Work Text:
Saitama felt strange, she noticed ominously after turning a page of her secondhand manga.
The background sound of water and soap is surprisingly relaxing, a soft humming in her ears, so much so that she lets go off her secondhand manga to close her eyes for a moment, snoring softly.
Several days have passed like this, sensing that something—she doesn't know what—was going to happen. A powerful monster appearing? The end of the world? But the feeling slipped from her mind each time, so she simply decided to ignore it without giving it much thought. Whatever it was, one punch would suffice; she doesn't get her hopes go up. Nevertheless, her mind takes that train of thought, not completely asleep but not completely awake either.
One of the first changes was her lack of concentration. No matter how hard she tries to read a manga, the words just don't stick in her brain, she can't understand the plot, and that's even though the plot of the manga isn't that complicated to begin with. The news channel is another problem as well; she finds it tremendously boring, more so than usual. But she doesn't want to leave her home to hunt monsters either because there is a numbness in her legs that, while not disabling, is annoying.
The second problem is the swelling of her breasts. Her breasts aren't too big to begin with, they're average size, but now they seem a little bigger than normal. When she holds one in her hand, it feels a little heavy. Squeezing one causes her discomfort that she hasn't felt in a long time. Maybe she should go to the doctor, maybe being the key word, because going to the doctor is very expensive and she doesn't have the money to afford it. She hasn't touched the rent money Genos gave her and doesn't plan to.
(If it were up to Genos, he would take her to the best doctors in the region to cure whatever ails her. She considers it a waste; he considers it a necessary expense—)
And lastly, excessive sleepiness, like what she is experiencing right now. Sleeping has never been a particular difficulty for her, as she falls asleep without much effort, but this is already an exaggeration! If she didn't try not to, she's sure she would sleep anywhere at any time of the day. That's dangerous. What if someone gets too clever and steals her wallet? She can't afford to lose a single yen!
She doesn't realize how long her ramblings have lasted until she feels a touch on her shoulder. She nods for a moment and opens her eyes to look at her disciple crouching beside her. "Sensei," he calls, waking her from her reverie. His amber eyes seem brighter than usual, as if they were studying her soul. She opens her mouth slightly to say something but closes it at the last moment.
She blinks. Right. Time to sleep. She stands up with some effort—these legs—and spreads out her futon. Genos does the same. Saitama moves her futon a little away so that there is a proper distance between her and Genos.
Perhaps she is overanalyzing the situation regarding her body. She turns off the lights and tucks herself into her futon, with Genos copying her movements.
And she goes to sleep, thinking it wasn't a big deal. She'll leave things to tomorrow's Saitama.
The first thing she notices when she wakes up is the dampness in her lower back, more specifically, in her butt. Now more awake, she gets up, removes herself from the futon, and inspects it—only to notice it is bloody. Slowly, as if in slow motion, she moves her hand to her butt and feels something sticky. Suddenly, it all makes sense.
Ah, periods, she thinks with comical relief, finally knowing the cause of all the problems she's been having these past few days.
Oh, periods, she thinks with growing horror as she realizes how much blood there is. On her futon, on her pajama pants, on her boxers.
Shit.
A little hurriedly, she goes to grab a pair of underwear from where her underwear is and heads to the bathroom, but not before putting the bloodstained pajama pants in a separate pile of clothes. As she sits on the toilet and pulls down her boxers, she finds them stained with blood and sighs. She takes off her boxers, puts on panties, grabs a pad, and places it in the bottom of the panties. She relieves herself normally and tries to ignore the painful cramps that are starting to appear.
Ever since her hair fell out, her menstrual periods have been unpredictable. Even before her hair fell out, she hated them with burning passion. She tended to menstruate heavily, needing to wear a night pad all the time. When she started training and working out, her periods decreased in quantity and eventually stopped altogether. She went to the doctor to get tested to see what was wrong, but they found nothing unusual in her body that could explain the behavior of her menstrual periods, and Saitama didn't look a gift horse in the mouth and simply accepted it, taking it as another of the things she lost since she became stronger.
Having to endure menstrual periods again brings with it many problems: she can no longer wear boxer shorts, at least while menstruating.
She comes out of the bathroom and throws her bloodstained boxers onto the pile where her bloodstained pajamas are, just in time to see her disciple staring wide-eyed and surprised at the bloodstain on her futon. It's funny how quickly Genos acts, grabbing her hand and searching for the door keys while exclaiming, "Sensei, you have to go to the hospital!"
"Too much money."
"Sensei—it's a lot of blood!"
A tired sigh. "I'm menstruating," she tells the cyborg before he gets the wrong idea, although he already has the wrong idea.
The cyborg looks at her, not understanding what she just said, and Saitama doesn't feel like giving him a lecture on menstruation and what happens to women every month, so she simply breaks free from the cyborg's grip and, already feeling the cramps, walks over to where all her medicines and pills are. She searches through all the little boxes until she finds what she's looking for: a box of pills for cramps. She opens it but finds nothing.
Right, Saitama realizes. Since her menstrual cycles stopped, she hasn't needed to replenish her supplies; her frugal lifestyle doesn't allow her to waste money. Damn you, Saitama of the past!
Finally, Genos speaks up, "Sensei, do you need those pills?" Saitama nods, "Will you feel better if you take one?" Another nod. Faster than lightning, Genos grabs the spare keys and leaves, surely for the nearest pharmacy.
Saitama gets up, grabs the futon, pajama pants, and bloody boxers, and puts them in the wash. Better to do that first. If they get stained, she'll have to buy blood-stain remover, and she doesn't want to go over her budget for this week.
While Saitama is doing that, wild Genos is running at full speed to pick up the necessary supplies. While Saitama was looking for pills that would take away the pain she was feeling, Genos was downloading information about menstruation.
Apparently, menstruation is vaginal bleeding that occurs at the beginning of a woman's menstrual cycle. This phase corresponds to the shedding of the endometrium when there has been no pregnancy... In summary of twenty words or less, it is bleeding in the crotch area.
One database download later, and Genos has all the information he needs. The first thing he does is buy the pills that Saitama-sensei needs. According to the public information on these pills, they are for people who suffer from severe cramping pain and heavy bleeding. After buying the pills, he heads to the nearest supermarket to look for sanitary pads; according to one of the forums from which he downloaded the information, people with heavy bleeding usually wear a large sanitary pad to prevent their underwear from getting stained when they move. In addition to all that, the forum said that some women enjoyed foods high in sugar during their menstrual periods, so Genos bought the necessary ingredients to make a strawberry cake for his Sensei.
When he returned home, he found Saitama-sensei sitting watching television. Hearing the door open, Saitama turned to look at him: there was no smile on her lips, but her eyes opened a little wider. Undeterred by Saitama's apparent apathy, he goes to the kitchen to fill a glass with water, returns, and gives her the painkiller along with the glass of water. Genos watches with fascination he shouldn't feel as Saitama practiced the movement of placing the pill on her tongue and putting the mouth of the glass to her own mouth, her throat moving to swallow the water in small sips. Saitama makes a small noise of disgust and Genos snaps out of his reverie.
"Sensei?"
"It's nothing," his Sensei reassures him, "the pills are disgusting."
A moment passes and he watches as Saitama's expression softens. The pill is taking effect. Saitama yawns widely and looks like she wants to lie down on the floor, but Genos stops her.
"Sensei, you can use my futon!"
Saitama opens her mouth, wanting to refuse, but Genos's will be unshakeable and his gaze is piercing, so she simply says, "...if it gets stained, I'll wash it."
His Sensei lies down on the futon and closes her eyes until her expression completely relaxes and her breathing levels out. She has fallen asleep.
Genos waits a moment, afraid to make a sound, but finally gets up and heads to the kitchen. There are things to do.
The strawberries peek timidly out of the eco-friendly bag.
Saitama wakes up hours later. How many hours later? She doesn't know, but she wakes up anyway. She yawns widely and scratches her stomach.
"Good morning, Sensei," Genos' voice reaches her from the kitchen, stopping whatever he was doing.
"Good morning," Saitama returns the greeting, "what time is it?"
"2:57 p.m. and 13.2 seconds."
Saitama glances at him sideways but says nothing more. She stands up and looks around for a moment until she remembers the washing machine and hurries over, but her disciple's voice stops her, "I already took care of the clothes and the futon, Sensei."
Saitama sighs, "You didn't have to do that."
"I wanted to, Sensei. It's my duty as your disciple."
Disciple, of course. Saitama smiles, though there is no joy in it. She feels guilty. She lets out a sigh and picks up her bath towel to head for the bathtub. A hot bath would do her good.
After getting out of her bath, she decided to go for a walk for a while. Genos insisted on accompanying her, but judging by the tools in the kitchen, he was busy, so she declined his company. Besides, she wanted to be alone. She hasn't had a period a long time, there is a turmoil of emotions in her heart, and she doesn't know how to deal with it. The main concern of all is Genos.
Genos is attentive and kind to her, and harsh to those who criticize her; he's a good guy, but she can't help feeling that she's taking advantage of him. Since Genos came into her life, a lot has changed. Apart from the apprenticeship, there's no denying that Genos is the one who has helped the other the most.
Genos has placed himself under Saitama's tutelage, but she has nothing to teach him except physical training. Considering that Genos is mostly a cyborg and the power that resides in his hands extends to the mechanical parts that Dr. Kuseno can implement in him, Saitama's physical training is useless.
The mission she assigned to him to enter the top 10 of Class S feels more like prolonging something she can't put into words. Genos expects so much from her, but she can't give him what he wants because she simply doesn't have it.
Genos shouldn't be obsessed with a bald woman like her. He should focus on finding the robot that killed his family. He shouldn't bother with her. There are much more beautiful women than her, women who would appreciate the cyborg's attention. She is not one of them.
She's just a problematic woman. She feels like crying. How annoying these emotional changes are! Now she feels too much, and it bothers her.
She really is pathetic.
She doesn't know when she arrived at the park, but she sits down on a wooden bench and tries to suppress her emotions. Everything was easier when she felt nothing.
The bald woman is so frustrated that she doesn't notice someone approaching her at high speed, nor does she hear the typical speech he gives her every time they meet, much less when he touches her shoulder and says in a strangely soft voice, "Saitama?"
She is slightly surprised, looks up at the voice, and finds the androgynous ninja. She stops hiding her face in her hands and tries to act normal, "Jack-O-Lantern?"
The ninja gets angry and corrects her, "It's Speed-O-Sound Sonic!"
She blinks, "...Of course, sorry."
The ninja seems to have been hit, because he looks at her in surprise, though he quickly tries to hide it by putting on a stern face. Being close to her, she studies him. He is wearing street clothes, not the ninja outfit he is used to, his hair tied back in his characteristic style. He is taller than her, but he bends down to be at the same height, his purple marks under his eyes highlighted. He looks... good.
She blushes slightly at her thoughts. What is happening to her? She hits her cheek a little hard and quickly notices the effects. She sighs and looks back at the ninja.
"Sonic, I'm not in the mood to fight."
Sonic lets out a scoff, but doesn't insist, "I noticed."
Apparently, it's Sonic's turn to feel sorry for her because he holds out his hand. She stares at the outstretched hand, a little disoriented. Sonic shakes it slightly. She finally takes it.
Sonic's hand is bigger than hers and feels warm in her palm. As they walk, their intertwined hands sway slightly. She is grateful that it is late, there are not many people watching, and it would be annoying if rumors spread that Saitama is dating a murderer ninja, not because she particularly cares about her reputation, but because Genos is very protective and will not hesitate to take this as an offer to get rid of Sonic.
They stop in front of a convenience store, the light from the sign softly illuminating the darkening sky. Sonic pulls her inside and leads her—still holding her hand—to the ice cream section. Sonic looks at her. She looks back at him. Sonic sighs irritably, "Grab a tub of ice cream."
Saitama blinks, "Why?"
"Just grab it."
She strangely obeys but walks a little further to the left where the cheap ice cream is, choosing the strawberry flavor. Sonic looks at her a little annoyed and heads to the expensive ice cream section and chooses the strawberry flavor, but this ice cream has pieces of frozen strawberry in it.
She looks at him strangely, not understanding, but she can't ask any questions because Sonic leads them to the cashier and takes out his own money to pay for the two ice cream cones. His own money!
(Now that she thinks about it, she should refuse, because the money Sonic is using was probably earned illegally, and as the professional hero that she is—)
They leave the store with two heavier ice cream containers. From somewhere, Sonic pulls out an eco-friendly bag, puts the two ice cream containers in it, and hands it to her without looking at her even once. He lets go of her hand and says, "This is where we part ways, Saitama."
Oh, Saitama doesn't know why, but she's a little disappointed.
However, Sonic turns to look at her one last time, his silver eyes shining in the darkness, "But the next time we meet, it will be the last!"
And he disappears, stirring up a slight breeze as he does so.
Saitama smiles slightly and heads home. Suddenly, a thought crosses her mind:
Oh, I think I left blood in the bathtub. Saitama keeps walking. I hope Genos doesn't mind cleaning it up.
Before she can even touch the door, Genos opens it. Saitama's hand returns to her side.
"Saitama-sensei!" Genos seems very excited to see her again, although this time it doesn't cause her any distress. In fact, it makes her happy in a way.
Saitama tilts her head, realizing something, "Genos, why is your mouth stained?"
Genos brings his thumb to the corner of his mouth where the stain is and rubs his index finger and thumb together to clean them. He hides his hand behind his back and smiles softly.
"...I made strawberry cake for Saitama-sensei," he opens the door and steps aside, inviting her in, "I was waiting for Sensei so we could eat together."
After she entered and before he closed the door, Genos took one last look at the street, his yellow eyes shining ominously. After a moment passed, he closed the door with a click.