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Shota had perhaps experienced brain damage after getting struck in the head by a villain, but there was something about the way Emi took down the last one that stood out to him. Maybe it was the sun shining behind her, glaringly bright, or the blood dripping from her split lip as she laughed and beamed while she knocked the villain into submission. It was a mesmerising sight.
Caught unawares on their day off, they both took their fair share of hits in this one. With their agencies so close, they often frequented the same places. He simply wanted to relax in a coffee shop while she shopped at the bodega across the street when villains decided to not-so subtly rob a bank by blowing a hole in the back. It was their day off, yes, but they were the closest pro heroes on the scene.
He caught eyes with her as she dropped her groceries and knew that, separate agencies and their differences aside, they would work together to take the villains down. She was wearing a long skirt, for shit’s sake, but that didn't stop her from being a hero. And she was a damn good one. It was hard not to be impressed by her, especially the way she never let anything get her down. Even if he couldn’t see her, as long as he could still hear her laughing, she was fine.
To be honest, Shota had never considered himself compatible with Emi. She had made it her mission to make him laugh with or without the use of her quirk and he was in no mood to entertain her. She came off as careless and silly with her forward behavior and constant jokes. However, they made a great team. They had been a disadvantage without their hero gear, but they made it work until reinforcements arrived. After all, it wasn’t their support gear that made them heroes or even their quirks.
Emi stood on the sidewalk, running her fingers through her seafoam green hair. She breathed deeply, blowing her hair from her face, before wiping the blood off her face. His eyes latched onto the action. He stared as she parted her lips and swiped a thumb across her soft lips, taking the blood with it.
He was young and stupid and still filled with the rush of adrenaline from the fight. It would make anyone hot-blooded and think foolish things. He didn’t think much of it as he watched her in that moment and wondered what it would be like if he bit her lip and ran his tongue along the same path as her thumb.
“Oi, Eraser!” Emi called, stirring him from his very focused thoughts. “You keep giving me that look and I’m gonna think you wanna take me home with you.”
A smirk pulled at her busted lip, causing it to bleed again. A jagged rip ran up her skirt past her knees and the buttons on her blouse had torn off to reveal a white camisole. She was coated in dust from the explosions and her hair was a mess. It should not have been attractive and yet it undeniably was.
Still, Shota didn't like being called out and killed any lingering heat in his eyes. Putting on a bored scowl, he buried his hands in his pockets, slouched over, and turned away from her. “Don’t say stupid things like that for everyone to hear.”
“It’s okay,” Emi laughed. “I know how irresistable I must look right now.”
“No thanks,” Shota grumbled. He didn't need this right now. All he’d wanted was some peace and quiet. Now, after dealing with three villains, he had to deal with the police on top of Emi and her painfully bright personality. Eve though the villains were taken care of, his entire body felt pulled with tension and in desperate need of release. He needed a cold shower and nap after this mess. So much for his day off.
He chanced a look back at Emi, who was talking with a bank teller. Even though the civilian was shaken up at having been taken hostage, she smiled thankfully at Emi. She wasn’t using even her quirk to comfort the teller. No, that was just who she was.
He did not need this at all.
*
Having a going away party sounded absolutely dreadful to Shota, but his soon-to-be former colleagues didn't care one lick about what he thought. He would be missed at the agency and he would miss the freedom it granted him, but teaching at U.A. was the right decision. So many agencies relied on heroes with more physical and fighting based quirks. If his success was any clue, it was time to focus on others as well. Either that or he’d been tricked by Nemuri.
He had definitely been tricked by Hizashi, which he didn’t appreciate. When the man convinced him to go out for drinks, he’d not specified that half his agency would be there as well. He worked at a different agency, but it looked like he had made better friends with them than Shota. Not that they weren’t good people (they were) and not that he didn’t think they were good heroes (they were), but he wasn’t the friend-making type. He had a handful of people he liked and he stuck with them.
Another problem Shota was certain Hizashi created was that a few heroes from the neighboring agency were here, including Emi. Somehow, the moment he realized what his friend had done, he knew she would be here. Oh, no, she couldn’t miss out on this. She wouldn’t dare miss Eraserhead’s going away party, not when there was a chance for drunken shenanigans.
No way in hell was Shota going to get drunk - he didn’t like the way it felt or how blurry it made his gaze - but that didn’t mean nothing stupid would happen. If Hizashi was involved, there was always a high possibility for that. Throw Emi into the picture and it was guaranteed recipe for disaster.
By the end of the night, Hizashi had dragged half of the party into singing karaoke and the other half onto the dance floor. He had a talent with people and getting them to do ridiculous things that Shota couldn’t possibly understand. Just as he suspected, adding Emi into the mix made things ten times worse. She used her quirk at random, but for the most part, her forward and joking personality combined with Hizashi’s loud and silly one meant no one was spared. It took all of his stealth skills as a pro hero to remain on the sidelines nearly the entire night.
What did surprise Shota was his gaze roving over to Emi throughout the night. Compared to most women here, she wasn’t wearing anything special: a green top, slim-fit jeans, and boots. Her hair was down, falling in her face whenever she danced. She wasn’t great, but that wasn't the point. When others were too shy to dance or sing, she jumped up first, always willing to make a fool of herself so others were comfortable.
The few drinks he had must have dulled his senses because he didn’t look away from her in time before Emi turned to catch eyes with him. Shota scowled into his drink, but didn’t glance away as she sauntered toward him. He'd already been caught. He swore he wasn't staring and maybe he'd been trying to avoid her all night, but it was too late now. She hopped over to him, light on her feet despite the boots, until she was at his table.
“Hey, you better buy a girl a drink before you give her a look like that,” Emi teased.
“I wasn’t looking at you like anything,” Shota mumbled. “You were being loud and drew my attention.”
Emi quirked an eyebrow. “No way. Those were bedroom eyes if I’ve ever seen 'em. I’m pretty sure you were undressing me with your eyes.”
“I don’t think so,” Shota replied tersely. His train of thought had been more along the lines of what her body would feel like against his. Those jeans were far too snug. She normally wore baggy pants for her hero costume. On a purely analytical level, he knew Emi was attractive, but seeing her tonight in this low light made him realize others' eyes were drawn to her. He didn’t dislike it, but he didn’t like it either.
He blamed Hizashi for getting him this last drink. It was messing with his head. Watching her tie a cherry stem with her tongue a few minutes ago certainly hadn’t helped.
When Emi stepped closer into his personal space, Shota stiffened, but he didn’t move. He narrowed his eyes as she stared up at him, her smile far too innocent for her close proximity. “If you want to get out of here…” She didn’t touch him, even though she was only inches away. She didn’t touch him, even though she could have and he was right here and she was so close. He could feel the warmth radiating from her. It would've been so easy to set down his drink and place his hands on her hips to pull her closer.
“Stop messing around,” Shota told her, his voice far gruffer than he would’ve liked.
A grin slid onto her red wine-stained lips. “You know, sometimes you’re no fun.”
“So I’ve been told,” Shota deadpanned, still not looking away.
Emi opened her mouth, but whatever she had to say was interrupted by Nemuri blowing out of nowhere and sweeping her away to dance. Shota took a breath and knocked back his drink, the ice clinking against the glass. He didn’t know whether to be grateful or not, but judging from the way his and Emi’s eyes kept meeting each other the rest of the night, he wouldn’t find out any time soon.
He didn’t buy her a drink and he certainly didn’t undress her. Not like he wanted to do those things anyway. In a week, he’d be gone and it was unlikely that they’d cross paths again, at least not for a long time. They knew that and neither fought it. That was just the nature of being pro heroes.
*
“I didn’t figure you for a teacher,” he told her.
She laughed. “What can I say? I’m a woman of many talents.” Without missing a beat, she leaned over and nudged him. “You’d know that if you went on a date with me.”
Shota rolled his eyes at the joke. Emi had been teasing him like this for as long as he could remember. Always joking about them going on dates, being star-crossed lovers at opposite agencies, how he’d been hiding a thing for her for years. He neither had time for dating nor some absurd romance. Maybe other heroes did, but he’d never really considered it for his future. No, his life had always revolved around the job. He was fine with it most days.
Today was one of those off days, which was probably why he agreed to meet with Emi after the provisional hero license. It was not a date. She knew that. He knew that. This was lunch with a fellow teacher.
As aggravating as she could be and as much as she’d embarrassed him in front of his class, she was a hero he respected, even more so after seeing her class. They were good students, just not as seasoned as his. Then again, none of the other students taking the test this year had faced fully fledged villains not once but twice.
“Why aren’t you seeing anyone?” Shota asked. Not out of curiosity, but well… Emi wasn’t like him. She was more like Hizashi and Nemuri. She was bright, kind, bubbly, sweet, friendly. She was open. People liked her. There was a reason she was so popular with the public. Her being single didn't add up. Not that he knew her inside and out and it had been a while since they worked together, but he had a feeling that underneath all those jokes about dates and marriage, she wanted them.
And she deserved them. She was a good person.
“Besides my unrequited pining for you?” Emi shrugged. “It just hasn’t been in the cards. I’m not gonna throw myself at the first guy that shows interest in me.”
“No, you pick the ones that don’t,” Shota retorted dryly.
“You’re just in denial, sweetheart." Emi wagged a finger at him. “I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
Shota bristled, but didn’t rise to take the bait. She smiled. Somehow he knew from the softness of her smile that she wouldn't push the joke further. Maybe she’d calmed down, although she’d come off just as strong at the Provisional License Exam.
“Is it so hard to believe I want to focus on my career?” Emi asked, sounding scarily close to serious. He didn’t believe it and narrowed his eyes This had to be a set up for a joke. She blew a raspberry, amused that he was waiting for a trap. “After you got a job at U.A., I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. A year later I got offered my teaching position and I took it and ran. I love my teaching. It’s a lot of fun!”
“Teaching isn’t supposed to be fun."
Emi waved a dismissive hand. “Not everyone is Mr. Hard Ass like you. We all have our different teaching methods. I’m sure Yamada teaches differently than you.” She wasn’t wrong. They couldn’t possibly be different teachers. There was a reason he didn’t do English. He'd hated the class in school and he hated it after graduation. Hizashi loved to talk; it was perfect for him. “I love the kids. They’re my life. Seeing them grow, helping them become heroes - I truly feel like I’m doing something for the future that isn’t a complete joke.”
“I don’t believe it,” Shota replied blandly.
“Okay, you got me.” Emi grinned. “I mean, I'm not lying, but could you imagine me as a teacher back in the day?” She laughed. “Almost as ridiculous as imagining you as one.”
Shota sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea.”
“Admit it, Eraser, you missed me,” Emi teased. “This bubbly spirit, this bright smile, my shining eyes, my hilarious jokes-”
“Sounds like my worst nightmare.”
There was a tricky gleam in Emi’s eyes that made him wary. “I’m a dream come true. That’s why you asked me out today.”
“This isn’t a date,” Shota reminded her sharply. How did she always manage to put him on edge? He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to throw money down and bolt or argue with her more, but he didn’t like either option. His best option was to avoid her, but then he was the one to call her. “I wanted to discuss a joint exercise with your class.”
“Pft, I don’t see why it can’t be both,” Emi dismissed smoothly. “It is a good idea. I’d like to teach them how to cooperate with rivals. They’ll have to do that as pros with other agencies.”
That was something Shota agreed with. In the beginning of his time as a pro, he hadn’t liked to work with others, preferring solo work. It was the way he ran things. Being an underground hero usually meant long nights by himself. Emi was nearly the complete opposite; loud and bright as the sun, she stood out like a neon sign in the middle of the night, almost as bad as Hizashi.
The times they worked together had been eventful and unusual. Despite their very extreme differences, he and Emi made a surprisingly good team when it counted. She was talented at distracting villains so he could erase their quirks, she could take them out, and he could secure them. They were effective, even if they didn’t particularly get along. Well, she didn’t seem to mind him, considering all the flirting, but he still worked with her even if she did drive him crazy.
His students, especially the more temperamental and loner ones, would do good to learn that.
Emi propped her elbows on the table and dropped her chin in her palms, eyeing him with mischief. “So why are you single?”
Shota folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his seat. “No comment.”
*
Beeping monitors and quiet murmurs from the nurses echoed down the quiet hallway. Shota had always hated hospitals. Something about the sterile stiffness and bland whiteness unsettled him. This last year, he'd been in them far too often. He’d been injured badly before when he was an underground hero. One of Emi’s favorite stories was when she found him in a dumpster in between their agencies. He had thought his chance of getting hurt on the job would be considerably lower as a teacher.
Holy shit had he been wrong. These kids were going to be the death of him.
Surrounded by heroes for over half his life, Shota had visited hospitals often enough. He didn’t like stepping foot in them and he wasn’t the type to visit and leave flowers, but sometimes the occasion called for it and he went out of professional and common courtesy.
This was one of those times. When he heard Ketsubutsu students had been targeted, his first thought, shamefully, was that for once that it wasn't U.A. in the news. His second thought was Emi Fukukado. After that, he wasn't able to think of anything else.
Ms. Joke was an unusual hero, all things considered with her Outburst quirk, but he was confident in her abilities. He was also confident in his own and it hadn’t stopped him from being severely injured while defending his students. It had only taken one very brief call to find out she had been involved in the fight. She’d taken out ten villains on her own protecting the lives of a group of first year students and civilians.
And she was in the hospital due to complications from blood loss.
It was common courtesy that he visit her. He also didn't have much of an option. The moment he got off the phone and told Hizashi and Nemuri the news, they all but demanded they visit. They had the time. Nemuri wad particularly insistent, shoving him out of the school. He let them go into her room first since they were so antsy, staying behind in the lobby.
He hated hospitals. He didn’t want to be here. They made him uncomfortable, reminding him of the USJ Incident when he’d been bandaged like a mummy, unable to move for a full day even after Recovery Girl’s quirk healed most of him. He had never hurt so much in his life. The idea that something like that could happen to Emi…
With Hizashi satisfied with her health and Nemuri off to get candy that Emi was craving, that left Shota to visit her. He opened the door to her room without any hesitation and stepped inside, which was, as he expected, filled to the brim with bright flowers and smiling balloons that broke the blandness of the hospital.
“Where’s my flowers? My balloons? My chocolate?” Emi demanded cheerily from the bed.
Shota buried his hands into his pockets. “You seem too chipper to still be here. Playing hooky?”
“A cheery attitude is key to getting better,” Emi insisted, a big smile on her face. “That’s why you’re always bandaged up for days afterwards. You’re so sour.”
Despite the smile and her cheeky comments, Shota spotted the difference in her. She was much paler than he remembered, probably from the blood loss, and there were dark bags under her eyes that were more reminiscent of him than her. There wasn’t that usual gleam in her them either and her bright hair was tied in a loose side ponytail he’d never seen her wear. She wasn’t one for sitting still either, but she sat in the bed with her hands folded in her lap over top a quilt from home. The hospital gown had to be blander than anything she owned.
But she was alive and looked fantastic.
“You look like hell,” Shota said.
Emi smirked. “You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself.”
Shota grabbed the chair next to her bed, pulling it back, and sat down. “What happened?”
“Turns out my jokes aren’t for everyone,” Emi told him, shrugging. “Everyone’s got a limit, you know?” She gave him a smile that even she couldn’t hide was tight. “I mean, I know thanks to you that not everyone finds me funny, but I didn’t think they’d stab me over it.”
“Stabbed?”
“With a sword!” Emi exclaimed. “Out of all the things I thought might take me out, medieval weaponry was not one of them.”
Shaking his head, Shota sighed. “Fukukado…”
“I think we’re on a first name basis after both nearly dying and all these years,” Emi said. Truth be told, he was only on a first name basis with three people, preferring to keep things formal and distant with everyone else, but he could live with adding another person to the list. “Super sweet of you to visit. Nemuri said you immediately called to check on me.”
Shota honestly didn’t have a response to that. He trusted in her abilities as a hero, but he couldn't deny being worried. He’d seen her take down villain four times as big as her; it didn’t mean she couldn’t get hurt. Heroes weren’t invincible. They could be hurt; they could even be killed. When he called, the teacher on the other end hesitated since Emi was in surgery at the time. For those three seconds of hesitation, Shota remembered his last words to Emi: “You can’t be this desperate.” He’d felt sick to his stomach.
What a load of shit.
“It’s okay,” Emi said, leaning back against the bed and winking at him. “I won’t tell anyone you’re a big softie on the inside.”
He did not need this right now.