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It's 5pm on a lovely Monday afternoon and Ashido Mina thinks she's going to suffer a slow, agonising death. And no, she's not exaggerating. Not at all. Not even a little bit. She had foreseen this, once upon a time, that she'd pass away by the unforgiving hands of boredom.
Yes. Ashido Mina is bored out of her mind. And she is dying because of it.
Well… maybe not dying dying, but can you really blame her for feeling like this? When all her classmates are out there doing hero work in their work studies, and she's here, in 3-A's common room, completely alone, not even her phone or her favourite telenovela can distract her from her misery.
And all because she sprained her ankle and hit her head after suffering a nasty fall during class training that morning. Of course, Recovery Girl did heal her, but the agency she was working with had told her to take the rest of the day off to recover, and she'd been forbidden from using the training grounds too.
“Take it easy,” Recovery Girl had said, but this is anything but easy.
She is restless, she doesn’t want to keep lying on the sofa, aimlessly staring at the TV.
Her saving grace comes in the form of the small 8-year-old girl class 3-A had metaphorically adopted a couple of years ago, and their ex-homeroom teacher who had actually adopted said girl those couple of years ago, both coming in from the front door.
As soon as she sees them, Mina jumps from the sofa.
“Hi there, Eri-chan!” she exclaims. “And hello, Aizawa-sensei.”
The girl gives her a little wave, strangely shy.
“Hello, Ashido,” Aizawa says. “Sorry to bother you, but would you mind keeping Eri company for a couple of hours? I just got called in about a case I’m working on. They need me at the police station as fast as possible… but I don’t want to leave Eri alone right now.”
Awwww, Mina internally coos. He’s such a caring dad! He looks so worried for Eri. I bet that if he could, he’d postpone the work to stay with her.
“I would love to spend the afternoon with Eri if that’s okay with her!” Mina says.
Aizawa crouches down to Eri’s height and says something in a whisper that Mina can’t make out. In response, Eri nods and pulls Aizawa into a hug that he doesn’t hesitate to return. Then, she walks to Ashido and tentatively takes her hand.
Gosh, she’s so sweet, Mina barely manages to contain the urge to squeal.
Aizawa is already opening the door to leave, but he turns around one last time to look at the girls.
“Don’t worry, sensei,” Mina says. “We’re going to have a lot of fun together! And I’ll promise to take good care of her.”
Aizawa nods, looking a little more at ease.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he says.
“Take as long as you need!” Mina responds, and by the time she’s done speaking, he’s already left. She looks down at Eri, who is staring intently at the carpeted floor. “Are you hungry, Eri-chan?”
She nods, slightly.
“Then I’ve got just the thing!”
Class 3A did keep up their stock of apples in the pantry for a reason.
Ten minutes later, Eri appeared to be a whole different person. Her favourite snack really did wonders to raise her spirits. Now, she was talking excitedly about her day at school: how they’d started learning origami, how they’d learned some new tricky words and how she’d managed to spell the trickiest one without help, how they’d done some spoken presentations about their family — “I got to speak about Mirio-nii and Deku-nii too!” — and throughout it all, Mina listened attentively. She barely even had to intervene to get the little girl to talk.
It was cute how she was developing a rambling habit, not unlike Midoriya’s.
“What about recess?” Mina inquires. “Have you made new friends this year?”
Eri nods and smiles.
“Yes! Niji-chan has the prettiest rainbow eyes, and Ren-kun is a bit weird but he’s nice, and Aoi-chan, she —” she cuts herself off, frowning.
Something happened at school today. Something to do with that Aoi kid, didn’t it? Something that had made Eri feel less talkative earlier.
“What’s wrong Eri-chan?” Mina asks and guides her to sit on the sofa. “Did Aoi-chan do something? Say something?”
Eri’s eyes don’t quite meet Mina’s and her hands tremble on her lap. She talks very quietly.
“She– she said that… she said that my hair is like an old lady’s, that my eyes are creepy and that my horn is weird…”
Mina has a sudden urge to find that Aoi kid and give her a piece of her mind, but she does know that threatening an eight-year-old is not the (correct) solution to the problem, so she resolves to do what she is allowed to do and comfort Eri.
“I know that my quirk isn’t a curse,” she continues. “I know that — but sometimes I can’t help but feel that I was cursed. Do other people see me like a curse?”
Slowly so as to not startle her, Mina takes Eri’s hands in hers.
“Eri-chan, can you look at me?”
She does, and Mina has a clear view of the silent tears that are falling down her pale cheeks.
“I don’t think Aoi-chan is right,” Mina says. “Think about it. You know Shouto, right? Half his hair is white and he told me that his brothers and sister also have white hair — and they’re not old ladies, are they?”
Eri shakes her head and lets out a little giggle despite her tears still falling. Mina smiles softly.
“You also know people with red eyes. Katsuki, Tenya, Yamada-sensei… even Aizawa-sensei has red eyes when he uses his quirk! And he looks very cool, doesn’t he?”
Eri nods fervently.
“He’s the coolest!”
Mina nods with her in agreement.
“He is!” she exclaims. “And as for your horn… if yours is weird then mine are weird too! But honestly, I think your horn is very pretty, Eri-chan. It looks like it’s made out of magic! Very good, pretty magic.”
By now, the tears have ceased and Eri looks at Mina with awe.
“Really?”
“Really-really,” Mina confirms. “Say, Eri-chan, when you look at me, do you think my horns, or my hair, or my skin, or my eyes are weird or creepy?”
“No!” Eri’s eyes widen in alarm. “You’re not creepy or weird! You’re very, very pretty! And your eyes are super cool! I like them even better than Niji-chan’s!”
This kid is so sweet!
“Thank you!” Mina laughs. “You see, Eri-chan, it’s okay to look a little different to the rest. It doesn’t have to be bad, no matter what other people may say.”
Eri rubs her eyes with one hand and then immediately returns it to Mina’s grasp.
“Do you really think so?” She asks, voice small but hopeful.
“I do,” Mina says. “In fact, I think Aoi-chan is just jealous of you, cause you’re a very pretty girl, and a strong one too. Don’t let a girl who doesn’t really know you tell you how to feel about yourself, okay?”
Eri gifts her with a wobbly but genuine smile.
“Okay, Mina-nee.”
Mina squeals. She can’t help it.
She jumps up from the sofa and holds onto Eri, then spins around and around, letting Eri fly as bouts of contagious laughter fill the room.
“You’re too cute Eri-chan! The cutest little sister!”
They calm down after a while of running around the common room and having fun. For all the training Mina does, it still leaves her panting and a bit sweaty.
“What should we do now, Mina-nee?” Eri says, somehow still not tired.
Mina considers the question carefully.
“Well, it’s still a while till Aizawa-sensei or any of my classmates are due to arrive so we might as well use this time productively…” She looks at Eri, who is hanging onto her every word. “How about we do a make-over?”
“A make-over?” the little girl asks.
“Yup,” Mina says and starts numbering a list with her fingers. “New hairstyle, make-up, nail polish… we both look pretty now, but after this, we’ll look the prettiest!”
“Will we have time for all that?” she asks somewhat sceptically, but Mina can see that she is intrigued.
“Oh, Eri-chan.” Mina grins. “I’ll make sure we do.”
They go up to Mina’s room to fetch what they need, and they’re ready to start their ‘make-over afternoon’.
Hours later, they’re both sitting on the common room’s sofa, bent over Mina’s polaroid camera.
“I like… this photo best.”
“Then you can keep it Eri-chan!”
“Really? Thank you, Mina-nee!”
When Aizawa comes back, he’s slightly out of breath. He probably ran back across campus to get here as soon as possible.
Such a good dad.
The moment he sees them though, he stops right in his tracks.
“Hello Aizawa-sensei!” Mina exclaims, smiling cheekily.
“You’re back!” Eri runs to Aizawa. “Did you see? Did you see? Mina-nee and I had a make-over!”
Aizawa raised an eyebrow at Eri as she showed off her new braided hairstyle decorated with clips of flowers and butterflies, and her still-drying nails — each one painted a different colour, of course. He shot Mina a sceptical look.
“I see.”
Eri smiles all sweet and innocent.
“I look very pretty, don’t I?”
At that, Aizawa’s gaze returns to Eri, and every part of him seems to soften.
“You do, kiddo,” he says. “You always do.”
Eri flushes at the compliment, seemingly very pleased with herself.
“That's what I've been telling her!” says Mina from the sofa. “She never really needed a make-over, but it was still fun. Right, Eri-chan?”
“Very fun, Mina-nee,” reiterates Eri.
“I'm glad,” says Aizawa, and Mina knows he very much means it. “Thank you Ashido.”
“It was my pleasure,” she says. “We really did have a great time together.”
Mina smiles a full-watt grin and Eri mirrors her.
This may not have been the ‘rest day’ she was supposed to take, but she wouldn’t change it for the world.