A few days had passed since the villain attack, and Kaori was slowly being consumed by guilt. Aizawa was still at the hospital, possibly in pain, while she sits at home doing nothing.

Struck by the sudden motivation to do something, anything, she decided to get a gift for him for when Yamada takes her for a visit. He had promised her he would as soon as Aizawa was better, whatever that means. However, since she didn't have much, or any money at all, she was stuck pacing around her room, looking for papers or other materials to craft. She had never been fantastic at DIY, but she was going to do her very best. Aizawa had gotten injured because of her; it was the least she could do for him.

Kaori was scared to visit for another reason apart from her guilty conscience— the warning Aizawa had issued her. Just thinking about what he told her before he was wheeled away sent goosebumps down her back. Even though they had spent a considerable amount of time together, during which Kaori had realized he wasn't as bad as she made him out to be, he still intimidated the hell out of her. Aizawa being in a hospital bed didn't change anything either, she bet he could still make her feel terrible like he always did whenever she ignored his instructions.

After a long time of rummaging through all the available storage boxes in the house Yamada had allowed her to check, Kaori finally gathered all the necessary materials for a crappy get well soon card. Clearly, the two heroes didn't value the artsy side of life, and only had a few bright markers, an old stick of glue, and a few sheets of colored paper. Kaori had also taken a pair of scissors from the kitchen, along with pens from the study. She hoped they wouldn't mind her stealing the fanciest pen.

"What are you making with all this, Kaori-chan?" Yamada asked curiously after she gathered the last component to her plan.

Kaori flushed, embarrassed to be caught in the act. "A card, for Aizawa-san," she admitted shyly.

"Awh! That's so sweet. I'm sure he'd appreciate it. Mind if I sign it from the both of us? I didn't plan anything."

"No, get your own." Sticking her tongue out at Hizashi, she turned and sat on the floor in front of the TV, ready to work. Her left arm was still in bandages, as was her left hand from the soup burn, making the finer act of arts and crafts harder than it already was. She wondered if going to the hospital would've been the smarter idea.

Taking the colored sheets of paper, she tried her best to cut them in the shape of flowers that she could then glue on the card.

"Hmm… Do these look like tulips to you?" Kaori asked Yamada, who had taken a seat behind her on the sofa.

He tilted his head as he inspected it. "Some alien tulip, perhaps. Gimme."

Kaori scowled, but still passed him the scissors and the paper tulip. "Don't ruin them," she said.

A few snips of paper falling on Kaori's back later, Yamada proudly lifted them up for Kaori to see. "Ta-da."

Kaori wrinkled her nose. It did look more flower like, but it was still unevenly cut. "I guess that's a little better."

"What do you mean? They're perfect!"

She snorted. "Sure. Help me with the other ones?"

"Of course!"

She handed him half of the papers and the spare scissor, then got to work.

"We're out of colored paper. I guess these will do." One hour of their hard work only netted them seven usable flowers, along with a few long strips of paper to be used as the stem. Very carefully, Kaori glued them onto a piece of paper that had been folded in half. "This is nice, I think. Or it looks bad and I've lost all sense of artistic appreciation."

"It's the thought that counts," Yamada said, patting her on the shoulder. "He's not that great at determining what looks artistic or not either. We went to an art museum that one time and he looked so lost. It was hilarious! He also gave up after twenty minutes and went to sit at the museum's café. The pieces were weird though, I have to admit. "

"I guess it's fine then," Kaori said with a shrug. That sounded about right for Aizawa. "Time to write the actual message." She stared at the blank paper with horror, remembering that she couldn't write. "Actually, you wanna write it?"

"No," Yamada said, plopping down next to her on the floor. "I think Shouta would appreciate it more if you wrote it. What are you gonna write?"

"Just get well soon, or something like that." She frowned, racking her brain for the characters for it, but still coming up blank. Could she get away with writing it in English?

Fuck it. Taking the pen, she carefully, with her best penmanship, wrote the words 'get well soon' in English. The letters were splotchy and shaky, but she was still happy with the result. She hadn't written anything for quite some time and her muscle memory had gotten weak.

"You know English?" Yamada asked with surprise.

"We learned it at school a bit," she lied. "And my parents let me watch a lot of English cartoons."

"They teach English at preschool already? That's surprising. I only remember eating glue at that time." He chuckled.

"Mhm." Kaori flipped open the folded card, wondering what to fill inside. She couldn't write the rest in English, it would be too suspicious.

Shiro wandered over and gave the card a sniff before settling down on the sofa.

"Can I borrow your phone?" Kaori asked.

"What for?"

"I wanna search up some of the words I don't know."

"How are you going to search it up if you don't know about them in the first place?" he asked, bemused.

"I'll figure it out," she said, taking his phone.

To her relief, Yamada had an English keyboard on there, and she was able to use the equivalent of Google translate to find all the words she needed. Unfortunately, it didn't translate longer sentences well, and she was stuck using short phrases and words.

Dear Aizawa-san,

I'm sorry you got hurt.

Be more careful next time.

Shiro and I miss you.

Sincerely,

Kurotobi Kaori

On a whim, Kaori drew a small cat at the bottom of the card. It came out extremely wonky.

"Okay, fine. You can sign it at the end," she told Yamada once she was satisfied. "You're not allowed to read what I wrote though."

"You sure Kaori-chan? I was mostly joking. If you really don't want me to, it's fine."

"Yeah, it's no big deal," she said, offering him the pen.

Yamada took it with a smile, and with big bold strokes, signed his name next to Kaori's squiggly name.

"Not like that! You took like, all the space. It's thrice the size of mine," she complained. Though now that she thought about it, she didn't have Mic's autograph yet. She was almost tempted to keep the card to herself now. Not that the name was signed as his hero name, which kind of took away its value.

"Sorry," Yamada said, grinning widely still. "I couldn't help it."

Grumbling, Kaori folded the card back up and slid it in a plain white envelope she had found lying around. It hadn't hit her before, but now that she was finished with the card, she was suddenly struck by a sense of anxiety. Aizawa acted like he didn't care half the time unless it had something to do with Kaori being in danger. What if he didn't even want the card she had made for him? She just wanted him to feel better about being stuck in there, but would it even help?

"Everything okay?" he asked.

She nodded, stowing the card away. She'd worry about Aizawa's reaction later.

"Don't worry about Shouta too much. He'll love the card, I promise."

Yamada knocked on Aizawa's room a few times before pushing the door to enter. Kaori followed slowly, hiding the card into the inside of her jacket. She wanted to wait for an opportune time before handing it over, preferably right before they were leaving the hospital so that she wouldn't have to see it if he hated it.

"Hey Shouta," Yamada greeted. "I brought Kaori with me today."

"Kaori-chan?" he said, sitting up straight. Kaori was relieved to see that he looked mostly back to full health already. Save for a couple of bandages wrapped around his arms and forehead, he looked like he could be out of the hospital later today if he really wanted to. "We have to talk."

"Hi Aizawa-san. Good to see you too," she said. The two sat down around his bed on uncomfortable plastic chairs and she tried her best not to be cowed. She was expecting him to want to talk anyway.

"I hope in the time we were apart, you've given your actions that day some more thought." He looked at her meaningfully, clearly expecting her to apologize.

"I did, but I don't regret it. You could've died." She frowned, her defensiveness flaring up. "Besides, nothing happened. We're alive, right? Can't we forget it? More importantly, are you okay? I'm worried."

"Yes. The doctor said I'll be free to leave in a couple of days," he said in an almost exasperated tone.

"You sure?" she pressed. She had been so anxious about this for the last week. What if he got an injury bad enough that he would have to stop hero work? The consequences would be catastrophic.

"Don't try to change the subject! I told you we'd be having a talk about your recklessness. There's no getting out of it."

"I'm not! I was super worried! Yamada-san wouldn't tell me anything and I thought… I thought…" Her eyes were slightly watering and she discretely wiped them, not wanting him to see just how disturbed she was by this entire thing.

"Take it easy, Shouta. We can lecture her later," Yamada said, putting a hand on Kaori's head reassuringly. "Can't you just tell her that you're okay?"

Aizawa closed his eyes for a second, looking extremely irritated. "I'm fine. I've been in the hospital for worse, there's no need to worry."

"Worse?" she whispered.

"Yeah. Worse," he said. "It's part of the job. That's why I didn't want your help. I've seen what can happen to helpless little kids like you when they're caught in the crossfire."

"But nothing happened to me!" she protested, hiding her bandaged arm in her jacket.

"That's not the point. Just because nothing happened this time doesn't mean it won't the next. I'm really disappointed in you, Kaori-chan. I thought with what happened to your parents you'd be more careful with these things, but apparently not."

Kaori flinched. That was a low blow. She couldn't believe he would use that against her, even if he had a point.

"That's a bit harsh isn't it?" Yamada said disapprovingly. "She did what she thought was right."

"You're too soft on her, Hizashi. I don't know why the villains ran from us that day, but it sure wasn't because of Kaori's quirk. She could've died. No, scratch that. She should've died. We got lucky, or there's something about the situation that we're missing."

"You're really mean, you know that?" Kaori said weakly, holding back tears.

"If being mean can prevent you from pulling that stunt again and being completely reckless, then yes, I'll be mean."

"So was I supposed to stay there and watch you die?" She suddenly felt silly for even worrying about him in the first place. There was just no reasoning with him.

"Maybe if you had gone to get Hizashi when I told you to, it wouldn't have been a problem."

"He was too far away!"

Aizawa buried his face in his hands, letting out a groan. "Stop arguing. You're not listening to me. You are a child. You don't belong on the fighting ground, not even when there's someone dying. Never. There are no exceptions to this. If you were a student at U.A, then it might be a different conversation. Until then, listen to me when I tell you to do something and do not engage. I appreciate you trying to help, but please, never again."

Stung, Kaori turned to look at Yamada to see if he had something to add. He merely shrugged, which she took as him agreeing with Aizawa.

"I was just trying to help," she said quietly, staring at her hands. Her anger had vanished, replaced by hurt.

"I know, but you aren't trained to do this. It's our job to protect you. We're heroes, that's what we do. You know that, right?"

Kaori went silent, too tired to engage further. He wasn't going to see things her way anyway.

"I don't think she got the message, Shouta."

"Kaori-chan? You'll listen to me next time instead of dashing in head first, right?" He sounded desperate, as if he was worried Kaori was going to dash out at any moment looking for fights.

"Just leave it for now, Shouta. The event was traumatizing for her too. She really was worried about you, ya know."

"Fine. I'll drop it,," he said, looking away from Kaori. "Hizashi, did you got the memo for…"

Kaori let their banal conversation wash over her as she thought about what Aizawa had said. Maybe he was right. She didn't want to die again. Had she been taking this life for granted? She knew self-preservation should always come first, but could she let Aizawa die in front of her without even trying to help at all? Was her life more important than his, when he was such a crucial element to the plot?

Still, she couldn't quite tear her eyes away from him. To see him stuck on a hospital bed like this was sickening.

"Kaori-chan? You have anything to say before we leave?" Yamada said, flashing Kaori a meaningful glance. They've been here for a while, Kaori realized, though she was equivalent to a fly on the wall to their conversation.

"No, not really," she said, tucking the card closer to her chest. She didn't feel like giving it to him anymore.

"Alrighty, if you say so. Let's go home," Yamada said, "Bye Shouta, I'll be back tomorrow."

"Bye," she said, a little subdued. "Get better soon."

"Please give my words some thought when you go home," he said. "I think just talking to you has extended my hospital stay."

She blanched. "W-what?"

"He's kidding, kiddo," Yamada said, glaring at Aizawa. "Don't joke about that."

"Sorry," he said, not sounding very apologetic. "I'll see you two soon then."

Upon leaving, she immediately felt a pang of guilt. She should've just gone along with Shouta's words even if he was wrong. What if she really did extend his hospital stay by being obstinate? And the card! Yamada had worked hard on it as well, but because of her…

"Didn't feel like giving the card to him, huh?" Yamada asked, smiling sympathetically at her.

She nodded. "He was being mean."

"Well, don't worry. I won't tell him about it. I don't blame you for not wanting to give it to him."

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"Let's go home. I bet you're tired.

"Okay." She took his proffered hand glumly, wishing she'd never come.

A/N: Sorry, I completely forgot to post on here.