hours of debate did Mirio end up buying himself a ticket to Swan Lake. At first, it had sparked vicious turmoil between himself, Nighteye and Bubble Girl – to approach or not to approach, that was the question. Nighteye insisted firmly on the latter, and not entirely unfairly. To look Ivanovska Anya dead in the eye and demand the truth about Eri carried with it the delicate danger of a time bomb. One miscalculation and it would blow up in their faces, just as things had crumbled all those years ago during their first assault on the Shie Hassaikai. But this time, Mirio was more determined and desperate than ever before.

It was exactly because he'd held back that Eri had slipped through his fingers once, disappearing into the shadows of an alleyway while he and Midoriya Izuku had looked on hushed and decidedly helpless; it was only because of his pride that things had gone awry all those years ago. And she'd slipped through his fingers twice. This time, things had to be different, because this time he had nothing to lose except for her. He couldn't wait, he wouldn't hesitate. He needed to know, and he needed things to be different.

Though his finely wrinkled scowl had seared Mirio through the computer screen, Nighteye conceded eventually. The only condition was that he himself had to be there.

It had left Mirio gawking into webcam.

Bubble Girl too, squashed in next to Sir to be a part of the conversation, had spluttered something quiet and – with a familiarity which jolted Mirio – touched her hand to Nighteye's. But he'd pulled away. He'd shaken his head with a decided finality. "I'll be there in three days. Sit tight. Wait for me."

To tell Mirio to sit tight seemed absurd; he could sit about as tightly as an anxious bud could stop itself from blooming. Waiting was too loaded with disaster, too many sleepless, hollow minutes imagining the worst sorts of things. So Mirio, mere hours after hanging up on Nighteye and Bubble Girl, had booked himself a ticket to Swan Lake in Fukuoka.

Now here was, the very next night – in the cheap seats of a grand, lush theater. White tutus twirled and glittered across the stage in lithe flurries of movement while an orchestra bustled in the pit.

Amongst the myriad of their conversations, Eri had mentioned to Mirio without explaining entirely why that Swan Lake was her least favourite ballet. And so he couldn't help but allow his own perspective to be unfairly coloured. If Eri didn't like it, then neither would he. Not that his was a particularly valuable opinion, of course, considering he hadn't the slightest idea what was going on on stage and had a hard time following along, consumed as he was by an impending sense of doom over the disappointment Sir was sure to feel. Indeed, Nighteye's disappointment was always potent, a concoction of beady stares and silence. For it to be directed at Mirio was rare, and he knew with vivid clarity that this time would likely be the worst he'd experienced.

But still he sat there, steadfast and staring through the graceful shock of limbs at whom he figured to be Ivanovska Anya. She was smaller than he'd thought, but demanded to be looked at – something dark and wicked in that high grace as she moved from one dance to the next to the next. It could only have been her. She was everything and nothing Eri had described.

And if she was who Mirio thought, what Nighteye suspected, then she was a cornerstone in uncovering the possibility Mirio had tactfully and foolishly been denying.

He trembled through the show, and more still when it was over. In the uneasy darkness outside the theater's backstage door, he waited. Leaned against the wall, tapping his feet. Sweat dewed itself down his nape – he could hear dainty commotions just on the other side of the door. Pitter patter of feet going up and down, back and forth, and voices, voices, voices.

People came out in tracksuits and buns, smelling richly of cosmetics and hairspray.

People went in. Came out again.

Mirio had begun to lament the likelihood that he wouldn't find Ivanovska Anya here. He'd been waiting for what must have been an age already… when, lo! She burst through the door without paying him any heed. Even smaller up close. Those watery legs moved brusquely away, her head held low and scowling as she fidgeted with a cigarette and lighter. The flame flashed against her face in a fleeting yellow, casting ephemeral shadows across her terrifying cheekbones and deep, menacing eyes.

"Miss! Ivanovska-san!"

She turned, and while not looking exactly irritable, Mirio could see a hint of displeasure before it disappeared behind her stellar, staged smile.

He froze. "Uh–" What had he been thinking? He couldn't speak Russian.

Clearly sensing this, Ivanovska Anya cocked her head. "Speak little bit Japanese," she said slowly and uncertainly, lifting her fingers to make a pinching gesture. A little bit. Her accent was almost too thick for Mirio to understand. "You enjoy show?"

"Oh! Yes, uh, yes. I enjoyed the show."

"Autograph?"

Mirio shook his head.

"Then excuse me." She turned away, and Mirio's hand shot out to dab tentatively at her shoulder.

"No, I'm sorry, I do want an autograph," he said and emphasised every word, hoping she'd understand completely. "But for a friend. Here, I have a pen." He pulled out a small notepad along with it, having come prepared for this exact purpose.

With one hand, Anya took them, and placed her cigarette between her dark, pointed lips. "Yes. Okay." Her smile was impatient. "Name? Of friend?"

"Eri."

The pen stood poised on the paper, still for a long time – a long, long time – before Anya's fingers faltered and she allowed those swirling, purple irises to flick to Mirio. Like a wild animal, experienced in its composure and tight-lipped smiling, she seemed to consider him with a bruising question mark across her expression. "And you?" she questioned eventually, careful. "Maybe your name too?"

"No, no, my name isn't important," Mirio chuckled. The sound was too false.

"Is important," Anya emphasised.

"Really, I don't think–"

"Mirio Togata." Apparently decided, she thrust the pen and notepad back to a stunned Mirio, and then blew a cloud of smoke at him. "Yes? Mirio To-ga-ta?" she repeated, announcing each syllable like a swearword. Smile now gone.

Making Mirio smile wider in turn despite how his face felt about ready to rip at the motion of it. He raised his hands in front of himself in a mock show of surrender, not taking the pen and paper as he began to splutter out a denial. But Anya cut him short, pursing her lips around her cigarette. "Eri tells me about you," she said, less unconfident about her Japanese though it continued to be disjointed. "I know. I know." And then, more pointedly, "What do you want?"

"Ah! You know Eri?" He cocked his head, taking the pen and paper while hoping his hands didn't shake. "What a small world! I met her at a market, you see, and she's always spoken so much about ballet, I thought it would be nice for me to–"

Anya spat something harsh and cruelly tinted in Russian. She threw her head back to drag from the cigarette, dramatic and deathly, and then shook her shoulders as though she were cold. "You must stop," she whispered. "For Eri. You must stop, Togata Mirio. Her husband is not kind man. Now…" she spun away, "fuck off," and then murmured something else in Russian. Watching her back recede into the shadow of the theater, Mirio struggled against the catch in his throat – the swell of anticlimax in all its incomplete incoherency.

Exactly as Mirio had expected, he was faced with Nighteye's speechless wrath two nights later. Sir paced up and down the hotel room. Sir shook his head and sighed – annoyed rather than resigned – while rifling through the mass of folders and documents he'd lugged along. Some recent. Some over thirteen years old. Since Mirio had fetched him from the train station, telling him in the taxi what he'd done, not a word had been spoken. Now the silence began to weigh itself like a thousand needles down Mirio's spine, his heart threatening to fall out onto the table. Insistent. Shaming. He did not bow away from Sir's occasional looks, but cringed internally, feeling like a seventeen year old boy once more.

"Careless," Nighteye said at last. "What's gotten into you? I know you're better than this." He pressed his fingers beneath his glasses, wrinkles gathering like crumpled wrapping at his eyes' corners. "I told you to wait and you deliberately disobeyed me. This is about much more than Eri, Togata. We cannot afford to–"

"Forgive me, Sir. But I just had to know."

"And now that you know? What do you think you can do? There's a high possibility that Overhaul is still involved in all of this – you understand that, don't you? What are you going to do now that you know?"

Beneath Sir's slithering dismay, Mirio recognised pity. An all too familiar pity, worse than anyone's disappointment or anger. Too scolding, too raw against long-closed scars. At last, Mirio hung his head, if only to escape that look in Nighteye's eyes.

"I don't know."

"You say Ivanovska Anya mentioned both Eri and her husband to you directly?"

Mirio nodded.

Sir paused, brooding, and then sat down on the cushion across from Mirio. He poured himself a cup from the sake bottle, drinking deeply. "You won't like it, but we need to acknowledge an obvious possibility. Before it catches us off-guard." He held Mirio's gaze, perhaps realising how desperately Mirio wanted to block his ears. "I believe Overhaul might have married Eri off. Perhaps to one of his cohorts in the Russian Mafia. It presents obvious benefits to him if– I'm sorry. I know it must be hard to imagine. But Bubble Girl shares in my suspicions."

Swallowing sake to quell the nightmarish twist in his organs, Mirio narrowed his eyes at nothing. Everything inside of him had known it. That all of this – that she – was too good to be true. All the restlessness. All the careful slowness about her words and movements and glances and… She knew he knew. She knew he didn't want to know.

Look at him now! Even less of a hero than thirteen years ago when he hadn't been much of a hero to begin with. Who was he to long for the name Lemillion when he couldn't do something so crucial as face the truth? The possibility that a little girl, a beautiful woman – and no stranger now either: a woman he adored and cared for and had held in his arms as though she were glass and his entire world all at once – was in danger? Was being hurt and used as though she were just a thing!

Mirio hung his head in his hands, ashamed of himself. "I wanted to save her this time."

"I know."

"I still can."

"Mirio–"

A knock. Two. Three. Fairy-light and greedy in their quickness. Nighteye shot his head upon his shoulders to look at the door in surprise. Mirio too, though he could barely keep himself upright with how his heart stammered. He knew those knocks.

"Who in the world comes looking for you at midnight?"

He was up too soon to answer the question, flinging himself for the door and not caring that he looked a mess. That his breath probably smelled strongly now of sake and that he was virtually on the brink of tears. And sure enough – there she was in heart-stopping, stunning solidity. White hair in a tumbling ponytail and that flowery skirt Mirio loved so much. Eri blinked up at him, her cheeks and lips an exquisite shade of rose. And oh, when she said his name in that soft, questioning way! And ah, when she parted those pink lips into a cautious smile! He stared, floored by the shock of it – seeing her just then, when he was only supposed to be receiving her call the next night. Everything was skewed and glorious. Everything was jolting in its wrongness.

Feeling Nighteye's consuming gaze, Mirio ushered Eri out into the corridor, pulling the door closed behind him. "What are you doing here? I thought–"

"I had a chance," Eri said, and balled her fists in front of herself like a child. "And I wanted… I needed to come. To ask you something important."

"At midnight, Eri-chan?"

"I'm sorry." Her cheeks grew splotched with deeper red. "I'm sorry. It's late, I know. But I realised something, you see, and I haven't been able to sleep for days now because… because Mirio, I–"

"Hello there." Like some tall, terrible apparition, Nighteye was in the doorway without having made a sound, glancing casually between Eri and Mirio like any ordinary visitor. "You must be Eri."

Things went quiet. Quiet and strained, the blush upon Eri's face greying into ash. She and Nighteye watched each other with a confusion of expressions, her features dropping from a coy urgency to confusion to fear. Absolute, undeniable fear which should not have been so quick to home itself upon her face. But why? Why fear? Mirio could not shake the feeling that he had betrayed some delicate trust between them, their secrecy now shattered and the holiness of their nighttime hours now violated.

Fingers touching themselves to her arm, Mirio tried wordlessly to reassure her and himself. He was surprised (maybe hurt?) by the way she shuddered away from him, as though being roused suddenly and painfully from a daydream.

"This is my boss, Eri-chan," he said, reminding himself that Eri had never met Nighteye before. "You remember? He's the one I was telling you about the other day."

"Boss," Eri repeated quietly.

"It's lovely to meet you." Nighteye did a polite bow in the doorway. "Togata has told me much about you."

Eri turned her red, apple sweet eyes onto Mirio. And indeed, there was a tinge of betrayal to their shade. "I didn't know," she said, wide eyed and spooked. "I'm sorry." She turned. "I didn't know." And then she was off in an unsteady sprint down the corridor, like a doe only just finding its legs. Ignoring how Mirio called her name, not feeling in tender ghosts how he reached out in hopes of catching her.

He too was running before he could stop himself. Forgetting entirely how Sir watched from the room. Forgetting how to tell his legs to stop. Out of control. He was out of practice of being in control – perhaps that was what happened after thirteen years of feeling like there was no such thing.

Only glimpsing flashes of her hair around corners and listening hard to the tap-tap-tap-tap of her feet along the carpeted hallways, Mirio did not relent in his chase.

Heart pounding. Heat rising to his face.

The only reason he managed to catch up was that Eri paused at the door to throw her shoes on, too well-mannered for her own good. And outside, along the stone path and amongst the hydrangeas which led themselves in fluorescent blues to the gate, he wrapped his arm around her waist and held her fast. Though she beat her little hands against him, though he could feel her pulse hike with each harsh movement, he held her there and pressed his face into the top of her head. Apologising. Not knowing what for. He released her when she calmed down again – but not entirely, for fear that she should try to flee from nothing once again.

"You weren't supposed to tell anyone," she whimpered, out of breath as a bird having jumped from its nest for the first time. "You promised. I shouldn't have come – I shouldn't've. Now he's going to come and he's going to–"

"Who, Eri?" Gently, Mirio turned her to look at him. "Who's going to come?"

She gasped, and shook her head upon her shoulders, looking aghast and fretfully pale and dewy with tears in her eyes. The little horn was so small beneath her hair now. Could it really have been so? And she was so real, so warm and alive, beneath Mirio's hands. It couldn't have really been the case, could it? But it was, and it was, and it was. Mirio's fingers trembled as he lifted them to her cheeks, and he felt his own breath burn in his lungs as he cocooned her face in his palms.

Nothing would hurt her. He wouldn't let anything hurt her. He told her so and watched her lip quiver. Nothing will hurt you as long as I'm here, Eri. I promise. Bemused and lost in a self-conscious daze, he touched his thumb to her bottom lip's softness. Pulling her close, cursing the unfairness of it all. The agony in his chest at seeing her so painfully close and free but not-free. She wasn't a thing. She wasn't something that could be another man's or his. So why was it so hard not to ask her to be his?

"I'm sorry. I know I promised," he whispered.

"This isn't about me."

"It's always been about you, Eri."

"No. Mirio, please."

No sound. No colour or sensation. Nothing other than her as Mirio bowed his head and touched her lips with his. Wet, and slightly cold. The lonely echo of salt like tears. It was soft, and it was not long. But god, it was an agony all its own to hold her and to kiss her. It was a beauty more sheer than terror. Numb all over except for where her fingers came to rest – on his arms, on his chest. And when he pulled away, finding her with eyes wide and clearer than any moon, he knew. It could never not be about her. Not anymore.

Her eyes closed again before his did: a delicate flutter of eyelashes to cheeks, and she fed back into the kiss with a certainty both strange and right. Her arms in puffy, white sleeves draping themselves upon his shoulders. Her waist enclosed in his hold like the blossom inside of its seed-shell. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just a slurred piece of cursive in their timeline, witnessed by the moon and etched with the tentative tremble about both their lips.

It ended quietly, Mirio planting a kiss on the tip of her nose and both her lids and the apples of her cheeks before she vanished out the gate. Still unsteady on her legs, but this time looking back over her shoulder to smile small at Mirio through the darkness.