Takuma's impromptu nap ended sooner than he hoped it would. He woke up, still half-laying on Mei and half on the couch. His girlfriend was snoozing soundly next to him. A spike of guilt tore through him as he closed his eyes and buried his head in her hair. He had messed up again; his issues kept rearing their ugly heads, and he felt like he had less control over them than he used to. His earlier panic-ridden confession wasn't as bad as what had caused him to have a panic attack.
He had told Mei "no." In an unequivocal way. He couldn't play it off and try to deflect; he couldn't joke his way around it. He'd just said it. The one word he knew never to say when he was with someone. Saying "no" was dangerous when you were living off someone's goodwill, even if he knew he was safe and that Mei was a safe person to be around. She was his girlfriend, for heaven's sake. He'd still panicked because saying "no" in those kinds of situations never ended well for him. He didn't know how it had escaped him. His mind had taken the will, and he had revealed some of his past, one he was not proud of. She knew. He felt like a worthless piece of shit for even allowing her to deal with him. He hated feelings like this.
"One hundred and forty-three," he reminded himself.
Mei's phone buzzed next to her head, and he grabbed it, pushing a random button on the side of the case to turn it off or at least stop it from making a sound. The screen flashed, and he wasn't surprised to see a dozen or so icons set haphazardly, seemingly without rhyme or reason. But he was surprised to see himself, asleep in the background, with Mei pointing in his direction with "Mine" written on her finger. He had to fight back a chuckle as he tried his best not to wake her up. He wasn't a big fan of being recorded without his knowledge, but he didn't mind so much if it was her. There were worse ways of staking her claim.
One of the many notifications on her screen was sent by someone named Small Might, which didn't leave much to the imagination about who it was. It read:
"I just received a text from an unknown number. They told me to warn you someone named Gran Torino might come by today. They-"
Takuma sighed internally. He couldn't read the rest of the message without unlocking Mei's phone, and he didn't want to snoop without her express consent, so he laid the phone back on the couch. The message was two hours old, so if this Gran Torino came by, it would be sometime soon. He didn't feel like dealing with this. Sadly, it was firmly in the category of things he didn't have a choice but to deal with.
Focusing back on his cute girlfriend sleeping soundly next to him, he took the time to focus on her features for a few minutes—her face, lips, cheeks, and closed eyes. He hoped he could remember her that way. If he kept doing it, maybe he would be able to recognize her when his Quirk fried him...which happened too much for his taste lately. He had gone years without an issue, but recently, his Quirk had been even more of a pain than usual to deal with. Still, he knew Mei wouldn't enjoy waking up right as an unknown old man showed up. She could get anxious for nothing, even if she didn't show it to the world; it was clear as day to him. His girlfriend hated being surprised. He blamed the hyperfocus, and she liked being warned before a sudden noise or anything that could scare her happened.
Lately, he had been thinking a lot. His relationship with Mei hadn't changed how they interacted with each other as he thought it would. They were closer, true. More intimate physically too. Kissing and hugging every time they could. A kind touch he'd grown addicted to. He wasn't experienced with that kind of thing. He knew how to fuck a woman into an insensate puddle; his Quirk gave him all the information needed to do the best job possible in that regard. It came with the territory. But now that he was with someone who wanted him for something more than his dick, he was a bit lost as to what to do. So most of the time, he fell back on a single line of thinking.
"What would I want in her place?"
So he laid a hand against her cheek and started gently rubbing his thumb against her skin. It was a gentle way of grabbing her attention. He repeated the movement slowly, making sure not to be too rough. Without the second-hand feeling he had grown used to when dealing with anyone, he'd learned he wasn't much of a gentle person. He'd woken her up roughly a few times when trying to do the exact same thing. So he had quickly started doing everything around her in a slow and steady way. It was better; he was less at risk of hurting her in her sleep by mistake, and she was safer for it. Good things all around.
His ministrations had the expected effect of slowly drawing her out of her nap. She inhaled sharply, drowsily shifting into a more comfortable position that led her to face him entirely as he wrapped his arm around her midsection to not let her fall off the couch and brought her on top of him. She laid her head on his chest and tried to go back to sleep. "Mei, you need to wake up."
"Fivemoremin'te," she mumbled half-awake. She wasn't yet entirely there; he knew because he couldn't feel the deeper layer of her mind, the one he did his best to ignore but the one he couldn't do anything about being aware of due to how close they were.
Sleepy Mei reached levels of cute Takuma never thought possible. She was his second favorite version of his girlfriend; the first was the well-rested and fed one that he saw more of since he had started taking care of her. Food, cleaning, and laundry were what he spent most of his day on. Having a place he could return to made taking care of it that much more important to him. Mei thought he was insane to like cleaning, but he disagreed; it was great.
She wrapped her arm around his neck and buried her face in his chest again. It seemed to him she, in fact, didn't want to wake up. So he resorted to his final solution and tickled her side lightly.
"Ah!" She jumped on his chest, eyes wide, the small bout of stimulation enough to wipe the sleep from her eyes. "You!"
"Me," he countered, sticking his tongue out at her.
She was on him like the feral woman she sometimes was, trying in vain to tickle him as she laid a barrage of kisses on his face. "That's not a way to wake up a lady!"
"A lady? Where?!" he shot back, his face a crimson mess due to her onslaught. "Don't think I'm going to stand here and take this!"
Her eyes grew wide just before he started tickling her with renewed vigor as she writhed with laughter in his grasp, unable to free herself as he held her close and tight against him. "You're chea-Anh!"
Takuma froze. The sound of Mei moaning replayed in his mind. His Quirk didn't quite tell him why as it threw it in his face. In their little struggle, his girlfriend had somehow ended up straddling his leg, which was now firmly pressed against her crotch.
"Sorry!" he was quick to say as he moved his leg away. "Didn't mean to do that."
"I don't mind-Imeanthatasgood-AND OH LOOK AT THE TIME!" Mei exploded in a torrent of words as she grabbed her phone, her face a blushing mess as she ran for the bathroom, her mind catching on to what she had just said.
In a second, he was now alone.
'Well, that happened.'
Mei was battling with her sudden urge as she kept replaying what had just happened in her mind. The feeling, the rush. And then the simmering lust that battled within her. His girlfriend was horny. Most people were; that wasn't new. Strangely, with his mind clear and in the privacy of his own thoughts, he liked that. For her to feel that way toward him. Still, he felt weird, as shame and a sick feeling started to push into his thoughts. He wanted her to feel this way, he wanted this. Why couldn't he just be happy? Why did he feel like shit when he was fine a second ago? Sex was something he knew. Why was it suddenly a problem when all the other times it had not been, when he didn't want to do it? Takuma sighed as he tried to push his unease away. He had sex with women he didn't want to have sex with, and it had been fine. It meant nothing to him; it had been nothing, just a short, disgusting time before moving on. Make it quick, make it fast, make it stop.
And didn't she deserve this for dealing with him? She had done more for him than anyone in recent memory. He had been nothing but a leech. How long did it take him to set his mind on U.A when he had literally nothing else to do? He'd been wasting her time and money for months now. Pushing their relationship as far as she was ready to take it was nothing compared to what she did for him. It was the least he could do. He would need to find a way to deal with his issue first. He had no clue how to go about this; if stripping sent him into a fit, he didn't even know what trying to have sex would do. Once it would have been so easy, going through the motions while being far away—he was used to it. What changed? He never had so much trouble with physical intimacy before meeting her, or maybe he had been better at hiding it. The more he thought about it, the more nauseous he felt. In the end, he decided to shelve the idea for later when he found a way to deal with his problem.
Right now, he had more pressing concerns: a retired Hero was about to show up at Mei's house, and he had to be ready for him. Walking to the hangar, he grabbed the shock-maul his girlfriend had made for him. He hadn't had time to test it on a real person, but if that Hero thought he could do as he pleased in his girlfriend's home, then he was bound for a shocking surprise Takuma was more than willing to administer straight to the dome. Also, he brought the Air Cannon with him. Mei had taught him how to use it, and he was pretty sure he could nail a geriatric old man without too much difficulty. Gran Torino—the name didn't mean anything to him. All he had to go on was All Might's ingrained fear of this man and some flimsy link to his grandmother, who, of course, had to be related to All Might in some way because, of course, it fucking had to. His knowledge of the show didn't extend to this part if it was even worth mentioning.
Mei was done freshening up, or in her case, splashing enough water to drown a cat on her face until she calmed down. Her emotions were a jumbled-up mess of excitement and fear at the thought of pushing their relationship further. She was nervous, with the fear of the inexperienced in her case and the added interest and discovery of all the nice sensations she felt when she was with him. Also, she was scared to push him, which was oddly comforting. Even if he had to keep pushing, he couldn't just not offer her this part of him; it just wasn't right.
She rejoined him in the kitchen after some time. He was busy cleaning and inspecting his weapon. It had been a while since he had expected trouble, and he refused to even entertain the idea of being unprepared.
"What's going on?!" Mei asked as she noticed the selection of weapons on the center table.
"Midoriya sent you a text. Someone is supposed to be coming today," he explained as he armed the Air Cannon with a satisfying click. "And even if he's supposed to be a Hero, I'm not taking any chances."
"Oh," was all she said as she watched him get prepared, feeling conflicting emotions. "Do I want to know what happened for you to prepare yourself to receive a Hero like you would a Villain?"
Right, Mei sometimes was too sharp for her own good. "You don't want to know."
She hummed with some irritation, not directed toward him, thankfully. "You better not let me sell my babies to someone that hurt you," she demanded with a serious tone.
"I won't," he agreed easily, hoping he would have it in him to brush the subject before something like that came up. "Do you have any grenades?"
"Some that stick, some that tick, some that go boom and leave you in bits!" Mei singsonged with a skip in her step as she grabbed a box from under the couch. "Here, take a look at those beauties."
"Has this been here the entire time?" he felt the need to ask as he looked upon the impressive quantity and design of the hand grenades. "Oh, I want the pink one!"
"Heh heh heh, of course my boyfriend would pick the best one of the lot!" she proclaimed with pride as she grabbed the pink grenade with a pin in a triangle shape. "This baby is the last one I made. It produces an adhesive substance that gets everywhere. As soon as whoever is near gets entangled in this baby, you can be sure they are going nowhere!"
"But why is it pink?"
"I ran out of silver paint," she told him with a firm nod. "And I would kill to see a Villain getting caught by someone lobbing a pink grenade at them," Mei added with a mischievous smile.
He was reminded why he fell in love with her. "Did I tell you I love you?"
The squeak she let out was a delight to his ears. "N-Not today, no?"
"I love you," he said again, gingerly grabbing the explosive from her hand before putting it back in the box. Only then did he bring her into a hug as he kissed her with a passion he hadn't seen coming himself.
His hand pulled her body close to him as she needily returned the embrace with fervor. The kiss lasted until he was out of breath. "I hope it's proof enough," he said as her eyes were still dancing as she computed what happened while he held her close.
He was learning and listening. Mei was okay with him getting into her mind, but he wasn't. However, he was okay with searching for something he had some understanding of: intent. She had said it herself. He used the intent to harm to dodge attacks and locate the people that would try to harm him. He could probably do the same with the intent to... kiss? Naming was never his strong suit. If he could only train himself to react, the same way he had trained himself until his fighting was immaculate, but with another purpose in mind, then maybe he could bypass his problem and give her what she wanted. Because Mei was horny, and hornier now that he had put his hand on her and kissed her until she saw stars. Still, he didn't want to be a tease when she deserved so much more.
"Careful, I might get used to this," Mei threatened, still a bit out of breath. "I still think it's unfair how quickly you've become good at kissing."
He shrugged; he was a quick learner. It helped that the subject matter was very enticing. "What can I say? The person I practice with is too cute not to kiss. I've got a lot of experience."
He saw her mischievous little smile a second before she kissed him in turn. He felt it this time, the intent, or what form it took coming from her. It was a base he could use and build upon for the future. He still needed more data to be sure he was going in the right direction. And more data meant more time spent making his girlfriend see stars. Truly, he was suffering from success, truly.
His little moment of intimacy and data collection was interrupted by the sudden and fast approach of a mind going straight for the front. He pulled away from the kiss quickly. "Sorry, Hero incoming."
Takuma grabbed the Air Cannon, flicking the safety off and making sure the shock-maul was firmly strapped to his side. In case things went ugly and he needed to fall back on close-quarters combat, the speed the Hero had shown meant that using the cannon would be harder than he hoped. But his predictions were top-notch, and he thought he could nail him if the need arose. Speed or not, he wasn't about to miss when Mei was right next to him. "Fast, do you have somewhere to go in case of an emergency?"
"I have a turret in working condition in the workshop. It's firing blanks, but I could upgrade to fire something more lethal next time someone comes unannounced. I didn't even give Midoriya my address."
Someone else might have had a few questions as to how. But Takuma knew Nedzu worked in mysterious ways. Also, "Why am I not surprised you have a turret in your workshop?"
"Because you've been listening," she shrugged as if it were obvious.
"Alright, he's about to reach the front door in five seconds. Speed Quirk, old, and he has a pretty sharp mind, so keep your wits about you."
"Sir, yes, sir!" she teased, giving him a two-finger salute before grabbing two grenades of unknown design from the box. "Oh, please let it be the day I test those babies."
'Let's hope not,' he thought. He wasn't against testing Mei's babies, but he was very against doing it with a live Hero when she was right beside him.
The Hero landed right in front of the door. Two knocks on the front door. "Alright, expect the worst, hope for the best."
"We got this," his girlfriend told him with more confidence than he had.
Taking in a sharp breath, he walked to the door and opened it. So far, the light coming from the Hero was strong, well-defined, like few with strong personalities and beliefs had. He wouldn't be easy to manipulate in case of emergency, and he hoped it wouldn't reach this point.
He was greeted by the sight of a small old man with a cane the size of a kid, yellow boots and cape, with a scruffy grey beard the same as his hair. His costume was a one-piece white and yellow suit, probably to help with the speed at which he moved, Takuma thought.
"Excuse me, young man. I've been looking for a nice shop around here, wouldn't you—"
Takuma slammed the door and exhaled deeply. No amount of acting skill could trick him into thinking the old man in front of him, now behind the door, was anything but of sound mind.
"Something's wrong?" Mei asked from behind the kitchen table.
"Give it a minute, until he stops wasting our time at least," he replied, louder than necessary so the elder behind the door could hear.
Another set of knocks. Takuma reopened the door. "Fair warning, next time I close the door I'm not opening it."
The sharp gaze of the elderly man met his own. "Duly noted."
A wave of nostalgia, loss, and yearning. A deep wound that never quite healed. All the things All Might felt in some way when he saw him. Gran Torino was pretty much the same; his love for whoever Nana Shimura was matched what Yagi felt for her. In a different way, true, like an old friend that suddenly returned from the grave. "Come on in."
In an instant, the old Hero took in what he was carrying, Mei's alertness, which she failed to disguise behind an awkward wave of her hand as the grenade she held was now on full display.
"Were you expecting trouble?" Gran asked.
"Still do," Takuma replied, making clear through his body language that the old Hero was the trouble he was talking about. "So, who the hell are you and why should I care?"
The older man guffawed, shaking his head with a sharp grin. "You don't mess around, kid. In short, I was your grandmother's best friend," he offered before grabbing a small picture and handing it to him.
It was a picture of a younger version of Gran Torino and his supposed grandmother. Not as supposed as he'd like since he took one look at the picture and knew immediately they were related. "Oh great, guess now I know what I would look like as a woman," he commented dryly.
He looked exactly like Nana Shimura. Sure, he was younger and less feminine than the woman in the picture, but the resemblance was close. Genetics were weird.
"Oh oh, let me see!" Mei quickly demanded, leaving her post with her grenade behind on the kitchen table. "Holy shit, she's hot!"
"She was proud of her looks," Gran Torino added, nonplussed at Mei's reaction.
"And you look just like her, with fewer boobs," his girlfriend kept commenting.
"That you do," Torino said in an attempt to move on from the topic of his dead best friend's chest. "During our time as Heroes, she had to make some difficult decisions. If you don't mind me asking, your family?"
The question pained the old Hero. "Dead. Or maybe they never bothered to come and get me. The extent of my knowledge about them begins and ends when I woke up in a broken house covered in cuts and bruises until I crawled out of the rubble."
His words shocked Mei, but the older Hero, not as much. "I don't remember anything else, not the face of my mom, my dad, or anyone else, so if you have questions about them, well...so do I."
"This wasn't what I hoped to hear," Gran confessed as he let himself digest the news before moving on. "And how are you?"
That question took Takuma by surprise; he didn't know what the hell he was supposed to say. "I've been doing fine."
"Midoriya showed me the video of your fight. It was an incredible display of skill. The etheromorph wasn't even close to touching you until you hit that lamp post."
He turned his head to look at Mei. "Did I tell you I hate this stupid video?"
"Not today."
"I hate this stupid video."
"There, there," Mei said while patting him on the shoulder before embracing him from behind, her arm around his waist. It was as much for him as for her; his revelation of his first memory had rattled her more than he liked.
"If anything, that will give you a leg up to join the Hero course," Gran Torino offered. His words were meant to be comforting, but it mostly gave Takuma an opportunity to dig into something he was interested in learning about.
"And how do you know about that?" he asked uselessly. The old man had already told him he had met Midoriya, who had undoubtedly tried to be as helpful as possible by spilling the beans, the juice of the beans, and the can.
"I met the blonde oaf and his protégé yesterday. They quite literally landed on my doorstep. Midoriya was quite eager to share what he had learned about your Quirk."
He nodded with a twinge of irritation; he didn't expect discretion from the green bean. "Doesn't explain how you knew where to find us. Because unless I've missed a chapter, Mei hasn't shared where she lived with Midoriya yet."
He felt Torino wince internally as he weighed his options. "All Might called in a few favors to get your warrant for vigilantism revoked. The person in charge of dealing with the H.S.P.C was particularly thorough."
"And who is that person? Thorough or not, I don't think sharing my girlfriend's address with everyone and their mother is necessary."
A hint of anger, showing a protective streak around Hero-folk, had a way of making them talk. It helped that this hint wasn't an act.
"Have you heard of Nedzu?" Gran finally gave, not thinking the information overly important while Takuma sighed internally. His paranoia was justified yet again. "The Headmaster of U.A has more than one disagreement with the H.S.P.C, and when he had the opportunity to use All Might's fame to annoy them, he did."
'What a phone call that must have been,' Takuma chuckled viciously at the poor sod that had to pick up the phone. Death by Nedzu was known to be a particularly gruesome thing in the underworld. 'And I'm sure the rat is going to call on that at some point.'
Owing a favor to a hyper-intelligent rat was not a good idea for anyone.
"I won't say I'm not happy not to have to go to jail, but why would All Might even do that? I don't know him, and he sure as hell doesn't know me."
"We both owe Nana a lot. If we can help you, even a little, we'd both be glad to do it," Gran shrugged as if it were obvious, which it wasn't. No one ever did something like that from the kindness of their heart, not to him at least. "And with your Quirk—"
'Here it is.'
"It must have been difficult growing up with a Quirk like that."
He couldn't stop the derisive snort that jumped out of him. "That's the understatement of the fucking century right there," he spat with venom in his voice. "My Quirk sucks, there's no two ways about it. I've learned to wield it to protect myself, and that's about it."
"From what I know of it, it's a miracle you can even use it at all," the old man said with a kind smile that turned out to be anything but to Takuma.
"Practice," he corrected, his anger rising by the minute. "Years of practice, of dealing with everyone's bullshit emotion and pain just to be able to function. That wasn't a miracle, it was all me."
His words cut Gran Torino in his thoughts. "Sorry, you're right, I shouldn't disregard your hard work like that."
'What?'
He was sorry? Just like that. Feeling his mind, he couldn't sense anything worrying, only a mix of nostalgia and pain, mixed with some fear? Care? What? The old fart was worried for him. The thought made Takuma want to scream.
"And what does that change? Hell, why the fuck are you even here?!" he shouted, surprising himself as much as Mei, who tightened her grasp, startled. "So I exist, great fucking news. Now what do you want from me?!"
He was losing his cool. Not good; he had to rein it back.
"I didn't come here expecting anything, to be honest," Gran Torino replied in the same gentle tone he'd used since crossing the door. "I hoped to meet someone related to an old friend gone too soon, and I did. I can leave if you'd like; I wouldn't want to impose more than I already do. And if you need it, here's my number. Keep it, burn it, do as you please. It's...been a pleasure seeing you."
"I'll keep it!" Mei was quick to grab the piece of paper in the old Hero's hand. "Just in case!"
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make sure an old student of mine isn't fucking up his protégé's training."
And as quick as he had come, Gran Torino was gone. It left Takuma with mixed feelings. But this had to wait because he had something more important to do. Dropping the Air Cannon he hadn't let go of until now on the counter, he turned toward Mei, who was still holding onto him with a worried frown.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have yelled like that," he told her, resting his forehead against hers.
"It caught me by surprise; never heard you shout before."
"And you won't hear me shout again. I'll do a better job keeping the lid on it next time I'm angry."
"Don't...you...you can be angry. Just, if you need to shout, maybe warn me first?" she asked, unsure how to word or even what she was asking for. "I don't like loud noise, not when I don't see them coming."
"I'll keep that in mind," he said quickly. "I'm not the shouty type usually. I don't know what's gotten into me."
"A lot happened; maybe you just need a nap?"
"And cuddle?"
"And a stupid movie to sleep-watch?"
"And you?"
The last sentence made her blush, which was a sight he couldn't get enough of.
"That's not fair."
"You can be the little spoon."
"I'll allow it."
She kissed him and everything was right again.