Akira, stepped into the dark guidance counsellors office. "Mr. Hound Dog?"
"Why are you here?"
Akira jumped at the voice that was certainly not Hound Dog's.
"I was… looking for Mr. Hound Dog. We have an appointment. Here. At… Um, right about now." She was looking at the ground again. A bad habit, but one that was surprisingly hard to break.
"He's not here. I'll be standing in." light from the crack of the door illuminated half his face. He probably wasn't big on guidance. "So. Why are you here?" Aizawa motioned for her to sit down.
She shuffled over to the desk and sat down, and the door closed behind her, cutting off all light. The total darkness was creepy. "Principal Nezu said this was a condition of my enrollment."
"So you don't want to be here. Leave then." He sighed, and probably rolled his eyes but she couldn't see for sure.
"No… I think he was right. I definitely… need some help."
"So why are you here?"
"Is this all confidential? You won't ever tell anyone?"
"As long as you aren't confessing to a crime, or giving me reason to believe you're putting your own or someone else's life at risk."
"Okay. Well, I'm here because I cheated on the entrance exam." She twisted her hair between her fingers, a nervous habit she normally hid, and the darkness started to . She couldn't see him, but he couldn't see her either.
"Why?"
"My parents wanted me to be a hero. No matter what."
"So you cheated so you could get into the Hero Course."
"Sort of the opposite. UA is the only school with it's recommendations test the same time as Shiketsu's, which is where my parents wanted me to go. Taking the test was just to make sure I couldn't go to Shiketsu. I knew I would receive an inadequate score on the physical exam, and UA wouldn't let me into Hero Studies, and I could go to a regular school."
"You're surprisingly honest for a cheater."
"This is kind of like a doctors appointment, right? And you're never supposed to lie to doctors."
Aizawa made a sound that was probably a grunt of agreement. "Where does cheating fit in this tall tale?"
It was okay if Aizawa thought she was a liar. She found it made it much easier to tell the truth. "And you won't tell anyone this?"
"Correct."
"I didn't cheat." She sighed, the truth releasing the heavy wright she didn't realise had been on her chest. "Someone cheated for me. The efficiency quirk? I didn't know someone was using it on me until the test had started, and by then there was nothing I could do. It took control of my whole body."
Aizawa paused for a long moment. His chair creaked, which probably meant he was leaning back, "So. Why are you here, Naoko?"
She flinched, pausing for a long time. "Please don't call me that." Her voice was so soft she wasn't sure he could hear her. She couldn't muster up any more strength than that.
"It's your name, isn't it?" His tone was demanding now, the casualty of earlier vanished.
"Well, yes but-
He cut her off. "You enrolled under a different name, but you're Naoko Masters, correct? That's who you are." His questions pierced through her armour, leaving her vulnerable. That is who she was. That was her name. Thinking about it made her ill, but the garbage can was at least by the door, and she didn't think she could make it with any degree of accuracy in the dark. She swallowed the bile.
"I don't want to be." Her voice cracked, and she hoped Aizawa couldn't see her tearing up in the dark.
"So what do you want?" His insistence was gone, and he sounded apathetic and disinterested again.
She took some time to catch her breath and calm down, rolling the question around in her head. She had never thought about what she wanted for herself. She didn't think anyone had ever asked her what she wanted, except maybe Shouto.
"I guess… I want to be like my mom, but... I'm not. I didn't know her that well, we didn't get to spend much time together. But when we did? She was amazing. And I thought, maybe, if I wasn't Naoko Masters, maybe if no one knew who I was and I started fresh, maybe if I did something, anything, on my own merits, not on my father's connections, that maybe I could be just a little like my mom was. But I can't."
"Why not?"
Her voice was shaky, "Because my mom would never run away from her problems," Aizawa realized her tiny voice was trembling with anger, not fear. "She never ran away from anything, and I could never be a hero like she was." After a pause, she let out a nervous chuckle, "And I'm not a super-mega-genius like my father, but I am what he made me. I'm Naoko."
She spit the name out with a visceral disgust that stunned Aizawa, not that she could see it.
She coughed, doing her best to right herself after her outburst, feeling embarrassed at how much she had shared. "I'm sorry, I just realised I have a crucial matter to attend to." She scurried out of the room before he could call her out on her obvious lie, praying that fleeing her mandatory counselling wouldn't affect her enrollment.
"You're fourth sentence is wrong. The English plural for ox is 'oxen', not 'oxes', and it should be 'was' there, not 'is'."
Kirishima groaned over his English workbooks, erasing his translated sentence for the fourth time. "I'm never going to get this. Just kill me before Mic does."
The waitress giggled, and Kirishima realised where he was. "Fuck, I've been here like an hour and I haven't ordered. Could I get a large coffee, lots of cream and sugar?"
"You betcha," She spun around, revealing a comically large black mug with a pink kiss mark pattern from behind her back.
"Ta-da! Your Stressed-Out Special!"
Kirishima looked at the coffee, confused. "Woah. Do you have a psychic quirk?"
"No," She set down the coffee, "But you always order super-large-coffee-lots-of-cream-and-sugar when you have trouble with your homework." Her face was twitching a little, trying to look nonchalant when she was clearly ecstatic she predicted his order right. "And this is the largest mug we have!"
Kirishima rubbed his neck, the tips of his ears a little red, "Am I that obvious, or are you just super observant?" He knew he wasn't quite the mysterious stoic he wanted her to think he was, but he didn't realise he was so transparent.
She shrugged. "We don't have a lot of regulars," She waved her hand at the vacant cafe, full of empty tables. "And you're my most regular regular, so I've learned one or two of your expressions." She looked over his shoulder at his homework again, chewing on her lip.
"You know, I'm actually pretty good at English, if you need some help. I have to be here until closing and there isn't much to do." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Really? That would be awesome!"
She slid into the booth next to him, pulling a pencil out of her apron and circling what were probably errors all over the page.
"So do you have a name? I mean, no nametag, no name, right?" He cringed. The joke had seemed solid until he said it out loud.
The poor quality didn't stop her amused huff. "It's Kira. Yours?"
"It's Kirishima. Kira, Kiri, almost the same." He chuckled weakly as she continued to circle the numerous mistakes. God, I must be worse at English than at talking to girls.
He hoped someone with a time quirk would reset the last two minutes, or maybe a villain would crack a huge hole in the ground and he could fall in.
His prayers were answered when Bakugou kicked open the door and stomped over to them. "I knew that bitch was lying! I knew you were real!"
She stiffened, but didn't look up from Kirishima's work. "Can I get you something? Scones are on special." Her voice was low and even, like she was talking to a feral dog.
"I would love a scone!" Kirishima jumped in between them."To go! Two scones! On my tab." He didn't know if the cafehad tabs , but he would do anything to get Bakugou out of there, and from way she scampered to the counter, it seemed she shared the sentiment.
Bakugou glared at Kirishima, "I don't want any shitty scones." He glanced at the homework on the table. "What's this? You begged me to tutor you through English tomorrow." He attempted to flip the page, but ripped it out instead.
"Oh. I thought I would get a headstart?"
He held the paper closer to his face, growling at it. "Good. You're almost too stupid to be helped."
Kira returned with the scones, looking marginally less nervous. "Did you need some English help too? I'm pretty fluent." Her lips turned up just enough to call it a smile, and she actually looked up at Bakugou.
Kirishima held his breath.
For a moment, he hoped maybe Bakugou would ignore the question.
"HAHHH!? You help me? I don't need your fucking help, Giggle-bitch." He pointed at Kirishima with one hand one blew up the paper in the other. "And neither does this idiot. I'm the best tutor there is, got it? He's got me, so he doesn't need some second-rate skank confusing him."
Kirishima put a hand on Bakugou's arm, trying to calm him down, "Let's head out man, we can still hit the gym," His voice was thin and strained, like a cord about to snap. He felt terrible about Bakugou's behavior, and not standing up for his favorite waitress didn't exactly masks him feel like a hero, but Kirishima REALLY wasn't great with interpersonal conflict.
"No." Bakugou snatched a scone off the plate and took a giant bite, his glare bouncing between them like he was trying to decide who he wanted to murder first.
After a moment of chewing he paused, walked outside, and spit the scone on the ground, and then he explosion-threw the rest over a building. He stomped back into the cafe and looked at them both, stunned. He snatched Kirishima's coffee of the table and chugged it.
"I'm going to kill whoever made those. They're a public menace."
Kirishima noticed Kira deflate and grabbed the other scone off the tray, encouraging, he did know how to do. "He's just picky, I'm sure they're great!" He took a bite, and the pain in his teeth activated his quirk on reflex. He managed not to scrunch up his face, but he couldn't suppress the full body shiver that rang from his teeth down to his toes, his arm hair standing on end. He held back a gag and he focused all his willpower on biting through the rock hard scone and swallowing it whole, because if he chewed it, his lunch was definitely coming up.
She flopped into the chair. "I did my best, okay! But Hana's writing is so messy, and all the recipes are super complex, and I'm new to cooking! I tried to follow everything exactly! I don't know why they're so terrible." As she ranted her hair started to levitate around her shoulders as if gravity had no effect on it, white slithering up the ends like a creature was sucking the colour out of her very being. "I'm going to get fired for poisoning customers and then I'll be homeless and then I'll get kicked out of UA and then-"
"Stop talking, Worthless." Bakugou ran a hand down his face. "It's annoying."
She stopped mid-sentence, her hair falling back down, black.
He had never heard her talk so much before, she was always so quiet and calm, but now she sounded like she might burst. Kirishima cringed, unsure, still standing between them as if he expected someone to attack. "I'll buy them! All of them. You're not going to get fired, You just need practice. The next batch will be fine."
"No it won't!" Kira and Bakugou turned at the same time, and then glanced at each other, surprised they were on the same page. Bakugou looked between Kira and Kirishima and sneered.
"Kitchen?" Bakugou threw his bag down beside Kirishima's and shrugged off his jacket and tie with so much force Kirishima thought they would tear.
Kira pointed to the door past the counter, but Bakugou grabbed her by the collar.
"You're coming too, Useless. Weird Hair! Lock the door."
"Is this really alright?" Kirishima rubbed the back of his neck, "Maybe we should-"
"Just do it, Kirishima. Stupid taste in women has consequences." His voice dropped to a rageful mumble, "A waitress that can't cook. I'm surrounded by mediocrity."
After a moment of hesitation Kirishima locked the door, flipped the sign, and hustled to follow them.
Akira sat down across from Aizawa for her second appointment. It was different than the last time. The light's were on, and Aizawa had a little notebook in front of him..
"So, Where do you see yourself in five years?"
She chuckled. "I haven't really thought that far ahead."
"Why not?"
"I guess, I never thought I would make it this far."
"That's a very honest answer." Aizawa looked at her from over his notebook.
"I have to be, right? This won't work if I'm lying to you."
He raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"
"Well," She rubbed the back of her neck, "It's a little strange, but I know I can trust you."
"You can trust all the teachers at UA."
"Of course. I know that." She nodded. "But I don't, really. Mostly just you."
"And why is that?"
"You worked with my mom. She used to talk about you sometimes, when she could."
"I see." Aizawa looked back at his notes and quickly changed the subject. "I noticed you haven't signed up for the sports festival yet."
"I'm in hero support, so why would I? Besides," She flexed, showing her decidedly scrawny arms, "I'm not exactly the sporty type."
"Madilyn took second place her first year. First place her third." Her mother's name sounded strange on his tongue. Akira gaped at him for a moment, stunned. He stared at her expectantly.
Akira collected herself. "Oh. I… didn't know that."
After another long pause, Aizawa flipped through his notes, sighing and rubbing his eyes. "Okay. Next we're going to do a blue sky exercise. Close your eyes."
He looked up and they were already closed. He made a note of how quickly she followed orders. It was a concern Power Loader had mentioned to him at one point. When a classmate told her to do something, she would drop what she was doing immediately to do it, almost compulsively. It had become a safety issue when her and Hatsume Mei were in the workshop together.
"Imagine none of your problems existed. No health problems, or interpersonal problems, or financial problems. Visualise them going up in a balloon or something." He tried not to roll his eyes. "You have unlimited resources and support. I'm going to ask questions, and when you answer try to just say the first thing that comes to mind." He paused for a moment. "Where would you be in five years?"
"I would live in an apartment with a balcony, and two cats." She gulped. "And I would re-open Team Phantom."
That was unexpected. "You would have to be a hero to open a hero agency. Correct?"
"Yeah."
"Where would you live?"
"Anywhere but western Japan." She was from western Japan. Interesting.
"If you're a hero, you must have taken the hero course." She didn't respond.
"Okay, open your eyes." She opened them, staring at him expectantly. "So what did we learn?"
She scoffed. "Nothing. I can't just wish my problems away, so daydreams are just that. Dreams."
"If you know what you want, and know the steps to get it, take them. Or you'll regret it."
"I don't think its that simple."
"No, it's never simple." He waved towards the door. "Enjoy the rest of your day."
"What? What am I supposed to do with that?"
"Not my problem. But I would suggest the sports festival. You've got a powerful quirk, I'm sure you could find a partner for the obstacle course."
"The first part is an obstacle course?"
"I have no idea. Where did you hear that?"
She huffed and left the room, shutting the door gently behind her. It was little moments like that, when she was annoyed instead of cowering and mindlessly obeying orders, that she reminded him of Madilyn.
Bakugou had already donned an apron and washed his hands, and he motioned for Kirishima to do the same.
"Are you sure we're allowed back here?"
She shrugged, her eyes trained on the floor. Kirishima sighed. It had taken weeks to get her out of her shell, and it seemed Bakugou had pushed her right back in.
"Hey Chuckles, where's the recipe? And the ingredients."
Her face scrunched up in confusion. "what?"
"Those scones can never happen again." Bakugou shuddered. "Kirishima, grab the scones and toss 'em. Or burn them."
He looked at Kira for permission, and she shrugged, He returned the sentiment. He had absolutely no idea what was going on, so he headed to the counter and removed all the scones from the glass display case and threw them in the trash, and when he returned to the kitchen Kira had assembled all the ingredients and Bakugou was reading the recipes intently.
"Chuckles. Pen." He held out his hand and Kira jumped, fishing a pen out of her apron.
The recipe was handwritten, and Bakugou flipped it over and re-wrote it neatly on the back.
"Her writing is shit. No wonder you fucked up, this is illegible."
He stared at the original and the front before nodding. "Okay. Make the scones."
Kira flinched. "What?"
He growled. "Show me how you make them so I can see how else you fucked up. If I do it for you, you won't fucking learn," He scoffed and rolled his eyes,"And if you're as stupid as you look, you still won't."
Kira nodded and then she turned on the oven and started to measure the dry ingredients.
"Wrong."
"What?" She froze. "What did I do?"
"Read the recipe through before you start anything. What if you're missing ingredients? Or got the temperature wrong? If you're going to bake shit, at least try not to poison people."
It seemed she had already learned to tune out Bakugou's aggression, before he had finished speaking she was checking the recipe and all the ingredients, nodding.
She started to measure dry ingredients into a bowl and Bakugou stopped her again.
"Don't you know anything?" The only thing that would complete Bakugou's irritated expression would be smoke coming out of his ears, Kirishima thought.
"Honestly? No. But I'm ready to learn!"
She mustered a look of determination and raised a fist. Even in the face of Bakugou's blunt criticism, she kept going.
"What is that?" Bakugou glanced disdainfully at her fist.
Kirishima wiped away a tear. "It's a show of manliness! Chef Katsuki, show us what do!"
"Hn?" Bakugou glared at him.
Kirishima smiled. "I don't know anything about baking, so teach me too. Please, grant us your wisdom, chef!" He gave an exaggerated bow, and joined Kira at the back counter.
"Do what you want." He snatched the recipe and started barking out detailed instructions. They had to hustle to keep up, and Bakugou was relentless. Kira was surprisingly good at following orders, and Kirishima found himself falling behind, making his manly allyship more of a pathetic show of his own poor baking skills.
"You can't just scoop out the flour, morons! You have to sift it so it isn't packed."
At their stunned glances he sighed and grabbed a mesh… thing from a drawer, and proceeded to shake the flour into the measuring cup.
Soon the three of them were all arms deep in dough as Bakugou explained the finer points of the techniques, showing them the size they had to cut the cold fat for it be flexible, and explaining what the fuck leavening was.
"You're overworking the dough. Stop. It's mixed."
Kira looked between Bakugou and the dough. "But… it's so lumpy."
"It's supposed to be lumpy, dumb bitch. It's not cookie dough."
Kira nodded at Bakugou, flour in her hair and a smidge of butter on her cheek. "Yes chef!"
Kirishima tried really hard not to be jealous, because real men don't get jealous, but her eyes, bright and excited, was something he had never seen before. And it didn't have anything to do with him.
"Kirishima. Yours is shit too. Just mix it together and then stop! It's not that hard!"
Kira nudged Kirishima with her shoulder, "Hah! Looks like I'm the better baker."
Kirishima nudged her back, "For now maybe, I'll bake your socks off, just you watch."
She chuckled, and they looked at each other covered in flour in the back of a cafe getting yelled at. It dawned on them how ridiculous it all was, and their laughter filled the kitchen.
Bakugou smacked them both upside their heads. "Concentrate, you cackling fuckwits, you're almost done."
Kirishima looked over to Bakugou's batch, already on a baking sheet in eight perfect wedges. "Yours are amazing!" He really was good at everything. A real man.
Bakugou growled in response.
By the time all the scones were in the oven, Kirishima was pumped and ready for action. "Success! Now what?" He glanced around the kitchen, but Kira had already put the ingredients back and the bowls in the dish pit.
"I should probably open The Cafe back up. Maybe Katsuki could help you with your English while I clean up?"
Kirishima flinched at her saying Bakugou's first name, and he realised he had never introduced them. "Oh, actually-"
Bakugou already had a hand on the back of his neck and was dragging him out of the kitchen. "No excuses. If you're so stupid you had to beg some waitress for help, we're starting your English prep right now."
He didn't have time to respond, he was already being thrown back into the booth and having his face shoved into the textbook.
"Everytime you make a mistake, I'll blast you."
Kirishima sighed, flipping through his work. "This one is like-"
"Wrong." Bakugou let off a blast in his face.
"I didn't even finish!"
"It was going to be wrong."
Kira flipped the sign and unlocked the door, giggling at their antics.
Bakugou looked up. "Tch. Dumb bitch."
She gave Bakugou a salute, her eyes glinting even though her back was perfectly straight. "Yup."
For half an hour, they worked on his English while Akira straightened displays and tidied the tables and the floors before disappearing into the stacks with a cart full of books.
"Your taste could be worse. I guess." Bakugou's eyes flicked over to where she had gone.
"I'm pumped you guys are getting along. Maybe we can all hang out together sometime!"
"Gross. No thanks."
A little while later Akira appeared with a plate of scones, and tiny metal bowls of butter and fancy jam. "On the house."
"I made them! They better be on the fucking house."
The two of them ate the scones and finished Kirishima's English homework, and then redid it to Bakugou's satisfaction. Before they knew it it was dark.
"Kira! We're heading out."
"One moment!" She shouted from the back kitchen.
She ran out with two little gift baskets filled with scones and other pastries from the counter.
"Did you make any of this shit?" Bakugou asked, eyeing the basket warily.
"Nope."
"Good." Bakugou snatched the bag and walked out the door.
"Thanks! This is super nice of you."
"It's the least I can do after you guys fixed my scone problem." She put a hand on his bicep. "This was... the most fun I've had in a really really long time. Thank you."
Kirishima blushed a little, his voice low. "Yeah, no problem. I had fun too."
"I'm glad." She said quietly. The cafe was eerily silent around them. Could she hear his heartbeat? He felt like it might burst out of his chest, the way it was hammering and carrying on. He wanted to say more.
They both opened their mouths to speak-
Bakugou banged on the cafe door with his free hand, "Are you gonna stand around all fucking night? Let's go!"
Kirishima chuckled. " I had better go. See you later?"
"Yeah. See you later." He could see right through her to the specials board as she locked the door behind him.