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“Granddaughter?” Sorahiko scowled at the street stall owner, who towered over him and Eri both and yet had none of the guts that he and Eri had combined. Or so Sorahiko was betting. He kept his head tilted upwards and sent him a glare that would’ve made All Might cower. Sorahiko could confirm that first-hand. “Are you calling me old, you zygotic punk?”
The stall owner, a boy in his early twenties, could’ve stood up for himself. There was no question about Sorahiko’s elderly age. To emphasize it, he tugged at his beard, whose silver hair – that had eighty-odd years to grow fine and beautiful! – he’d neatened in the mirror this morning.
“N-No,” the boy stammered instead, waving his arms around, the two bags of taiyaki still clutched in one hand. “That wasn’t what I meant–”
Behind his wireframe glasses, Sorahiko made a mean face. At the kid’s now-panicked expression, he bought it. “Sure hadn’t sounded like you didn’t mean it, eh?”
Eri’s grip on his index and middle fingers tightened. At that moment, he remembered what her guardian and Midoriya, on separate occasions, had mentioned about her background before, about what the dynamics between her and her so-called father figure had been like. He glanced at Eri, except she said:
“Torino-san is a family friend.” Her voice had to be louder here if Sorahiko and the stall owner could hear her. But it was still barely audible and nervous, as she’d been all evening as they had weaved through the music and human bustle of the festival. The hand not grasped around Sorahiko’s was toying with the sash of her red and white yukata. “He’s looking after me tonight.”
How unexpected, Sorahiko thought. She even picked up on my attempt to be inconspicuous with my civilian wear. My dependable sidekick!
“S-Sorry, sir! Young miss!” The stall owner’s face and neck were red and sweaty, and Sorahiko returned to amusing himself by thinking they were probably caused by more than just the crowd and summer heat. “I- I assumed–”
Sorahiko spared another glance at Eri, who watched the whole exchange with mild confusion, and decided to go for it. He was getting old; he had to get his fun from somewhere.
He clacked the ferrule of his cane against the asphalt, ignoring the boy’s “eek!” and said, “You assumed! And while you’re busy assuming, aren’t you keeping this young lady waiting?”
“Y-Yes, I’m sorry!” He thrust the paper bags of taiyaki over the counter and over their heads. Slightly terrified as the stall owner was though, he still lowered his arm further, over the cakes of assorted fillings displayed. Eri let go of Sorahiko and reached up with both hands to accept them. “Please enjoy your meal!”
Then the kid bowed. Deeply.
Too easy, thought Sorahiko with glee.
But Eri, ever so sweet, offered a small smile. “Thank you,” she said, and to the boy’s credit, he looked back up and returned it.
They turned away from the taiyaki stand. Cane tapping against the ground, Sorahiko led her out of the thronging crowd, where tourists and locals squeezed shoulder to shoulder – or in their case, shoulder to hip – between the lines of food stalls, and towards a pedestrian walk by a shuttered furniture store.
It was still noisy, but at least there was no more need to raise their voices to be heard. Light from the streetlamps and paper lanterns hung between them provided illumination. Eri peered into the bags she carried. She looked fascinated by their contents.
“Try yours,” Sorahiko said, as they stopped under a lamppost. “It’s not going to swim away.”
She glanced at him, then held out a bag, the one marked ‘red bean’ with a black marker. “Gran Torino-san?” she said, and only returned her attention to her own – marked ‘chocolate’ – when he accepted it.
Then, she shuffled the fish’s head out of the bag, and bit into it.
Now, Sorahiko had a sweet tooth. Always did. Toshinori – and recently, Midoriya, since he took after his mentor in all sorts of terrible ways – bothered him about his dietary intake when they dared, but boys like them would grow up to be naggers. (Sorahiko despaired for Midoriya’s future partner. He would have despaired for Toshinori's, too, if he hadn’t already despaired for Toshinori’s love life.)
But Sorahiko had suffered through years of psychological stress just by looking after his student, then again by looking after batches of snot-nosed brats at Yuuei High, and now continued to do so by looking after his student’s student. He deserved to consume his beloved taiyaki with as much gusto as he desired.
He’d just never seen anyone else come close to doing the same.
“This is– This–” Eri stumbled over her words. Her eyes were shining, and she seemed to forget her tendency towards anxiety-laced propriety as she chewed and tried to get her words out at the same time. “This is amazing!”
Chocolate paste smeared the side of her mouth, and she started bouncing on her feet. She took another huge bite out of the pastry, going for the crispier part of the cake, and watching her, Sorahiko had never felt more gratified.
“Isn’t it?” He grinned, not needing to bend down to commiserate with her. The pleasures of shriveling with age! “I don’t know what Eraserhead was thinking, not letting you try this before.”
“Aizawa-san bought me candy strawberries,” Eri said with a full mouth.
Sorahiko didn’t know the man well, beyond his impressions from Toshinori’s stories, as well as when he’d met Eri with the teacher and his students today. He didn’t seem like the sort to walk around offering children candied fruits. Then again, he did take her in. And he was a homeroom teacher for one of Yuuei’s hero classes. Sorahiko remembered what that had been like. “Did he buy you anything else today?”
Eri started to shake her head, then she looked down at her outfit. “My yukata.”
“Oh? He shopped for that with you?”
She nodded. “And he tied my hair.”
The stoic underground hero browsing boutiques and putting girls’ hair up in buns? That was both an entertaining image and a difficult feat to beat, but Sorahiko’s lips quirked up. “Hn. You really like sweets, don’t you?”
She nodded so quickly her bangs slipped into her face from where they’d been tucked behind her horn. “But Aizawa-san says it’s unhealthy if I eat too much.”
“Did he now?”
Another nagger, Sorahiko thought with dismay. Does Yuuei churn out health freaks today?
Eri wasn’t done. “Maybe…” And here, her characteristic skittishness – or shyness; he still didn’t know her well enough to differentiate between her behavior for them – returned. “Maybe I shouldn’t…”
She slowed her chewing, skin between her brows furrowed at her dessert. Her taiyaki’s head and torso were already gone. The crunchy tail remained.
Sorahiko distracted her. “You have chocolate here.” He tapped the side of his lips.
She wiped it with a finger, looked at it, then stuck that fingertip into her mouth.
If Sorahiko were anyone else, like her actual guardian, or god forbid, his own student or his student’s student, he might’ve told her to stop. Alas!
And with all this talk about Eraserhead, Sorahiko ought to return her to him and their friends.
Then, he thought about it a little more. The reason why he’d brought her along on his quest to find a taiyaki stand was because she had appeared so puzzled when he’d mentioned he wanted to eat it when they’d first gotten here. He’d half expected her to ask, yet she’d stayed silent, clinging onto either Eraserhead’s or Midoriya’s pants, until he’d asked her if she wanted one, too.
“What’s…” she’d responded with that hesitance of hers. “What’s taiyaki?”
Returning this kid to the man who, after months of caring for her, exposed her to no basic knowledge of local street food apart from fruit dipped in sugar? Sorahiko feared for her future.
“What if you stick with me a little longer,” he said, tugging his own pastry out of his bag and leaning in, “and I let you try all the sweets on this street?” She looked back up, and he continued, answering her question before she’d even asked; it was written all over her face. Poor kid. “Just for tonight. It’s not healthy if you eat them every day” – Sorahiko brushed aside the distaste of hearing Toshinori’s words passing through his lips – “but once in a while is okay!”
Eri’s whole being perked up. “R-Really?”
Plans were already formulating in Sorahiko’s mind. What did he recall about these streets’ layouts and about the Erasure Hero’s modus operandi? “When you get to my old age, Eri-chan,” he said, knowing he sounded sagely, “you’ll learn to live a little.”
She had finished her last tailfin of taiyaki, and was already eyeing the uneaten one in Sorahiko’s hand. She did it discreetly; her timidity from earlier that evening was slipping further and further away. But all she said was, “Okay!” and curled her hand around Sorahiko’s wrist.
Sorahiko beamed, oddly proud, and pointed down the street with his cane, where the festival thrummed with the scents of street food and the glow of Tokyo’s lights at night. “Then let’s go!”
Right before they stepped back into the flock of people, Eri started, “S-So, Gran Torino-san…”
“Hm?”
“You agree you’re old?”