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The sky should have been dark. It would have been, if it weren’t for the streaks of lightning crashing over the skyline.
Even the highest ranked hero’s quirk could be humbled at Mother Nature’s power. An entire brand of heroics was formed around rescuing people from the aftermath of a storm. By the standards of tornadoes and hurricanes, the current rainfall wasn’t so bad.
Waves of raindrops crashed down from clouds so dark, they looked more like a starless night. Koichi pulled his hoodie tight. He stood firm. At times like this, when the surroundings were so dark no one could tell the time in the first place, it was all the more important that someone dependable was nearby.
“Thank goodness the Osaka SpaWorld Edition All-Might hoodie is waterproof!” Koichi told himself. If he was trying to talk to someone else, the rainfall would have drowned him out.
If the rain came down any harder, it could have drowned him in general. Koichi kept his head up, and his hood tight. The yellow spikes on his hoodie whipped in the wind. The silhouette, which was supposed to look like All Might, seemed more like a soggy rabbit.
It still looked like a hero, in a way. Just a wet one.
Kazuho shoved her hands into her pockets, her Pop-Step costume half-hidden by a raincoat.
“What’re you doing out here?” Kazuho asked, the trace of a sigh entering her tone, like she already knew what he’d say.
Koichi turned to face her. Even in his cosplay hoodie, when he was supposed to be in disguise, he so clearly looked like himself. “I’m patrolling. What’re you doing?”
The fact that he practically had to spit out rain to speak didn’t seem to phase him. Kazuho pulled her umbrella closer to her head. “I’m going home,” she answered, as if it were the only sane thing to do. “My show’s cancelled. It’s gross out.”
Koichi stood up a little straighter. His hand pulled into a fist in front of his chest. “It’s not gross! It’s dangerous!”
Kazuho stared at him with appropriate confusion. Her mask bent with her squint. “...And that’s …better?”
“That someone’s out here, yeah.”
Kazuho kept her umbrella close by, covering her pigtails. The waves of rain streamed down like ribbons from every corner of her umbrella, the storm pounding down. The pattern covered the staggered footsteps of passersby, running for cover. Some fought their umbrellas. Others covered themselves with their coats. Whatever they were paying attention to, it wasn’t each other.
Koichi kept focus. He stood just as still, taking the weather like it was nothing to fight.
“Did you know accidents are more likely during rain? It’s dark, faster. People slip, or get lost, ’cause they don’t watch where they’re going, not to mention cars can stall, or skid. Who knows what could hap–”
As Koichi was speaking, a minivan sped down the street. The tires charged through the puddle along the curb, sending a wave onto the sidewalk. With a slight boost in bounce, Kazuho easily jumped out of the way, umbrella and all. Koichi didn’t.
Kazuho landed under the metal awning of a grocery store. She folded her umbrella, putting it down. Then, she looked back to Koichi. The points on his All Might hoodie drooped like a rabbit’s.
“Are you…”
“Thank you, SpaWorld!” Koichi gave a thumbs up. “Still dry!”
Kazuho squinted. “What a SpaWorld?”
A second truck sped down the street, veering towards the same, deep indent by the curb.
Whatever might have spared Koichi, the hoodie or dumb luck, Kazuho didn’t leave the outcome up to stupidity. She held her umbrella in one hand and grabbed him with the other, yanking Koichi out of the way.
Koichi turned his head over his shoulder. His attention turned to match. “Thanks. You–” he started to say, as if that wasn’t meant to be the end of the question.
The car they dodged rolled into the curb. An arch of water splashed up the sidewalk, high enough to be a wave. It was also high enough to submerge the tailpipe.
When Kazuho heard a different pop, it was too late to stop it. The car’s engine stalled. The driver’s thoughts stopped with it. Whoever was in the front seat, they tried to turn the wheel. It didn’t work. Before the complaint could even reach them, a car hydroplaned into a streetlight. The hood bent around the pole. The wheels turned, going nowhere.
Kazuho couldn’t get a good look at what was happening. While she was trying, someone else started to scream.
“Crueler!”
She’d barely registered the name. Koichi was already on all fours.
“Wrong name! It’s Crawler!”
Koichi skidded across the ground, charging ahead. He jumped from the pavement, onto the hood.
The woman inside the car was chanting curse words. Kazuho didn’t know what half of them meant. The ones she recognized weren’t good.
The language was so shocking, Kazuho barely noticed the woman was bleeding—and sparkling.
“You’ll be okay!” Koichi said, anyway. “I’ll get you!”
A spark popped from the woman’s ear like a firework of electricity.
“No, I’m not!”
“I’m coming! Just—!”
“—Don’t get closer! You’d die!!” The woman yelled. “It’s my quirk! I’m electric! I can’t get wet, or—!”
If the passenger was a wreck, their truck wasn’t much better. The hood scrunched like a pug’s nose. Smoke rose from one side, the engine gurgling–a sound which, while distinct, was generally not associated with trucks. Between the steaming engine and the cracks in the windshield, the current, dry state of the electric passenger didn’t seem like it would stick.
If Koichi paused, it only lasted for a second. He pulled off his hoodie.
“It’s okay!” Koichi’s voice distorted through a mouthful of rain, the full force of each sheet bombarding him straight on. He didn’t flinch. He just held up the coat. “Get under this! It’s weather-proof!
Koichi opened the side door. The truck’s hood kept smoking. The smoke doused into steam. He unzipped the hoodie and draped it over the gap between the truck’s body and the door.
Each sheet of rain crashed against him. The drops streaked through his mask, plastering it to his face. Koichi stayed steady.
“It’s okay. We’ll get you out,” Koichi said, again, just as sure.
The slightly bloodied, sparking woman crawled towards the door. Koichi lowered the hoodie to cover her.
The truck was still rumbling. A burst of wind and a roar from the storm rocked it to one side. Koichi pulled towards the other. Just as the woman could have slipped, Koichi slid out of the way.
The car was still rocking when Koichi landed next to Kazuho. However soaked he was, even with his supposed uniform missing, Koichi kept a hero’s smile.
“I’ve got you. You’ll be fine,” Koichi told the woman. He started to put her down. “Pop. Think you can call for help?” He asked. “Someone’s—“
As he was speaking, Koichi put the woman down.
Koichi put the woman down, and his very wet pant leg brushed against her dry leg. A burst of sparks rose from her ears, another electric firework glowing and going off.
The first spark hit Koichi’s mask. The second ran through his leg like a taser.
The electric light ran through Koichi so quickly, he didn’t finish the word. His own eyes snapped white. His skeleton shot upright, his jaw clenching. There wasn’t even time to feel himself fall.
The woman cringed, still sparking. “Oh, god. I told you!”
Kazuho dropped her umbrella.
“Sh—”
The word it would have turned into stopped. The puddle spread, the water still sparking. A siren sounded around the corner. To any innocent witness, that would have been a relief.
An innocent witness shouted at them. “Hey, donut, you good? Might wanna jet!”
As far as the cops were concerned, Kazuho and Koichi weren’t innocent witnesses.
“Shit.”
Kazuho gauged the puddle, the woman, and the sparks still on the surface. She turned around her umbrella, to use the plastic handle as a fishing hook.
The sirens kept flashing. Kazuho pulled Koichi from the electric puddle. She grabbed him under each arm. He was bleeding, and breathing. His hair smelled like he got stuck under a malfunctioning glue gun.
She’d worry about that, later.
“Everyone! Don’t touch that puddle!” Kazuho shouted at the crowd. A few looks of recognition were raised back. Good enough. “Help is coming!”
Kazuho pulled Koichi closer. She braced to bounce away. Just before she could, someone shouted.
“Wait! Where’re you going?”
Kazuho leapt into the air. Her words barely reached down.
“I’m not help!”
She took off before the cops could get there. The red and blue lights were close, getting closer. The woman would be okay. The only question was Koichi.
Kazuho didn’t like that question.
Despite the water weight and burnt-but-not-dead weight that came with Koichi, Kazuho managed the strength to pull him with her. She bounced far enough to bring Koichi back to his apartment, and his bed.
Koichi’s hair was frizzing. A deep scratch ran down his cheek. Another burn mark singed his leg. He smelled like a malfunctioning curling iron. If there was any electricity left in him, Kazuho wouldn’t know. Tools for quirk damage diagnostics only existed in hospitals. Unless she wanted to risk his arrest, people like Koichi didn’t get to go to the hospital. He got her.
Kazuho tucked Koichi into the bed. She put her clothes into the wash, and borrowed some of his PJs. Once she was dry, and he was covered, she grabbed a bin of ointment and bandages from the bathroom to come patch him up.
At least, Kazuho meant to patch him up. She wasn't sure where to start with this mess.
“Why’d someone have to notice you?” Kazuho asked, full aware he couldn’t answer, or help it. “You could have seen the doctors, like a normal person.”
Kazuho fixed the mattress, flattening the cushion to keep Koichi still. She wiped the scratches off his face, then dabbed some ointment towards the scratch. If Koichi was conscious, she could imagine this would hurt.
She imagined, if it did, he’d try not to show it. He’d keep smiling, the way a hero was supposed to, licensed or not.
“Why would anyone notice you,” Kazuho whispered, soft enough to prove she’d known why. She’d been in that crowd. She’d noticed him, too.
However much the man under that hood could have blended into a crowd, even without it, Kazuho would have noticed him.
Kazuho put down the washcloth. She told herself to pick up the bandage, to take the next step in putting him back together. She wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to be doing. There’d been more blood than she’d liked seeing—but it was a cut on his face. Those bled more than most.
Koichi turned to one side. His neck seemed to pop. The sound was so sudden, it made Kazuho move twice as quick. She all but slapped the bandage over his cheek.
Koichi groaned. He sniffed in.
“Was I… cooking…?” he asked, no doubt smelling his hair.
Kazuho let out a puff. “More like, someone cooked you.”
She pushed on his shoulder.
“If no one spotted you, we’d be in the hospital,” she said. “Lucky us, someone knew who you were, so we came here. No one followed us, though.”
Koichi started to sit up. Kazuho nudged him back down. Even with the push, he managed to ask, “Is she okay…?”
“Sparkles from the car? Yeah,” Kazuho answered. “Help was coming.”
At least, help for her.
“No. Not her. Pop. Is she fine? She was there when I left. I think.” What at first looked like alertness turned into something more panicked, but half as aware. Whatever it was Koichi thought he was looking at, it wasn’t what was in front of him. His wide eyes shifted to a squint.
“...Sorry. Who are you?” Koichi asked. “Do you know who Pop Step is?”
“Are you serious?”
Kazuho waited for the answer, unsure how it had even become a question. His hair stuck out in electrified spikes, the frizz sticking up like a porcupine being fried.
“You know… uh…” Koichi stopped. He slumped to one side. “Or, you don’t know? I don’t know, you know.”
“Yeah. I figured that out.”
“Oh! Uh… sorry ‘bout that.”
“Figured that part out, too.”
Before Koichi could start inevitably babbling, Kazuho gestured towards herself. “Who do you think I am?”
Koichi’s unfocused gaze traveled to Kazuho. He looked up, meeting her eyes. His own dilated at the sight of her, the color nearly eclipsed by the black of his eyes. Finally, at the end of his gaping, he spoke slowly.
“...You seem nice.”
Kazuho let out a breath. “I am nice.”
Koichi didn’t try to argue it. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Sure are!” he said, closing his eyes into a smile. “Thanks, little boy…!”
“Little WHAT–”
Kazuho’s shoulders scrunched. She shot up, ready to yell.
The yell fell short. Koichi fell first. His eyes stayed closed as he tipped straight over, flopping onto his cheap tatami hard enough that he’d crash to the floor. At least, he would have if Kazuho didn’t catch him on her thigh.
“Shoot–”
Kazuho hissed. She looked down to where she’d bent over, one knee on the tatami, a hand on Koichi’s back. The bandage started to fall off from his cheek. His other scratches were still open, shallow and dirty, but not bleeding.
Kazuho forced herself to breathe. “Are you serious…?”
Koichi couldn’t manage an answer. He mumbled, “You’re welcome,” near-incomprehensibly into her thigh. She could only guess he thought it was a pillow. “It’s nothing…”
He had better not have meant her leg.
“Welcome to what? Doing your chores?” Kazuho asked, not expecting an answer.
She got what she expected.
Where Koichi would usually apologize, he said nothing. His body bent at a slant, slouching into her with the threat of falling down. Kazuho lowered herself, first. She dropped slowly into a kneel, balancing Koichi on the way down. It wasn’t long before they were both sitting on the roll-out mattress, with Kazuho sitting, and Koichi on her lap.
From this close, Kazuho couldn’t escape the smell. The charred residue carried off his hair. His scratches stayed deeper, his blood staining his shirt on her lap. Whatever mess he was–and he clearly was a mess–he was a peaceful one.
No matter how horrible something was around him, he could always look peaceful. Even when he was running towards a car crash, covering a stranger in his hoodie, he’d looked so calm hearing ‘thank you’.
“Thank you,” Kazuho whispered like she was breathing.
“Anytime,” Koichi mumbled, the word in such a slur, it barely sounded like a word at all.
Koichi rolled his head to one side. His damp hair stuck to his cheek, sandwiched between his head and Kazuho’s lap. His breathing slowed, air passing through his nose with a soft, drowsy whistle, just short of snoring without being the real thing.
Kazuho put her hand on his head.
“Don’t make it a habit,” Kazuho spoke down. “I’m busy.”
The rain kept pouring. Koichi’s eyes stayed shut, his eyelashes still glistening with the residue of where they’d been. If Kazuho was willing to get up, she could have dried them. She sat still.
From the way Koichi’s breath sounded heavy, he probably would have stayed asleep. Kazuho didn’t take the risk. She stayed with him, not so busy.
In the middle of his breathing, where anyone normal would turn over or snore, Koichi rolled towards Kazuho. He stretched his arm across her lap, smiling through a mumble.
“I’d love an autograph, Mister Might.”
Kazuho wasn’t sure if she should laugh or roll her eyes. She did neither.
“You would dream about that, wouldn’t you?” Kazuho asked herself, not needing an answer. She already knew.
“Dork…”
From the dopey look on his sleeping face, Koichi was out of it. There wasn’t a thing that Kazuho could have done to him that would have brought Koichi back in. He was too far gone to remember.
Kazuho pressed her hand over the bandage she’d set. The pressure lingered longer than she needed to. Koichi didn’t stir. She felt him breathing. The pace of it was so slow, Kazuho didn’t realize when her own breath started to match.
Koichi didn’t start to wake up. He stayed exactly as he was, sound and undisturbed. Kazuho shifted the pressure. She tipped his cheek, to angle his face towards her, close enough that she could bow into him.
There was no way he would remember. The worst this moment could turn out to be was an odd disruption in a dream–something she could insist was a delusion, and never have to explain.
Kazuho bowed a little closer, covering Koichi with herself. She kept him in her lap, holding him close. The rain stuck to his eyelashes was close enough to dampen her cheek.
Kazuho leaned closer, still. She kissed over the bandage that she’d laid on him.
If she remembered this moment, she could pretend she was dreaming. It was the kind of stupid moment that belonged in a dream, after all. Kazuho didn’t have to mention she was the kind of person who chased dreams while she was awake, too.
Kazuho faced the window. Rain plastered the glass. The sheets streamed down so quickly, it could have passed for the underside of a waterfall.
“It really is gross,” Kazuho told herself. “Can’t leave, now. Yuck.”
The rain kept pouring, knocking insistently against the walls. Kazuho ran her hands through Koichi’s hair. When her fingers brushed his scalp, she could feel him breathing. Lightning cracked across the sky, thunder trailing.
Kazuho wondered how long the storm would last. She hoped it was longer.