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Nemuri leaves the convenience store ahead of Aizawa and Yamada, pink Hello Kitty bandaids slapped liberally across her elbows, chin, and cheek. A plastic bag holding nothing but a juice box hangs from the crook of her arm.
Aizawa’s stuck debating between realistic cat-themed bandages and cartoon cat-themed ones, Yamada playing devil’s advocate for both sides, and Nemuri had humored them for five long minutes before going in search of fresh air. She holds her hands over her head and stretches until her back pops, looking for a convenient curb to wait on.
She spots a pretty girl sitting on a low wall on the other side of the road, instead. She’s wearing a high school uniform Nemuri doesn’t recognize and lazily swinging her legs, her soft features pensive and clouded over.
Nemuri follows her line of sight as she crosses the road. The girl is watching a baseball game being held between a large, laughing group of teenage boys in the empty lot next door. From this angle it’s a little hard to see over the fence, so Nemuri hauls herself up onto the wall as well.
The girl startles. Her eyes are wide and green. “Oh! You scared me,” she says, one hand held over her heart. “I didn’t see you coming.”
“Sorry,” Nemuri says, smiling easily. Then she gestures with her chin towards the game and the rows of bleachers holding a crowd of other high schoolers, all in the girl’s same uniform. “How come you’re not over there?”
The girl turns back toward the game with a frown, crossing her arms.
“Hisashi was mean to me today, so I’m not watching his game.”
Nemuri looks curiously between the boys on the field, unsure which one Hisashi is. None of them strike her as particularly attractive.
“But…you are watching it,” Nemuri points out, poking open the apple juice she’d picked up alongside the bandages, crumpling the plastic bag until she can shove it in her skirt pocket.
The girl blushes, color spreading easily over her face. “Well- he doesn’t know that.”
Nemuri hums, eyes lazily tracking over the girl’s profile. “Lover’s spat?”
“We’re- we’re not lovers!” the girl denies, blush deepening. Still, a brown-haired boy hits the ball and the girl grows a little taller where she sits, bright eyes glued to his progress. That must be Hisashi, then. A handful of girls sitting on the lowest row of bleachers call out his name, cheering, and he turns to wave to them.
The girl on the wall huffs quietly, lips pursed.
Nemuri offers her a conciliatory sip of her juice, pleased when she accepts.
“I’ve never seen anyone with green hair before,” Nemuri says. “I like it.”
Someone else hits the ball and Hisashi runs around some more. The crowd of girls clap. The girl on the wall twirls a lock of hair around her finger, examining it thoughtfully.
“Thanks,” she murmurs. “I don’t think I have either, now that you mention it.”
Nemuri sighs contently, leaning slightly back on her hands with her drink balanced between her legs. “It’s cool,” she says. “I wish I had green hair or something.”
The girl’s brow furrows before she even turns to take in Nemuri’s appearance more completely. “You look- I’m sorry- what happened to you?” she asks, lifting a tentative hand towards Nemuri’s face. She stops before her fingertips get close enough to touch, motioning towards the injuries instead. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”
Nemuri grins. Mystery girl is pretty sweet. She hasn’t even noticed that her not-lover scored a point.
“Nah, I’m all good. I’m gonna be a Pro Hero.” Nemuri tugs at her gray jacket lapel, drawing the girl’s concerned gaze to the UA emblem printed there. “I’m gonna be famous one day.”
“Oh,” the girl says, concern making way for a carefully scrunched nose and tilted head. “Why would you want to be famous?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Nemuri replies simply.
“Well, the lack of privacy, for one. Having all of your actions judged by strangers. Having your appearance judged by strangers.” The girl counts them off on her fingers. “Oh, and having to be involved in, like, publicity stunts and stuff just to do better in your career. Or being stalked. Famous people are stalked like, all the time, and-”
“Okay, okay,” Nemuri laughs. “I get it. No fame for you.”
With a bashful smile, the girl lowers her hands, eyes returning idly to the game.
“If you don’t wanna be famous,” Nemuri presses, gently nudging the girl’s shoulder with her own, “then what do you want to do?”
The girl seems to think on it for a moment, eyes slipping towards the wispy clouds above them, the sunset sky a gentle, fading orange. It’s quiet while she thinks, the laughing and cheering next door nothing more than white noise to Nemuri, who can’t help but follow the slope of this girl’s nose with her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she says honestly.
She sounds like a girl untroubled by the uncertainty of the future, and Nemuri finds herself a little envious. She can imagine this green-haired girl winning the affections of the boy everybody seems to like and uncovering some newfound passion that leads to a happy, successful career, growing old gracefully, wearing that same, soft smile she aimed at the sky a moment ago. Maybe raising a kid, or a puppy, or taking glamorous photos of herself that end up on magazine covers.
The girl looks at Nemuri.
“Why do you want to be famous?”
Somehow, the question catches Nemuri off guard.
“I…I want to help people,” she says. Then she shrugs, gaze dropping briefly to her knees. “I can’t really see myself as one of those unsung hero types, you know? Nurses and paramedics. I want there to be singing.” More quietly, she adds, “I want people to know that I’m strong.”
The girl hums, and, after a moment of gentle examination, gestures towards Nemuri’s face. “I think you’re pretty strong.” Then she laughs. “Hisashi got smacked in the face once and I swear he cried about it for a whole week afterward.”
Nemuri huffs, halfway wishing she had picked out a less childish bandage pack now that she has this girl’s almost undivided attention. Her face feels warm.
“Not much of a knight in shining armor, is he?”
The girl offers Nemuri an amused, conspiratorial smile, cheeks a little pink. “No, not really. Definitely a prince charming, though.”
Nemuri smiles, though it feels a little forced. Her attention flits toward the opening convenience store doors, both packs of cat bandages in Aizawa’s hand and about six cans of energy drinks in Yamada’s.
“Well,” she says to the girl, “I’ve gotta…” She gestures awkwardly toward her friends.
“Oh! Don’t let me keep you,” the girl frets. “Please have a nice day. It was sweet of you to come talk to me.”
Nemuri wants to catch this girl’s fluttering hands in her own and hold them still. She wants to touch her green hair. She wants to say, I’ll see you tomorrow. She wants to say, I can play baseball, too.
What she actually says is, “I hope I see you again sometime.”
The girl smiles broadly, long hair fluttering in the evening breeze.
“Me too.”
When Nemuri catches up to Aizawa and Yamada they both shoot her curious looks.
“What does it feel like to have a crush?” she blurts.
Aizawa’s eyebrows furrow. “A what?”
“I got this one,” Yamada cuts in, dumping his cans into Aizawa’s arms and readying to cup his hands around his mouth. “It feels like- can I get an oh yeah!”
“That made no sense,” Aizawa complains bluntly. “Take this nonsense back or I’ll drop it.”
“No, I think I get it,” Nemuri says, if only to see Aizawa’s deadpan, pissed off expression.
“There’s no way that you did.”
Yamada smirks, twirling an imaginary mustache. “I’m very wise, actually.”
Nemuri throws her arms around their shoulders as they amble back to UA, another physically demanding day ahead of them and a life in the limelight beyond that. The girl on the wall is only a speck behind them now, but Nemuri still hopes she sees her tomorrow.
She keeps her fingers crossed that night as she falls asleep, a new and bubbly warmth growing beneath her ribcage like a sprout pressing itself carefully out of the soil to feel the sun for the first time.
And if that’s not a crush, she doesn’t know what is.