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“Sensei,” Genos says one day, with great ceremony and completely out of the blue, “I really admire your iron-strong dedication to chastity as a central pillar of your training regimen!”
“What,” Saitama says, barely looking up from this month's supermarket discount catalogue.
“I admire your – ”
“No, I heard you the first time. Just. What.”
“Well,” Genos elaborates, “during all of the time I've been your disciple, you've never once gone on a date, or gone out to pick someone up, or even expressed any intention to do so. That's a true master's dedication.” He bows, folding at the waist like a flip phone. He's probably going for something dignified, but since it's his turn to do the dishes, his hands are inside yellow rubber gloves up to the elbow and he's holding the pink pig-shaped sponge that came with last week's groceries as a promotional gift. It's almost enough to make the whole situation funny instead of depressing.
Almost. Saitama sighs in preparation for once again having to set the kid straight. “Dedication? What are you talking about? Chastity is not a central pillar of the training regimen.”
Genos blinks, un-bowing. The pig sponge is dripping a soapy puddle onto the floor. “But then – ! Surely you must be hounded by admirers. Have none of them been good enough for you?”
“That's not it, either.” Saitama is under no illusions: he's a pretty average-looking guy, which means he has a pretty average amount of admirers. Whether or not people are into him isn't the problem.
“Then why?”
“What's with the sudden interest in my love life?” He flicks to another page in the discount catalogue. That rice cooker is criminally on sale right now. If he looks at it even for a second longer, he runs the risk of actually buying it. “Why d'you care?”
“Because you deserve happiness, sensei,” Genos says.
Oh shit, it's so earnest, too. It would sound sarcastic on anyone else, but Genos wouldn't know sarcasm if it threw a cactus at him; Saitama can't leave him hanging. He sighs again. It's not like he has anything to hide. Backstory-telling is just always lame, is all.
“Ever since I completed my training,” he explains, “I went on exactly one date. The guy was a little annoying, to be honest, one of those people who just really love to hear themselves talk, but he was good-looking enough to get away with it, I guess. Anyway, we went out for drinks, and when we left the bar he was still talking, so I figured I'd make out with him for a bit just to see if that would be better than listening to him. And then his head exploded.” He waves his hand around. “Just went – splat. All over the sidewalk, and the door, and the display window. I'm banned from that bar to this day. Haven't gone on a date since.”
“Sensei,” Genos says, eyes wide. “That's – tragic.”
“It's really not a big deal,” Saitama says, but it's too late. Genos' eyes are glowing with the kind of determination that means he will literally not listen to anything Saitama tells him.
“It must be part of your incredible power,” he says. “Maybe the passion behind a kiss is just the same as the passion behind a punch delivered in a heated battle – ”
“I mean, I was pretty half-hearted about kissing the guy actually – ”
“ – which in turn means that anyone falling victim to your fist would also fall victim to your lips – ”
“Can you please phrase that literally any other way – ”
“ – and yet, since you can defeat anyone with a single punch, anyone would also die after a single kiss!”
Genos is pointing the sponge at him now, like he's reached some epic kind of conclusion. Saitama turns another page. “Exactly. So you see, there's no point. Unless I find someone who's literally invincible, or whose body can be rebuilt or something, it's just a fact that I'm gonna have to live with.”
For a long moment, Genos is silent. Almost, Saitama can get himself to hope that the issue has actually been dropped. He stares at the catalogue with careful focus. They're doing reduced prices on plates and bowls, too. Didn't he accidentally break a bowl the other day? Better buy a new one.
“My body can be rebuilt,” Genos says eventually.
“Don't even think about it,” Saitama says, not missing a beat. It's not like he hasn't noticed the crush. “You get yourself blown up enough as is, usually for my sake. I'm not enabling your self-destructive tendencies more than I have to.”
“Yes, sensei,” Genos says, sounding only marginally rejected. Saitama hopes it's enough for him to give it a rest.
Genos does not give it a rest.
“Good luck defeating me!” yells Brogan the ManSmasher, who is the monster causing this week's partial city destruction. “For you see, I can't be defeated! My healing factor is so powerful, any wound you inflict on me will disappear instantly!”
Saitama is only half-listening, more concerned with getting close enough to punch the guy out of existence. So he doesn't really pay attention when Genos stops his attack and looks at the monster in an ominously thoughtful way.
“Hey, Brogan the ManSmasher,” the kid says. “Would you be interested in going on a date?”
Oh god no.
“With who?” Brogan the ManSmasher says, instead of dismissing the idea out of hand like any reasonable monster would.
Genos points at Saitama. Brogan the ManSmasher seems to consider it.
“Oh. Hm. Well, why not!”
“Genos,” Saitama says weakly.
“It will be good for you, sensei,” Genos insists.
“We could take a walk along the beach,” Brogan the ManSmasher suggests, suddenly sounding bashful.
Life is, all things considered, pretty pointless in and of itself. There's not really an inherent meaning to anything anyone does, good or evil; the things that don't work out die off, and those that do work out get to survive, no judgment. For most things, there's no real reason to do them at all.
Conversely though, that means that there's also no real reason not to do them.
Saitama sighs.
“I do like walking along the beach,” he admits, defeated.
“I don't do this very often,” Saitama says.
Brogan the ManSmasher rubs at the back of his neck. The late-afternoon light of the setting sun is pretty flattering on his dark green skin. “That's alright. I don't have much downtime either, to be honest. Trying to conquer the world is time-consuming, y'know? Maybe you could just start by telling me something about yourself.”
Saitama shrugs, dragging his feet through the sand. “Not that much to tell. I'm not a very interesting guy.”
Brogan crosses two of his six arms. “Nonsense. Anyone can be interesting, if you take the time to listen to them. Find the thing that they're passionate about.”
Saitama isn't too sure about that. In his experience, being passionate is usually exhausting. “What are you passionate about? Conquering the world?”
“Oh,” Brogan says. “no, not – not really.” He looks across the beach; there's a flock of seagulls resting in the shallow waters not too far ahead. Otherwise, the beach is deserted. Everyone ran away as soon as they saw the intimidating monster arrive. Fair enough. Saitama can see one last brave, trembling couple cower behind a pile of rocks in the middle distance. “It's funny, you know. When I first started attacking humans, I did feel passionate about it. But the more I had to reach goals, meet deadlines, improve my performance … the more that passion dissipated. Now it's nothing more than a job to me.”
“That sucks,” Saitama says.
“It's not all bad,” Brogan reflects. “Who knows, maybe it can be an opportunity for change. Direct my energy somewhere else, broaden my horizons, that kind of thing. But what about you? You still haven't told me anything.”
“I guess I don't think about this stuff the same way,” Saitama says. “I'm a pretty simple guy, I go with the flow. Wasn't even my idea to go on a date in the first place.”
“Are you regretting it so far?” Brogan says with a slight smile on both of his mouths. His teeth look very sharp. Instead of answering, Saitama takes one of his six hands.
They walk around for a little longer, and honestly? It's a pretty good time. Brogan the ManSmasher has a tendency to overthink things, and the sharp teeth seem impractical, but he's an engaging guy, and he really does make the extra limbs and orifices work for himself. So when there's a lull in the conversation and they're taking a moment to admire the human-less scenery, Saitama decides to just go for it.
“Can I kiss you?” he says to be polite, but also because Brogan the ManSmasher is a good three heads taller than him so they'll have to cooperate on this. Brogan leans down until Saitama can reach the smaller of his mouths (the one with the nicer lips, Saitama notes).
A second later, the beach is covered in blood and brains and guts. Looks like Brogan the ManSmasher overestimated his healing factor a little.
“Fuck,” Saitama sighs.
“Hey, long time no see,” the man says as soon as Saitama sits down at the bar, and then, “Oh wow. Why is there so much blood on your shirt? Is someone in danger? Do you need help?”
It takes Saitama a second to place the pair of glasses and the shiny green helmet. Right, the Bike Guy. Unlicensed Rider, maybe? He can't be expected to remember all of these made-up names. Unless that's the guy's real name and his parents were just very passionate about their son not driving a car.
“I went on a date,” he says by way of explanation.
Bike Guy eyes his bloody shirt in sympathy. “Was it that bad?”
“No, it was nice. Up until the end, anyway.” It had been nice. Saitama isn't a sentimental guy, but the whole death-by-making-out thing is dragging him down more than he thought. That's what he gets for putting himself out there. “Don't really wanna talk about it.”
“That's cool,” Bike Guy says, squeezing his shoulder. “Hey, drinks are on me, okay?”
And sure, Saitama may not be in the mood for socializing, but it would be pretty insane for him to refuse free stuff. “Thanks. So, uh, what have you been up to?”
Bike Guy waves at the bartender and gestures for two beers. “Oh, just a few projects here and there.”
“You're freelancing or something?”
“No, no.” He pushes up his glasses, a sudden spark of passion in his eyes. “I'm a DIY-enthusiast.”
Huh. That's not as boring as Saitama expected. Everyone knows that Doing It Yourself can be a great way to save money. “You're into that?”
“Yeah. I hate overspending, so why not learn how to make things?” Bike Guy brandishes his wallet. “I made this out of a milk carton.”
“It looks a little lame,” Saitama says, eyeing the carefully folded cardboard and the meticulously glued-on velcro.
Bike Guy is undeterred. “That's the genius part! The lamer your wallet, the less you'll be tempted to overspend.”
That's – honestly not the worst point ever made. Saitama sips his beer as Bike Guy launches into a passionate plea for his milk carton wallet, already feeling better.
“Sensei,” Genos says a few days later, in that ominous tone that means it's already way too late to stop whatever he's been planning, “I have created an online dating profile for you.”
Saitama looks up from the instructions on how to make a wallet out of a milk carton, which is more complicated than he thought. “There really haven't been enough villains attacking the city lately, have there?”
“Now, the Hero Association has its own dating platform,” Genos continues, “but since you have already met most of the other heroes and haven't approached any of them, it seems unnecessary to waste your time with that. Therefore, I signed you up to Monstr instead.”
“Monsters have a dating platform?”
“Not just one. There is also OkCreature and EldritchWhores, which are a little more forward. Of course, if you'd prefer setting up a profile for those as well, I'd be happy to – ”
“I'm, uh, gonna take it slow, thanks.” Resigning himself to the fact that Genos will not be letting this go unless Saitama at least hears him out, he closes the borrowed DIY manual and scoots over to the laptop. “What did you write?”
“Hello,” Genos reads out mechanically. “My name is Saitama. I enjoy discount codes and long walks on the beach. Please only contact if you are indestructible or have great regenerative powers, as I might otherwise kill you. Perhaps you are a nine, and I will be the one you need.”
“You just stole that last one from some pick-up-lines-themed listicle,” Saitama points out.
“The literature on the subject suggested ending on a humorous note,” Genos defends.
Saitama scrolls through the photos Genos picked for him. They're pretty flattering. And while the profile's description is weird, it's guaranteed to catch someone's attention.
“You're not bad at this,” he says. “It's sweet of you to go through all that trouble, too.”
“That's because you deserve it,” Genos says earnestly, and then adds just as earnestly, “and really, sensei, with the way you've been going about this, you'll need all the help you can get.”
Saitama's first Monstr date is with a hive mind made up of millions of individual micro-organisms who, according to their dating profile, can piece themselves back together after sustaining even the worst kind of damage. The date goes okay, except for how the hive mind takes him to a really expensive restaurant and then implies he should be the one footing the bill.
“No way,” Saitama says. “You picked the venue, you're paying.”
The hive mind takes a moment to debate this but eventually agrees. They kiss under a streetlight outside the restaurant.
The organism explodes into a myriad of little cells.
Saitama waits a moment. At first, it looks like they are indeed piecing themselves back together, but when the cells have accumulated into two about equally large blobs, they suddenly start arguing about why they didn't just split the bill, and the overall quality of the date, and the moral implications of monsters going on dates with heroes in the first place, which somehow segues into a heated political debate.
“The Hero Association is nothing but a tax evasion scheme for Sweet Mask to pour billions of laundered yen into!” one of the blobs yells, at which point Saitama is willing to write the whole thing off as a failure.
A few dates follow after that, none of them significantly better. Most of the monsters die from a first kiss right away, and even those who don't aren't exactly keen on trying a second one. The only one who seems fine with it is Zombieman, who signed up to Monstr because “monsters are just way hotter than humans, bu you're also okay I guess”. Still, watching his brains splatter all over the pavement and then slowly grow back out of his neck kind of kills the mood for Saitama anyway.
“None of this is working,” he complains to Genos, scrubbing flaky rotten zombie flesh off his t-shirt. “I'm getting my hopes up for nothing. Hand-holding is the most action I'm gonna get.”
“Maybe we should sign you up to EldritchWhores, after all,” Genos says.
“Your life has no importance whatsoever,” Saitama's EldritchWhores-date says, jiggling their tentacles around. “I have traveled dimensions that go far beyond human comprehension. I have seen the truths that permeate every atom of every known universe. I have experienced worlds the mere sight of which would make your meaningless human brain shrivel.”
“I mean, not that I don't agree with your philosophy and all,” Saitama says, giving up on counting how many limbs exactly the entity is sporting, “but that's a pretty rude thing to say on a first date.”
“Your social constructs of politeness and flimsy communication rules are beneath me,” the entity says. “They do nothing but mask the truth that you are too cowardly to realize.”
“Okay, wow. No need to get so personal.”
“Personhood is but the illusion of meaning in a universe of indifference.”
Saitama sighs. This is gonna be a long one.
He's sitting at the bar and nursing a beer on his own when Bike Guy comes in, shiny green helmet on his head.
“Mind if I join you?” Bike Guy says.
Saitama wiggles his shoulders in a shrug; Bike Guy smiles and sits down on the stool next to him.
“Went on another date today,” Saitama says.
“Not as bloody as that first one, I see.”
“No. We just – didn't click.” They didn't even get to kiss. Halfway through the date, the entity decided to phase into another dimension, which was just super rude. Surely Saitama isn't that boring. Shame; the tentacle thing seemed pretty hot.
“Man, I'm sorry,” Bike Guy sighs. “It's hard to find someone who you admire, but also have enough in common to feel comfortable with, right?”
As he's speaking, he peels his hands out of his gloves and takes off his protective glasses, but the helmet stays on his head. Only a few strands of brown hair are peeking out from underneath. They look soft in the dim light, a harsh contrast to the sleek, unforgiving green plastic.
“Do you never take that thing off?” Saitama asks.
“Not since the attack of the Deep Sea King,” Bike Guy says seriously. “Safety always comes first.”
Behind his regular glasses (which he was wearing underneath the protective ones, apparently), his eyes flash with that spark of passion again. Saitama vaguely remembers the run-in with the Deep Sea King and how impressed he was with the Bike Guy's commitment to helping out; he remembers far better the evening a few days later when they had dinner together. It had been the first time in a long while he'd felt – not belittled, or distrusted, or underestimated, or idolized – but respected. Understood. More than that, he'd felt comfortable.
“You know what,” he says, waving at the bartender. “Drinks are on me this time.”
It's a dead-end idea, it has to be. And yet hanging out in this bar with Bike Guy and listening to him talk about road safety is a million times nicer than sitting in a restaurant with a hive mind, or punching some supposedly invincible bad guy into oblivion, or even – even going to the big sale on the last Saturday of every month, although that's a close one. Saitama thinks about it: is there any way this might work out? Would he really be fine with nothing more than hand-holding? Would the Bike Guy be fine with that? On that note, should he maybe ask his name first? It's kind of too late for that now without it being extremely awkward. Maybe Saitama can get a hold of the milk carton wallet (which is still pretty lame) and take a peek at his driver's license. Oh wait, he doesn't have one. Fuck.
“You know,” Bike Guy interrupts his thoughts, “it really sucks that you went on all these bad dates recently. I – I was thinking I could ask you out, but I don't want to add to your track record.”
He's looking at Saitama carefully, like he isn't all that afraid of rejection, like he cares about the answer but is willing to risk getting turned down. Like some kind of hero or something. It's kind of way hotter than any amount of tentacles could be.
Saitama takes a sip of his beer to buy time. “You think a date with you would be a bad date?”
Bike Guy shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. I'm not a very interesting guy.”
“Anyone can be interesting,” Saitama says, thinking of Brogan the ManSmasher. He puts his hand over Bike Guy's. Not too bad, so far. “We'll go on a date.”
Bike Guy stares at him for a second, then at their hands on the bar. Eventually, he downs the rest of his beer and threads their fingers together.
“Or,” he says, “we make sure that the date isn't bad by simply not going on it, and skip right to making out.”
For no particular reason, Saitama remembers the rumor that the Bike Guy actually lost his license because of speeding. It makes a lot of sense, seeing him like this. Saitama's mouth dries out.
“Okay,” he hears himself say.
His brain catches up right away, but it's too late. Bike Guy is kissing him, one hand on the back of his neck, the other one on his waist. Saitama braces for the explosion.
Nothing happens.
It's so surprising that it takes him a few seconds to even kiss back, and then it's way nicer than he remembers. His own hands end up on the sides of Bike Guy's face, right at the straps holding his helmet in place. When he draws back after a moment, Bike Guy is still in one piece, unharmed and slightly red and with a pleased smile on his face. Slowly, it all falls into place.
“You,” Saitama says, breathless, “you've got a very sturdy helmet.”
“Thanks,” Bike Guy says. “It's super high quality. I paid like 4000 yen for it.”
Saitama swallows. “That's not expensive at all.”
“I know.” Passion flares in Bike Guy's eyes like a wildfire. “I managed to stack four different coupons.”
“Holy shit,” Saitama breathes, and kisses him again.