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The first letter that Nemuri received, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary with it.
Most of her fan-mail was from males, so usually, she barely bothered with it at all. If the envelope hadn’t caught her attention from the corner of her eyesight she probably would never have seen it, and tossed it into the bin with the rest of the unsavoury letters. But the small - slightly bad, but it was a kid’s drawing, so she wasn’t expecting an amazing artist from a child - drawings on the envelope was enough to draw her attention to it.
Opening the envelope, careful not the break it as she slid the letter out made her squeal at the cuteness.
Most people, including her PR department, look at her with the appearance she’d given off, the sexy female in her skin-tight suit that barely covered her tits and arse. Hell, the majority of fan-mail she got was from creepers who thought that they could get a chance with Nemuri.
Not a chance.
But this letter was adorable, obviously written by a preschooler, but Nemuri couldn’t help the easy smile on her face as she worked out the kanji that was written in a gorgeous purple crayon.
The kid even used a pen-name - obviously the influence of the kid’s parents, as Nemuri realised that the name was written slightly nicer than the rest of the symbols on the paper - cute little Sukoshi Kaori (少し香り).
What a sweetheart!
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Nemuri only kept gaining more letters from Sukoshi Kaori over the years. Each one the woman kept, despite Kan’s teasing remarks, and Shouta’s various groans every time he saw the letters when she brought them into the staffroom. Thirteen and Hizashi were more than supportive, and the voice hero always cooed over how cute Kaori was in the letters.
Even with all the years that had gone past, little Kaori hadn’t wandered too far from the deep purple that was similar to Nemuri’s hero outfit.
Kaori didn’t speak about their life, keeping their letters to hero news and about Nemuri’s recent fights. Even going as far to chat about seeing Nemuri on the TV for the Yuuei Sports Festivals, and writing about how cool it was to see all the students using their quirks.
With every weekly letter - postage was surprisingly slow for a society of super-powered humans - Nemuri wasn’t able to forget about her little fan. She’s even been offered to be the face of a new perfume - to match her alluring quirk - which she only agreed to if the company called it Sukoshi, after the letter-writer, and three weeks later it was out on the shelves with Nemuri’s masked face displayed.
She wasn’t the most comfortable with her face being plasted on posters in supermarkets and malls, but Hizashi pointed out that it wasn’t so different from the merch her agency sold. Nemuri had to admit that her friend had a point.
The next letter from Kaori after the perfume had hit stores was all about it. The kid’s handwriting got worse in parts, but Nemuri couldn’t help but smile at the sheer amount of excitement that radiated off of the paper. And the small fragrance of the perfume made Nemuri grin.
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The letters from Kaori stopped suddenly when the kid had to be in their mid-teens.
Nemuri hadn’t noticed at first, because she’d gotten into a fight with a criminal with an air-filtering quirk - jesus christ, how bad was her luck to get him? - who ended up teaming up with a legally recognized villain with a water quirk. Then Endeavour had been the closest hero to back her up, and suddenly half the street was on fire and Nemuri was working with the criminal and villain to get civilians out of there while Endeavor tried to capture the other two.
UGH, that only made Nemuri’s already poor option of the number two pro-hero drop in the pits of hell. Heck, not even hell deserved the flame hero.
The criminal and villain got away once the fires had been put out, and Nemuri had been hospitalized when Endeavour “accidentally” burnt her with his flames that had only grown in his frustration of the criminal and villain’s escape.
The whole thing circulated the internet for the two weeks that Nemuri spent in the nearest hospital - not being able to use too many quirks on her body because her energy was so drained sucked, she couldn’t even get Recovery Girl to use her quirk so that Nemuri coil get back on her feet - to heal the burns that would’ve scarred if not for cosmetic healing quirks.
When she finally got out, it was only when she was finishing up paperwork in her office did she pause to realise that she hadn’t heard anything from little Kaori.
A quick trip to the agency’s mailroom had Nemuri heading back up to her office with a single letter, a quick read letting her know how worried Kaori had been after the event. The woman considered penning a letter to the kid, but read the small add-on at the end of the letter, it was such a small thing, but Nemuri couldn't help the grin when she saw that her little writer was going to try out for Yuuei this coming year.
Maybe she should make a small game out of it? Try to figure out who her little fan is?
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Nemuri wasn’t one of the normal judges for the entrance exam, but it didn’t bother anyone that she came in with a bag of popcorn - sharing some with Hizashi before he head out to keep announcement (when the author almost forgets that Present Mic announced the exam and almost has him in the staff area) - and annoying Shouta enough to get him to bundle into his sleeping bag with a small scowl on his face.
She didn’t even need to be there, some years she popped in, but in recent years she’d usually gotten held up by hero work, being unable to make it. However, she made sure she’d be able to make it this year, even going ahead to schedule the day off.
It was fairly normal, the only thing that stood out from the students in the exam was the bone breaker who smashed through his area’s zero-pointer, and that explosive boy who dominated his area as well as just flying over the shoulder of the area's zero-pointer without care.
There were so many students attempting to get into the hero course, that Nemuri doubted that she had seen her little letter-writer. There was always the chance, but she’d probably have to wait and get to know the students before she started accusing each and every student that she came across as being little Kaori.
Maybe she could convince Shouta and Hizashi to help her.
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The time between the start of the term and the Sports festival seemed to fly.
Between having the break-in from the reporters on the second day, then the USJ incident the very next day, the Sports Festival was actually brought forward a couple of weeks and Nemuri winced every time she had help out with the heroics students.
Shouta and Kan were pushing their kids harder than in previous years, Shouta was a lot rougher on his than Kan, but both first-year heroics teachers were bringing the pain down on their students.
The bone-breaker kid had been taken aside after the break-ins, and now wasn’t actually breaking his bones thanks to Shouta and Hizashi’s quirk counselling. The explosive boy had been given a talk as well, discussing his behaviour - Nemuri only knew ‘cause she’d buggered Hizashi about it - and he’d settled down slightly. All Might had been told not to place those two against each other, or pair them up with each other in classes because of the dynamic between them.
(Even Kan saw how toxic the two boy’s relationship was, and Nemuri was the one to have called him “thick-headed” when they first met. Even with the man’s “villainous” quirk, Kan sucked at seeing how fucked up their society was. Shouta had to kick the other man’s ass when Kan made some quirkist comments when the two first met.)
Shouta had sent Yaoyorozu Momo and Ashido Mina to Nemuri a few days after the USJ break-in after - according to both girls - taking Mineta Minoru to see Nezu. The three of them bonded on being females and what it meant to be strong, independent women working in a male-dominated workforce.
Nemuri even managed to get the story of how Mineta had attempted to grope Yaoyorozu only for Ashido to step in and have the boy grab onto her. She was very glad that Shouta was taking care of that gross child, ‘cause she would’ve whooped his ass into the stratosphere.
With both those two girls, and the rest of 1-A’s girls coming to her at lunchtimes, Nemuri borrowed a classroom for them to eat, and eventually, the girls from 1-B found out, and shortly there was at least one female from each first-year class in the classroom at lunchtimes.
Art History classes with each class were pretty much like any other year. Sometimes there was a student who popped up with an appreciation, but usually, most kids didn’t give a fuck.
And all too suddenly, the Sports Festival was upon them.
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Nemuri was the students’ announcer/director for the events, so all she had to do was follow a script and spice it up a little.
(It had been decided after ten minutes of Shouta announcing that he would never take the role Nemuri had. The man just let his dark sarcastic humour loose, and terrified the students of that year.)
She didn’t even know about the Shinso kid’s request until Hizashi announced the kid’s name against the bone-breaker kid. “Sukoshi” Hitoshi against Midoriya Izuku.
Nemuri almost failed to announce the match to start, which made people in the crowd whisper as the fight between the two boys started.
(Had she been looking for the wrong person the whole time? Nemuri had been eyeing at the girls in their first year at Yuuei, in case they were Kaori, should she have been looking at the males instead??)
"Sukoshi" was the only Gen-Ed student to get through to the third round, so when he was enviably taken out by Bone-Breaker - she hadn't expected for Midoriya to break out of "Sukoshi"'s quirk, but once he did, she knew it was unfortunately over for Shinso - she knew that the kid still had another shot at heroics. Either from her or Shouta.
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And of course, Shouta snatched up Shinso Hitoshi before Nemuri could even talk to the kid.
Her friend was awfully smug about it, too.
“C’mon, Shou, just let me watch one session,” Nemuri was just about ready to get on her hands and knees to beg. And her worst friend in the entire world just raised an eyebrow at her.
The underground hero just rolled his eyes casually, “You’ll have to ask Shinso, Nemuri.”
The woman groaned, “He’s avoiding meee,” she pouted, “All I want to ask him is if he’s Kaori, but as soon as I try to find him outside of class, he’s with you. It’s not fair, Shouuu!!!”
Her friend rolled his eyes again, and Nemuri flicked her middle finger up at Hizashi, causing the man who was silently laughing to choke on the water he’d attempted to drink. Hitting his chest with a fist as his watery eyes attempted to playfully glare at her.
Good, some attempted murder before lunch. Nemuri winked and flashed a smirk at the blond.
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Nemuri didn’t get a chance to properly speak with Shinso outside of a formal setting until the student had already transferred inot 1-A, taking Mineta’s former place, and gotten his Provisional Hero License. A massive feat for the kid who entered into the course late.
Their meeting hadn’t even been planned (by her) or anything, Nemuri had just come across Shinso wandering around the halls of Yuuei one of the rare lunchtimes that Nemuri didn’t stay in the “Girl’s room” as a shield of sorts against the male students.
“Shinso-kun,” Nemuri said cherily, unable to hide the surprise on her face at seeing the purple-haired teen.
Shinso took a step back from her, “Oh, uh, sorry, Midnight-sensei.”
“No problem!” Nemuri almost stepped aside so the teen could pass, but remembered at the last second, “Hey, Kiddo, I was just wondering why you used that fake name for the sports festival?”
She winced at how non-gentle her words came out, and how Shinso stiffened and his face closed up ever so slightly, “Sensei, you know what my quirk is,” his eyes hardened, “it’s better off for everyone if villains don’t find whatever remains of my birth family.”
Nemuri winced once again, “Oh, right,” she chirped, “Sorry ‘bout that, Shinso-kun,” she stepped aside this time, “Have a nice day, enjoy training with Shouta this afternoon.”
She quickly left the boy, hoping that she didn’t fuck up even more just because of her search for Sukoshi Kaori.
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It wasn’t until another year later did Nemuri finally find out who her letter writer was.
It wasn’t even her who had found it out, instead little Broke-breaker - who was no longer so little - had managed to convice the letter writer to come forward and admit to the wrong-doings of his father. Sometime during the many court dates, the truth of how the Todoroki children attempted to get a hero, any hero other than their father to stop the man.
The youngest, Shouto-kun, had been the infamous letter writer, Sukoshi Kaori. He’d been attempting to gain Nemuri’s trust through the letters but then he’d had to go to Yuuei, and suddenly everything got both better and worse.
When the court had been realsed, Nemuri found her way to the Todoroki children, and begged forgiveness from Shouto-kun who just blinked at her before tilting his head to ask why.
It was such a Todoroki Shouto response that it made her chuckle for a moment.
“I never noticed,” Nemuri made vague gesture, “Everything.”
Shouto-kun just glanced at Midoriya-kun - the green-haired kid had joined the Todoroki children shortly before Nemuri had gotten to them - who beamed, before turning back to Nemuri, “You’re forgiven… I guess,” he shrugged, “Izuku says that you should know how much that perfume meant to my sister, she loved it when you brought it out.”
Nemuri chuckled, glancing over at the older Todoroki siblings, the white with red flecks haired woman flushed ever so slightly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as she turned to look at the oldest Todoroki sibling, former criminal Dabi, Todoroki Touya.
“Thank you for the letters, anyway,” Nemuri smiled gently, “They were my favourite things over the years.”
There, right there, the smallest hint of smile, which in Todoroki Shouto speak was enough to translate into a massive beam worthy of a Midoriya Izuku smile, “I liked writing them inbetween training sessions-” Midoriya-kun’s face went dark for a moment as Nemuri frowned for a split second, but the dual-haired teen didn’t bother to notice, “-so, thank you, Midnight-sensei.”
Nemuri smiled gently, “Feel free to use my family name, Todoroki-kun.”
“Only if you call me Shouto, Kayama-san,” He shuddered, “I don’t think I want to be known as Todoroki anymore.”
“Of course,” Nemuri smiled as Midoriya-kun pressed his side to T- Shouto-kun, and the younger male made a “normal” - for an everyday person - smile that only made Midoriya’s smile grow.
Aww, what a cute couple those two were going to make.