xvi.

Matters progressed quickly. Naturally, Mirio hadn't believed a word Eri had said about Overhaul.

Nighteye… well, he wouldn't have believed it either. Which made it fortunate and not entirely unexpected that Sir followed Eri home the night she'd come to the hotel, and that he'd waited unflinchingly in her street's darkness. Waited until a black car stopped by her front gate some time later, and from out the backseat there'd slinked that awful, familiar face. Overhaul. He'd gone around the back of the house. Lights had flickered on. Back off again. And Nighteye, level-headed despite his obvious horror, had returned to the hotel to make arrangements.

Hardly two days went by before Mirio was checked out and relocated to a tiny rental house: white picket fence, flowerbeds and a stone pathway to the front door. It was exactly the sort he'd been eying out for weeks now, and despite his anything-but-domestic position he imagined planting lilies. Pristine Easter lilies; ferocious tiger lilies in adamant tangerine; blushing martagon and stargazers. And amongst them there would be Eri, her hands stroking beguiled and beguiling at the petals Mirio would grow for her.

There were windows too, through which silvery light fell in tumbles – they overlooked the garden. Beyond that, they overlooked the street. The very specific street which now seemed haunted by ghosts of the past. And that house. A very specific house, three gates up and across the way.

Nighteye had already set up a station by each of the windows. Naturally, it was not to look at all the garden-space for lilies.

He'd also contacted a handful of pros. Eraser Head, who'd be taking time off from the school. Deku, who had seemed about ready to drop everything.

"To simply storm in could have disastrous effects," Nighteye had explained to Mirio and everybody else, whether by phone or web cam or email. "And not only for Eri, who may still very well be in danger. We first of all need to establish what sort of reach Overhaul has developed, and what the status is regarding the bullet situation. I doubt they're only in Russia, though their circulation there as well as throughout Japan is a very likely possibility. It will prove necessary to contact the Russian authorities, though I am hesitant at this stage."

All Mirio's business meetings for the week (what was originally meant to be his last week in Kagoshima) were cancelled.

His presence outside the property was to be as limited as possible.

Most of all, he wasn't supposed to see Eri again.

This was what Mirio and Nighteye discussed on the staircase that evening. Sir, after having received the keys for the house, had bought a few basic supplies – one such thing being a six pack of beers. He and Mirio each stewed over a bottle now, side by side and not looking at each other.

"I understand it will be difficult for you," Nighteye said. "Please believe me, I do."

Mirio's hands shook, and he struggled to swallow his beer. "But for the sake of the mission…" he said this half-heartedly, bitter feelings burning holes in his throat.

"Yes. Though for both your and Eri's sakes as well." Sir did sound sorry. "Your relationship is a ticking bomb – you know it's only a matter of time before she starts to raise suspicion in that little household. Frankly, I would be surprised if she hasn't already."

Dejectedly, Mirio ran his hand over his face. He sighed. He shook his head at everything and nothing, and sipped generously from his beer again. Nighteye drank too, though with an unappetizing reserve.

"You're worried about her."

"It's like my soul splits apart when I think about the things that he could be doing to her. That he's already done."

"It is unfathomable."

"I wasn't there for her." Mirio clutched the bottle, and dreaded the sinking feeling which washed over him. "She was right there – I had her right there in my hands. But I was too weak and I let her go and now… Oh god." Sinking, sinking. All these years. "And I'm still too weak to do anything for her now. It's like – like I just accepted having her sneak in and out that hotel room because I knew there was nothing else I'd ever be able to–"

Nighteye's hand flattened between Mirio's shoulder blades, wide and boney, and with a profundity to its touch which was quite unexpected. "You've been irresponsible. We won't pretend that's not true, and we can only be thankful that the danger you and Eri have put each other in hasn't yet materialised. But Mirio," Sir's voice quavered, the sound of it as subtle but distinct as the first cracks in glass, "you cannot blame yourself for what happened in the past. You were not weak. Never. Nor are you weak now, and we will stop Overhaul this time."

"But Eri–"

"Will have eyes on her twenty four seven from now on. Bubble Girl will be arriving tomorrow, and a few others throughout the rest of the week." Sir met Mirio's eye. "We'll do as much as we can to keep her safe until we're able to arrest Overhaul."

"I need to see her one more time. Just once. Just so she knows what's going to happen."

"I don't think–"

Mirio trembled. "Please. I can't just leave her."

A sigh. Nighteye took a heavier sip from his bottle, and a lengthy, loaded silence befell the house. Both he and Mirio remained locked in a hush as they were in place, though through their stares there was communicated a direness, a heartbroken urgency which couldn't be explained any further with words. It was in this that Mirio realised how belligerently Sir's hand shook against his back. How the deeper the day sank into night outside, the more Sir's gaze dimmed to a gloomy, clear shade behind his glasses.

Something swelled between them with sluggish anticipation. Sewing itself into Nighteye's lips was an offbeat twist, an emotion Mirio couldn't place – maybe because he'd never seen a look so burdened, so simply and cleanly sad, on Sir's face before (except perhaps, for when Mirio had lost his quirk, when they'd all realised that it wasn't going to come back).

In a slow movement, Nighteye looked away. "It's going to hurt you and her for this to happen. But it's going to hurt worse if you lose her again." He tapped his fingers along the neck of the bottle. "It's only going to be for a little while. But if you don't let her go now, you're going to have to let go of her later when it won't only be for a little while."

Suddenly, things didn't seem so much to be about Mirio and Eri anymore.

Mirio blinked. "Sir?"

"I held onto somebody I loved when I shouldn't have, thinking I'd be able to keep them. To keep them safe. With me."

Everything was quiet. "And you lost them because of it."

Everything was a little more strained and vulnerable than it had been in a long time. "Yes. I lost them."

In Mirio's pocket, his phone began to ring. And though he hadn't saved the number (some force of instinct had stopped him from doing so), he knew it was Eri. Waiting for him on the other line. Unsuspecting. Nighteye seemed to know it too, glancing to the cellphone as Mirio pulled it into view, the unnamed number flaring vibrant and suggestive across the screen. He sighed once again with a loaded resignation, and stood weakly from his place on the staircase.

"One more time," Nighteye said, not looking at Mirio anymore. "Make sure you tell her how much she means to you." Then, with an unusual drag to his step which couldn't be blamed on his few sips from the beer, Sir ascended and went to his station at the window.