Archive of Our Own

It starts, at first, as a joke.

Most of what she says does come out like one. Anything that comes out of her mouth can become pointedly funny, another way to make villains erupt into disarming laughter and wave their hands forward to be cuffed. Obviously, she doesn't have to-- she can attribute it to her quirk, activate it however she wants in whatever which way, but it makes the most sense to be a funny person herself. There's no flaw in having humour. No how, no way.

Consequently, this is how life gets her. 

By introducing a hot new pro-hero to the scene, posted right next to her agency.

She spots him on a patrol on his own one day. Emi doesn't dare make contact yet, still surveying the sights.

Long, black hair cascades down to his shoulders. It could be mistaken for straight if not for the obvious waviness to it, disguised by the unkemptness of it all. She would have a jolly time running a brush through his hair. 

An onyx hue, his eyes glint with a fierceness when he suddenly breaks into a run, rapidly apprehending a villain before she can even blink. Speaking of blinking, she'd seen his hair lift up, only falling back to his shoulders when the goggles were off. He'd blinked several times. Just long enough for her to notice the eye-bags, the bruising under eyes.

His quirk has to do with his eyes, surely.

"Hey, hot shot, how you doing?"

Unsurprisingly, much like his aloof demeanour betrays, the man starts walking faster. "Leave me alone."

Still, she persists. Obviously.

"Come on! I saw you patrolling the streets the other day." She falls into step alongside him. Miraculously, he does not break off into a sprint like she'd seen him do the other day with that other less cool, more bothersome hero, that most certainly doesn't hold a resemblance to herself in any shape or form. She takes it as an invitation to continue. "You look cool, you know that? Hey, that scarf's your support weapon, right?"

"It's a capture weapon."

Humming, Emi tucks out her own support gear from around her waist. Her mask had been hanging off the sides of her pouches for a while, now, collecting dust while she'd been waiting for the other hero. "Cool. So, scarf."

The grumbling that rings out is hilarious, so she doesn't falter when he side-eyes her. "I find it a marvel," she says, emphasising the compliment with a rash smile. His mouth parts slightly, tilting his head with a Look. Bringing the mask to her face, she pokes at the smiley faces right next to it. "Two can play at this game! I have my own marvel too! Look at this mask. It's the best in the game, at least, for me. I owe the girl who made it my professional career, hah! How about you, how's your capture weapon work?"

They walk for a few more minutes. He admonishes her with a few quips here and there, and, boy, is it endearing. She's both starting to understand the appeal and the lack of it. It's mystifying, talking to another hero so casually like this, that she doesn't even think to use her quirk on him at all. It's too late by the time alarms ring out, him tacking his goggles on over his face (he'd had yellow goggles lying in wait on top of the scarf -- they're a much prettier hue of yellow than she'd expected for a guy of his fashion, and they're also the only lick of colour on his costume, so it's great, super fun.) as she whips her mask back down to her sides. 

They see each other plenty.

Well, more so she sees him first and he starts rapidly walking in the other direction, sometimes, if he's not in the mood. Emi's usually busy with her own routes anyhow, taking down villains in a jiff, so it's nice to see him here and there. From time to time, she thinks she even spots him chatting away on his phone.

She doesn't even know his name yet.

His name is Eraserhead. It's a bit of a silly name for someone like him, but she likes it. A whole lot.

As a joke, she hides some of those balding, eraser head workmen you can scrub the hair off of when you rub at pencil marks in his pockets when he isn't paying attention.

She soon finds out he is, in fact, paying attention all the time, when her agency gets a whole delivery of them with a very angrily scribbled note with a curt message: "Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

Well, she hadn't known she'd been giving him that many. It's well worth it, she thinks, thumb brushing against the poor, doodled on caricature of her in the sticky note. He doesn't look much like an artsy guy.

"You're awfully persistent for someone who has people lining up for her autograph."

"Eraser, I'm an underground hero, too! Don't tease me, HAHAAA!"

They're on a rooftop in the middle of one of Japan's coldest spring seasons yet.

"All alone, 'Raser? What're you doing so high up, moping like this?" Her voice turns teasing. "You should be out there, kicking ass! Laughing! Having fun!"

"We're pro heroes," he says, gruff. "We're not meant to be having fun."

"Said by a truly, truly sad man." 

"...Have I ever laughed around you?" Eraser asks.

"No, but it's fun, and you should definitely try it sometime, you total spoilsport." An idea hits her. "Y'know, I could make you laugh--"

That thought makes him whip his head around to glare demeaningly at her. She startles, smile still stuck on her face. 

"No."

She supposes it's fair. Stripping him of his agency by forcing him to laugh -- it's why she has to keep her quirk on the down-low, make sure it doesn't activate by itself. 

"Coolio." She flicks a coin she'd found on the ground. "Well, let me know, 'kay, Eraser? Let me know when you wanna join the cool kids table."

An appraising look crosses his face.

"I'm good on the floor, thanks," he says flatly, after a moment, feet still planted right on said floor as he stands.

He 'tolerates her presence' for lunch sometimes. Which is essentially code for: "I love you tons and want you to stay here and share this very nice bento you hauled over with me, because you're super nice and cool and stupidly pretty."

Okay, maybe that's a lie. She already knows she's all of these things. Eraser would never voice it, but does he have to? No, not really. However, what's true is that she does bring the bentos. She's seen the way he automatically defaults to jelly packets after patrols, and she would bet her entire stand-up career that his life in enjoying the food industry is as close to as being dead and buried, with how often he chows down on those things.

They're good, though, she won't deny; out of curiosity, plain old curiosity, she'd bought a lychee one for herself just to try. They're not too bad, but certainly not the most healthy. How much sugar do they even pack in these things?! Well, sugar is nice, but she didn't expect black-coffee loving Eraserhead to be as fond of it as he is.

Heroes get hurt all the time. It's normal. They're pro heroes. They can handle anything life throws at them, and Emi has always been able to roll with the punches and snap one back. Like Eraser, she's more of a 'capture-and-go' hero, and she always has a card up her sleeve when the going gets tough.

Eraser is no rescue hero. He tends to them occasionally, from the reports she's seen piling up in the local precinct when she makes her merry way over there, but still, he's specialised in 'fighting only bad guys', as he likes to claim.

That also means she's no rescue hero.

Subsequently, she finds herself holed up in an ambulance after a particularly nasty day of 'rolling with the punches'.

"What made you think you could just charge in there?" Eraser demands lowly.

Emi's not sure why he's on the scene, as this isn't his usual patrol route, but something tells her he'd likely arrived shortly after the fires had kicked off.

"It was a bad idea on my part, I know." she tells him, sheepish. Like how the sun sets down the horizon line, something resolute crosses her face when she stares fondly at the boy she'd saved being tended to in another ambulance across from them. Eraser follows her gaze, eyes slightly widening in recognition. "But the kid needed saving, and you can't be a hero with one trick."

He regards her with a contemplative look.

He'd never admit it, but Eraser treats himself like a shield. Something, someone, to shelter others.

She sees it in the way he keeps 'accidentally' stumbling on her patrol route after the fire days after she's cleared for active duty, and she sees it in the way, like a sword, that she easily accepts the excuse with a grin and more jokes at his expense.

Fukukado Emi is busy. Busy is Fukukado Emi, and so is, consequently, Ms Joke.

She's been getting promotion after promotion lately at her agency. Though she wants to tell Eraser, she opts not to, because she still doesn't have his personal number, and she's not going to bother his work email for something as minuscule as a promotion he doesn't really care about.

Besides, she can just tell him in person.

"I thought you said you were busy."

"Busy as a bee," she concedes, hands firmly magnetised to her hips. Emi doesn't move much, so that she doesn't aggravate the burns still bandaged under her gloved wrists. "Yeah, that's me! I got promoted, you know."

Eraser gestures loosely to the scene in suspicion. "...You haven't shown up to bother me. For this?"

Her eyes widen.

"Do you want me bothering you?" she says, delighted.

"No."

Emi can't even act surprised when he pivots right to the back door.

His hand stutters around the handle. "Congrats," he mutters, quiet enough to make her believe she'd imagined it, blink, and then he disappears right back into the ether.

How charming. Her hand palms her cheek in wonder.

At one point, he approaches her, first.

To actually talk. Not to do a 'check-up'. Not to see what horrors she could be up to now.

Just to talk.

She does not scream into the crook of her elbow when the chance arises.

Eraser actually has a lot on his mind. Appearing quiet and aloof, you wouldn't expect him to get the last word in a crowd of suave smooth talkers and people who -- like her -- can talk each other's ears off until their mama comes knocking. Wouldn't expect him to keep the pace.

No, he's quite interesting in other ways, she comes to find out. Just when he wants to be. Never does he present himself as someone intriguing, though she'd found him a spectacle from the very start, a clear contrast to the black jumpsuit he dons all the time and the general monochrome colour scheme of his hero costume that just screams 'leave-me-alone'.

There are opinions he just doesn't voice. Things he can't name without ducking his chin into his capture scarf and glancing off into the distance, a pensive look crossing his eyes nearly obscured by his long, black hair. She doesn't think she's mentioned this before, but the hair's as black as the coffee he pretends to like -- she'd accidentally stumbled on him savouring a latte and had been holding it over his head ever since, though it's not really to poke fun, though she does find it a stupidly hilarious juxtaposition to the rest of him. A sweet toothed Eraserhead, really? But, no, that's off-topic. His hair's sweet. 

She wonders if she could ever ask him if she could braid it for him. 

He's passionate about the politics of the hero world. Though he doesn't throw himself into the fray to discuss it often, when she inquires about it, gives away her own opinion in the form of something light-hearted, something calm to start with, he gets heated.

In a good way, of course. Like the heat from a toaster. It's by no means a 'light fire'. There's no denying the embers burning in his eyes, the way he stokes the hearth with even more words than she'd expected out of him. 

Agreeing with him often, she finds they share plenty of the same ideals. For a whole host of reasons, they can't agree all the time, but she finds her heart gets stuffy when they do reach a conclusion.

He's actually more on his phone than she'd originally thought he would be. Addiction's not a term she'd use by any means, and maybe she'd actually get a laugh from Eraser, then, though she doesn't tempt it no matter how much she wants to hear it, even at the cost of her own dignity and pride, but he's on his phone a lot, when they're not actively on patrol.

Only when it pings, though. Fingers tapping away, he texts like an old geezer, but from what the letters she can visibly notice him picking -- out of respect, she doesn't look at the actual messages, just where his fingers go, to see if he actually texts like a senior waiting to drop dead -- he abbreviates a lot. 

Which leaves her with two options. 1) He's really popular and has made a name for himself online as the official, dead-to-rights number one cat lover and has been hiding a secret double life as one of the biggest rising internet stars ever. 

Or, 2, the more boring, reasonable option) He's texting the same person.

Emi contemplates about whether or not it's socially acceptable to take his phone to slip her number inside, too.

When she asks about his 'mysterious texter', and why he keeps smiling down at his phone, and if it's a woman, he just grunts and says it's 'none of her business.'

Eventually, he relents. She doesn't prod him, but he relents because 'he can feel the look burning into his back and he'd rather get it over and done with', and he gives her a name: Yamada.

Nothing else. It's a fairly common family name in Japan.

Her gaze trails down to his lips, and it doesn't linger.

Emi gets a lot of merchandise. It's a part of the deal with her agency, the way she comforts hurt kids with an affinity for heroes and stars in their eyes.

Endeavour, Best Jeanist, Ingenium, Midnight, Present Mic, Fat Gum, Edgeshot, Mirio -- all sorts. There's more heroes, of course, but she doesn't know them all by name or by heart, and the ones she does have in her circle aren't the most popular. Or want to be popular.

Clothes, toys, blankets, itty, bitty pieces of plastic that would definitely be illegal in somewhere like America, but the kids love them, here, and so she keeps them all. 

There's some extras she gets in the PO box. She usually tosses those her friends' way, distributing it to anyone interested in their own give aways, or just want to support other heroes.

For kicks, because it's the last piece of merchandise left, and from someone obviously loud and outside of Eraser's taste in heroes, if he ever had a taste in heroes, she pawns off the Present Mic merch on him.

To her surprise, though tentatively, he still takes it. She thinks she imagines the hint of a smile on his lips when his eyes trace over the blanket.

Emi wants to make him smile like that for real. Not a pity one, the one he'd given her after she'd complained about him never smiling-- that was a look for serial killers.

No, one of these days she will make him smile of his own volition, and it'll be fun.

"What the heck were you thinking?"

Eraser snorts from where he's sprawled up against the brick wall. "Heck? Are you a middle-schooler?"

She ignores him, pressing the makeshift tourniquet -- using her orange bandana -- down on the stab wound. Karma is served in the form of him being unable to stifle a hiss. Her knees embrace the ground like a long lost sibling as she kneels. "You're so stupid," she says, unable to hide away the fondness behind lock and key. "You should've called for back up."

Her other finger brushes against the stubble of his jaw, finger pads itching as she tilts it gently from side to side. To test his coordination, his eye line. See if he earned himself other than a nasty wound, like a concussion, something serious to force him to be taken to the hospital and be seen by proper paramedics. Emi may be cleared for medical work, but she's not anything like UA's Recovery Girl, and while she could make him laugh, he'd probably bleed out faster. She doesn't know. Maybe he's a silent laugher.

For a second, a red heat crawls up the exposed skin of his neck to his cheeks as she does it, but she considers it just a side effect of his dumbassery. Really, for such a 'logical guy', he can be quite stupid. 

"I didn't need it. They were all caught, weren't they?"

Emi looks to the right, where they're being led into the van for transportation. Likely for an interview, too, since one of them was connected to the Yakuza she'd been chasing after lately.

"If that fish villain's quirk had been able to activate constantly," she murmurs, eyes gazing at him seriously. He stares back in challenge. Emi sighs. "Or wasn't an emitter type, you would be dead," she finally grits out.

A whiny howl plays out like a broken record as one of the villain's necks snap back to meet them, eyes distressed. "I'm a PUFFERFISH! GET IT RIGHT, OR NOT AT ALL!"

Another awkward moment passes.

"Pufferfish," Emi yields, close to a snicker, if not for the worry tingling under her skin. Teeth appear in rows to tick away at her bottom lip. "They were all mutants."

And Erasure is rather, simply put, useless when it comes to mutant quirks. Eraser always makes it work, though. Yet another thing she admires about him.

"I dealt with them," he shrugs. Eraser shuts his eyes when she presses harder on the entry point where the spike had punctured his waist. She feels some sympathy when she notices he's clenching his teeth, too, a long, shuddering exhale leaving him as she tilts his head back a bit. "They were easy to handle, and it was only a few minutes."

She deliberates on it. "Do you have your eyedrops?"

His eyes snap open after what must be a surprised noise. She's learning many things about what his expressions look like, today, though she isn't in much of a mood to gloat. Maybe later. "Yes," he grunts. "In my back pouch."

The dryness in his eyes is quickly dealt with. She's left electrified by the way he so easily lets her tilt his head even further back, use the piquette to insert what must be heaven in his books, as a more, undignified sound of relief leaves him as it's inserted into his right eye. Then the left.

"You're going to the hospital."

He doesn't argue, then. She doesn't follow in the ambulance.

Emi wonders who his emergency contact is.

The marriage proposals come as serious as a heart attack.

Again, it starts as a joke. Something petty. Conjuring it up after a particularly long day at work, where the villain somehow managed to break past her laugh range and land a mean sucker punch or two on her. Emi's busy nursing her wounds in some back corner alley way when Eraser comes spiralling down with his capture weapon. From Kami knows where, she doesn't know, but she's glad for the company, anyway.

He offers her some medication just tucked away in his pouch, and though it is questionable, he is a licensed pro hero. Not to mention someone she actively trusts. 

"Gee, you'd be the perfect husband, wouldn't you? So doting."

Stiffening, Emi nearly recoils when he continues seamlessly wrapping a bandage on her cheek. She knows he'd noticed it, from the way he'd tensed up, too. Maybe he'd taken it as a joke.

She hisses in a laugh when his trimmed nail brushes past a scratch on her face. "Say, if we got married, you could nurse me like this all the time," she says afterwards, dreamily. When presented the opportunity to dote, always choose it. "We could settle down. Have a few kids..."

He doesn't respond with much else than a mutter and 'You don't mean anything by it, stop playing around.'

When it comes down to it -- imagining a relationship with Eraser -- it's not the typical low-level fantasy most tend to dream of. Staying at home, having kids... that's one thing. Emi had said it, but, really, she hadn't meant much by it. She'd take anything.

She still imagines them being heroes. Advancing in their careers. Making headlines; maybe just her, then. He wouldn't like it. He doesn't like attention, and that's okay.

Now that she's got her foot in the door, she proposes constantly.

Emi's starting to think it's a bad idea by proposal No.153.

The next problem comes in the form of a loud blond. 

"What say you, buddy?"

"Mic," Eraser sighs exasperatedly, though Emi swears up and down that he doesn't sound as irritated as she does with her. "I'm failing to see how this is relevant to anything."

"No, no, really, divulge your secrets, bro. We're all interested."

She bobs her head rapidly. Allegedly, Present Mic and Eraserhead are friends. Right after she'd invited Eraser to this cafe, originally alone, she'd propositioned for him to invite a plus one in the off chance that her proposal would be taken much too seriously, much too fast. To 'get with the program' and see if he had any actual friends besides her.

Emi's glad, actually, that she didn't bring anyone with her. Citing that her friend had been called into patrol. Present Mic's a total hoot, and just as entertaining as he is in person versus on the radio when she pulls into work.

Mic slings an arm over Eraser's shoulder. Her grin pricks up, expecting Eraser to throw him off at any moment, now.

And he doesn't. Barely even reacts, actually.

That's great, she thinks, smile not strained, they must be closer than she'd thought.

Mic points an accusing finger at his friend. "You see, 'Raser over here rescues stray cats in his spare time."

Cats. Cats. Is that how she could wriggle his way into his heart? She'd seen him feed them before, and had taken that as just another cute, unassuming thing about him, but he must like them to some extent if he actively goes out and rescues them.

"I told you about that a week ago, and you're already weaponizing it against me."

"No time like the present, baby." The blond winks. Eraser looks positively mortified.

Whether it's at the pun or the pet name, she's unsure, but she's also not too comfortable with it herself.

She seizes her chance to rescue him. "Past, present, future! Any time's a good time to make fun of him!" Emi forces a dramatic pause. "Hey, Eraser, would you fall even more in love with me if I brought home a cat?"

"You lot are insufferable," he grunts, as Mic sputters, face flushing with something Emi can't name.

A few months pass. She gets to know his other friends. Emi's quite astonished that he has such a large variety of them. Well, not as large as the crowd she runs with, but comparison is the thief of joy, after all, and all she wants to see is Eraser joyful. Somewhat joyful. 

Midnight, Ingenium-- he's well acquainted with them. She later learns of Midnight's -- the R-Rated Hero -- civilian name. Nemuri Kayama. She's cute, with her long, nearly black hair, though it runs more navy blue than anything.

Ingenium, they've met before, during a team up. A few here and there. His name is Tensei Iida, he reveals. They exchange a whole bunch of pleasantries, and she uses her quirk to make him laugh harder, and Present Mic teases him for giving in so easy.

It's not lost on her, that unlike their friends, neither Present Mic or Eraserhead give away their civilian names.

She gets invited to teach at Ketsubetsu Academy. It's the second best hero school in the whole country. It's no UA, not a place she could commute to easily, but she's awfully pleased to be given the chance to teach the next new generation.

Eraser keeps texting this Yamada person. Emi actually thinks she'd seen him send a gif. A gif. 

She'd finally managed to put her personal number in his phone -- "Safety reasons! You understand, right, Eraser? Basic protocol, what if you need me to come save you when you're a damsel in distress?" -- and, still, she only gets the occasional text after she double, triple, quadruple texts. And that's if she catches him on a good week.

Still, it's endearing. She can't help but grin at her phone, type faster.

While Emi's no Yamada, there's no flaw in being second-best.

Present Mic remains true to his name. Present. It's hilarious, funny, a true knee-slapper, one that leaves red marks for days!

Mic doesn't stray from his usual route of teasing. It seems he and Eraser had fallen out for a time, apparently, after graduation, and had only recently reconciled by the time she'd gotten to meet him -- Emi doesn't think on the honour of being able to meet this guy right after Eraser had reconnected with him, been willing to have her meet him, because that would mean Present Mic has even more of a significant role in Eraser's life besides 'fun-loving pal' than she'd thought. Still, she finds this out, and she smiles at him, tells him 'she's glad to see them together again', tacks on a flirtatious look, and doesn't dare think on how Present Mic immediately breaks out into another rant about something she finds intriguing to satiate her.

There are two actors on this stage.

Emi turns a heavy right when she spots Present Mic press a kiss to Eraser's head when he's sedated after a villain fight.

She does not look back as he scoops the hero into a one-sided hug.

Her students are so amusing. They make her laugh more than she makes them laugh! A flat out lie, she definitely makes them laugh a lot more.

It's just fun. Grading their work. She's proud to be nursing them into heroism. Burning the midnight oil more often than not.

"I wish he liked me more," she bemoans, one, drunken, fruitless night, posted up at a bar on a shitty bar stool that she's pretty sure will collapse on her by the time they stumble out of here.

Her friend, Haruto, listens to her ranting with a patience preserved by Buddhist monks. 

"I'm sure he will," he reassures. Emi does not think to tell him the full story.

He's kind, and she'd already rejected him once. Telling him, in its entirety, how she failed at love the second attempt, after a million of tries, doesn't seem much too kind. The golden rule, she reminds herself.

It's just retribution.

A compass always points north.

Science argues it does because the Earth is the equivalent of a magnet gigantified. Think of Mt.Lady, but leagues bigger, slightly less appealing.

Though she can't make it laugh, she also can't make the teeny thing turn another direction. Add that to the list -- in the hundreds, by now -- of things on her bucket list that she'll never really get to by the time she finally gets around to kicking it.

For the record, it had never been her intention to try and tinker with it. She's a Ketsubetsu teacher. Never had she attended a single lesson for the support department, nor did she plan on booking a visit to the lovely students she's so sure are doing well over there, but, still, she won't go, even if just to know. She'd need an English teacher if she wanted to mess around with a metaphor, and, well--

Looking at Present Mic now makes her want to stray far away from the subject.

Avoiding the Voice Hero isn't particularly a difficult job.

It's not a snooze, either, but truth behold, they don't run in the same circles. Like Eraser, she's more of an underground hero than anything, albeit a little more out there than he would prefer being, and being out on patrol is something common in her funny, little stand-up world she calls comedic and the rest of the population calls 'life'. From what she'd garnered, having listened to less of Eraser and more of his friend's rambling about it, a wide, shining smile on her face that didn't tighten as Mic looped his arm tighter around 'his friend', he didn't seem to go on patrol often. Which made sense; between the two of them, even though he finds himself under a heavier spotlight, Emi would bet she'd beat him out when it comes to being chosen for patrol. It's either the hero who can force villains into laughing themselves into custody, or the hero who can level an entire block easily without so much as a hitch if his directional speaker is tuned up just too much, and it's a no-brainer.

(She wishes Eraser's choice was a no-brainer, too, but that's something to add to the bucket list. Whoops. Sorry, mom, hah!)

Still, it's a walk in the park. They don't even live in the same district. The occasional team up with UA and Shiketsu here and there -- even though they're rivals, top hero schools and all, they can settle their differences in the name of their students -- means nothing in the long term for her, and there's enough heroes to act as coverage between them both that it's relatively a non-issue.

Well. That is, unless she wants to talk to Eraser. Which is a different story, because she always wants to talk to Eraser, and Present Mic always seems to have the same idea.

Talk about a buzzkill.

"Are you okay?"

"Just fine! Thanks, Nem," she grins.

Getting to know Eraser's friends is an action she, at least, can't consider a mistake.

...Most of them, anyway.

"Are you jealous of Present Mic?" Eraser asks her, serious.

Her hand juts out into a rock pose. "What, little ol' me? HAHAAA! You're too funny, as always. Such a comedian. Of course not!" She flexes her biceps. "He should be jealous of these guns, honestly! He's like a twig!"

She doesn't miss the small huff of amusement.

"Don't let him hear you say that," he muses. "You're endangering your ears. They'll become a protected species by the time he stops complaining about it."

A loud clatter rings out.

"SHOUTA!"

"...That's my cue," Eraser deadpans.

She's left wondering who, exactly, Shouta is.

His name is Aizawa Shouta.

Emi finds this out when soberness waves a goodbye to them both. The toll of her actions only hits her in the morning, but the elated epiphany that reaches her when she realises she finally knows his civilian name is worth the leagues she has to cross to get rid of the god forsaken headache.

And, of course, Present Mic knows his name.

Believe it or not, her life doesn't revolve around him.

Aizawa Shouta can't be the punchline to her joke if he's unwilling to write it.

Haha. Joke. Isn't that funny? She finds herself retreating to humor more nowadays, wishing awfully that she could use her quirk on herself, then bursting out into even more obnoxious laughter when she realizes she doesn't have to, barely warranting any suspicion from her gawking interns. Presumably used to her antics. Desensitizing them is good, they should be used to it, by now. To her quirk, to Outburst.

Emi has students to attend to anyhow. No time to think about mysterious, long, black haired men with eyebags running down his undereyes like yolk. She's a revered homeroom teacher for 2-2, and she'll be damned if she doesn't confess how proud she is of them before the year lets out.

Aizawa and Emi go on a patrol together. They don't have much time to reminisce on the past, how proud of their new students they are, or how far they've come. They just go on a patrol together, because he happens to be in the area she frequents, and if anyone just so much as mentions that she'd been waiting for this opportunity, she'd deny it. It's not true, anyway. You can't monopolise an area you haven't been in for years, now.

She continues proposing to him. He just grunts, waves it off, and barks at his students to stop gawking when she does it in front of them, just to test their reactions. 

Aizawa's adorable when he's mortified. It happens so easily in her presence. She does not take it to heart, because having a heart would mean acknowledging it can be broken, and each time she proposes another marriage as a simple joke makes the already fragile, well-loved organ fracture into another piece even before she gets rejected again.

At least she can wave it off as just another joke. The best thing about hero personas that revolve around comedy, they allow you to do that.

Emi wonders, vaguely, the reasoning behind why neither Aizawa or Mic have rings.

"I thought you had homeroom?"

"I thought you had homeroom."

"Pot, kettle."

"This is how you get the big bucks, Eraser," she whistles, throwing a thumbs down as she sticks her tongue out. She revels in the glare he shoots her. "This is how."

So, they're not together. That much was beginning to be obvious. Even without the confirmation from their friend Nemuri.

From the way Present Mic's face flushed at even the slightest brush of contact between them initiated by Aizawa, first, his crush was clear. If this were a hallmark movie, she'd demand he'd go get him, if she weren't so convinced she were the one playing the role of the antagonist in the story.

Honestly, she'd assumed him as the antagonist, at first. It was in her right to do so.

But, really, she might as well have been the town girl her 'down-to-earth' boyfriend dumped for the better, newer, city edition to the place. The 'city kitty', as Mic coined himself as. While she may have grown up surrounded by trees, that didn't necessarily mean she wanted to spend the rest of her life treated like one.

Out with the old, in with the new, though, and Present Mic is the oldest newest edition anybody could pleasantly offer. Especially to someone like Aizawa.

She knows how far the two go back. It's so stupid, to her. How had they managed to dance around each other for this long?

If she were in Present Mic's boots, she'd have snatched him up the moment dating was a viable option.

...What if Aizawa doesn't love him back?

"Are you into anyone?"

"Propositioning me again, Joke?"

She interlocks her fingers together, whistling. In the confines of her pocket, she fumbles with the engagement ring she'd bought herself the other day. It's onyx, like his eyes. Reinforced titanium for hero work. Emi could throw a punch like All Might and still not have it break. "It's a serious question."

"No," he says, much too quick. She hums in assent. "I'm not."

"Wanna get married, then?"

"I knew it."

A compass never points south.

Aizawa Shouta loves Present Mic.

She sees it in the way his eyes linger over the Voice Hero, telling fantasies with the way his pupils dilate at just the sight of him. Corners softening as he pretends not to have his attention monopolized by someone who's supposedly just 'a friend from school'. 

He doesn't swat Mic's arm away. Not ever. When Mic's directional speaker takes a big hit during a particular nasty team-up, one even she can't resist wincing at, she's no closer to talking to him than to how fast he reaches over to unbuckle the support equipment from the man's neck, scolding him for... she doesn't know. She'd stopped listening after watching them for a solid ten, fifteen seconds.

Fukukado Emi loves Aizawa Shouta. A man who loves someone else.

Just her luck.

She laughs hard enough to snort blood, and twirls the ring between her fingers.

Emi can see it. Going to the eye doctor isn't something she needs to do. No optometrist would be able to help her break free from the non-blurry truth she finds herself confronted with.

He's beautiful. Present Mic. Golden locks, spiked up hair that's somehow softer when it's down-- she finds this out at a small event hosted by Nemuri. When he arrives later than usual, just long enough to be fashionably late and not irreparably late, her pupils dilate at the sight of one Present Mic, hair half down and spun into a bun that could rival... a hair model. She doesn't know, really, not paying attention to that sort of thing. Green with red, encircling spirals over them, like blood-infested waters in the middle of an algae-filled sea fill her vision when she looks closer into his eyes, now that his sunglasses are planted firmly on his head.

Unlike Aizawa, who barely bothers, if at all, Mic's eye bags are clouded over with concealer and made a ghost of. There's clear effort in his looks, make-up only done to paint his face an even prettier image, not to add, only to enhance. 

Even his mustache is groomed nicely. She who's always hated those stupid western movies for those cowboys with their wicked cool mustachios, not mustaches, can attest that he, at least, does his right, and it bothers her.

It's no use.

In the end, Emi's glad someone loves Aizawa as much as she loves him.

Maybe more, maybe less; it doesn't matter. Love is love in all forms, and she'll laugh hers away until it dissipates into pink smoke, but there's no denying the foggy breath that presents itself to her when Present Mic stomps down her way with a determined glare.

"Hey, you."

"Me!" She admonishes the words with jazz hands, something typical she's seen on his interviews. An ice-breaker for this cold night. He frowns, seemingly not having expected it, but recovers as quick as he'd faltered, grin plastered on like medicine. "What's up? You look close to blowing a fuse, Mic."

"No surprises there. Could we talk?"

Emi can't resist vaguing at one of her favourite bands. "Ooh, nice reference."

Present Mic pinches the bridge of his nose, barely missing his sunglasses. It's impossible to see what his eyes look like through the coloured lenses. He must be light-sensitive; it's hilarious, but who wears sunglasses indoors if not for vanity or an issue with their eyes? "I'll make it quick, listener," he smiles, and she's not sure if it reaches his eyes, either. "Could I please talk to you?"

"You're talking to me right now," she points out.

"Right. Um. Rehearsal room, then?"

She, also, can't help the words that come out of her, then. It's out of her hands. Literally. Emi's brows shoot up. "Are you and Eraser in an open relationship?"

It has the effect she wants.

Like the first time she'd told Aizawa she 'loved him' in front of Mic, the man stammers immediately, caught off guard.

"He's not going to wait around forever," Emi points out.

Notably, she does not counter with the truth: that she won't wait around forever. 

Mic's face pales, blanching like a full moon. "It's been over a decade. He would've done something by now if he..." He makes a loose, vague gesture, clearly out of frustration. "If he felt the same."

Eyes rolling, she does not stomp on his dreams the way he's been stomping on hers. She doesn't understand why he can't just get it, see things the way she does. Maybe it's the orange-tinted sunglasses.

"With the way I see it, it feels like I'm the one with all the history and everything!" Still, he looks hesitant. Too hesitant for the confidence he usually so effortlessly portrays. "You just gotta shoot your shot! You know how Eraser is. He's probably terrified out of his wits to talk to you!"

Suddenly, she finds herself recalling a memory of Eraserhead laying around in the sun, peacefully sleeping away after an all-nighter. She'd snapped one, teeny, tiny photo of him. Just sunbathing. Nothing else. She usually deletes them after a few days of daydreaming, but she hadn't been able to lose that one.  

His laughter sounds like sunshine. "Shou-- Eraser? Terrified? He's stared death in the face!"

They've all stared death in the face at some point in their lives. She just has a bad habit of laughing when they come knocking. Mic continues. "Hell, the only time I ever remember him being scared was when I was at death's door! What do you mean, he--"

The sound of her heart cracking just a fraction alludes her as he catches himself.

"See," she says, slowly, smile strained. "He loves you."

"You're a real good pal, Ms Joke. Thanks, for this."

She'd managed to convince him to confess. Over a candlelit dinner or after a heart wrenching, mind-numbing villain fight, adrenaline pumping and blood crusts on his lips, she's sure Aizawa would reciprocate easily.

Nevertheless, that doesn't change the fact he might have another rival besides her.

That Yamada person. The woman. 

Whatever, he'll find out eventually. She can be happy for him.

"Emi," she corrects. They're familiar enough with each other not to resort to hero names, and she's always wondered what his civilian name is. Unlike a certain few popular heroes fixated permanently in the spotlight with their family names, ones like the Todoroki and Iida families respectively, his isn't advertised to the public at all. He's more of a celebrity than anything, so it makes sense. She traces a faint smile onto her skin. "Fukakado Emi. I think you've earned that by now."

She pauses.

"Could I call you...?"

He looks ecstatic. "Hizashi," he offers.

Of course his name is sunlight. She has barely a mind to make a rash comment on it, bump against his shoulder. There's no time.

"Hizashi Yamada."

Despite the gloves, her fingers go cold.

Her stomach churns. "...Nice to meet you, Yamada."

"Likewise! Thanks for being so cool with this, yeah?"

And with that, the encore tides over, a roaring howl in a centrepiece of lies she's strung into place.

"Of course! No big deal!"

It's expensive.

She throws out the lucky charm in her pocket -- the ring she always carries around for good luck -- into the nearest beach when she gets the chance to. The hero she's on duty with offers her a condoling look, and she watches, entranced, as it disappears down the shore, to the ocean. Burrows away into the sand, or lost in the ocean, she chances a laugh, and uses her quirk to make the hero beside her reassured.

It's expensive, and it can be replaced.

Aizawa and Yamada get together just a year or so later. It doesn't happen over a candlelit dinner, or in the aftermath of a battle. She doesn't know the details.

Emi nudges Yamada's shoulder knowingly when they meet again, when he breaks the good news, and Aizawa arches a brow at both of them. Together, it's as if they've inhaled a mountain of helium, with how hard and pitchy they laugh; on account of Yamada's voice quirk, it makes sense, and with how hard she laughs, it almost makes sense. 

Nothing makes sense.

She goes to the gym. She has to pay for the cost of a damaged punching bag every so often, throwing all her force into training. Just last week, some rookie had tried wigging her out of her number, and she'd laughed him out of the room.

Another year passes, and she's invited to their wedding. 

It's a small event. Small crowd. Eraser's style. They'd gotten hitched rather quickly. Maybe it was the near two decades of waiting that spurred it on; history always wins in a fist-fight against comedy if it has punching gloves with spikes.

She cheers louder than fireworks when Yamada finally, finally swoops Aizawa into a dip, tucking a hand into the small of his boyfriend's -- now husband's -- back. Pressing a kiss to his lips like there's no tomorrow, yesterday, or now. 

Both of the grooms are beautiful, and they have all the time in the world.

"Oh, Emi." Haruto bites his lip, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

He says it like her entire family had just met their end in a car crash, deaths long drawn out into something agonising, haemorrhaging over a white carpet.

She too, shakes her head. "Don't look at me like that." There's no need to be mean about it. A sigh. "I knew it was going to happen, Ru."

All along, she'd known what she'd been expecting.

A thousand, five hundred and fifty-two proposals later, she finds herself at a remarkable loss.

Chrysanthemums are his favourite type

of flower.

On her way to a meeting with one of her student's parents, for a conference meeting to discuss his aptitude, she buys a whole vase of them.

She continues her job. Patrols go as they do. Students are tended to. Taken care of.

Emi doesn't miss him as much as she thought she would.

The flowers are well taken care of.

Eventually, she doesn't have time to give them the love they deserve, passing them along to a much more eager, green-thumbed neighbour.

One person's treasure is another person's... treasure.

They invite her over for dinner every now and then. It's nice. She'd never seen Aizawa as a homely sort of man, but Yamada and Aizawa work well as a pair.

Neither of them have even enough time for laundry-- Yamada especially, with his three, impressive jobs. He's career-oriented and ambitious, she'll give him that.

She sets them up with her own laundromat service, and sends them their merry way. Yamada sends her a funny postcard, something with cats on it. Courtesy of Aizawa, maybe. Emi sends him a voicemail with too much rambling and too little small talk, because they'd both come to a mutual agreement that small talk was the absolute worst.

In the end, her unsung confession is drawn out of her like a wish out of a genie's wishing lamp.

Forgotten about, long since 'completed'. She'd changed the wish half-way into the whole thing. Emi has regrets, but would she voice them? No.

No, Aizawa finds out because of Yamada accidentally spilling the beans on a drunken night shared together, and it is not at all what she expects to hear. She'd only implied liking him. Nothing had been explicitly stated; however, it seems to have been taken otherwise, and it is what she expects.

Maybe this is best.

"You..." Aizawa frowns, throat bobbing. "You liked me. You were..." Another pause. It's like a record's scratched, tossed away. "You were being serious. Weren't you?"

"What did you think all those proposals were for?" she teases, at first, thinking he's playing along with some sort of joke she's not apart of. When no one appears to reveal she's on reality tv, she baulks.

Shaking her head, Emi adds, "Nope! It's bridge under the water, 'Raser! I was just testing you. Messing around. There's a lot more fish in the sea, and, really, I only actually liked you for a little while. Just a teeny bit."

He still doesn't look reassured.

For the killing blow, she tacks on, "Take it as a compliment! You're impossible not to fall in love with. Yamada definitely knows that by now, eh? Such a charmer." and the last hit is secured when she nudges his shoulder, and he does not shy away from it.

Emi sees only yellow when he exhales in relief.

She's left feeling like she'd been tasered when Aizawa Shouta, the man who couldn't even bear being in skin-to-skin contact for more than a few moments before he starts to look ill, winds an arm around her shoulder, and pulls her in for a hug.

"I still find you unfunny," he says, flatly, breathe hot next to her ear. Another electric buzz flows through her skin, like the ebb and flow of a rambunctious tide as his tone softens, as he pulls away, warmth dissipating like the loud static of a microphone dropped. "But, thanks, Emi. You're good. I hope..."

A long pause. In those meaningless seconds, no breath comes to grant her the will of oxygen. "I hope you find your person. If you want someone."

She can't be struck by lightning twice. Her heart doesn't break.

He doesn't know, and yet, at the same time, he must.

"Fried chicken? Seriously? That's your favourite?" 

She and Yamada -- Hizashi, now, he had insisted -- had gone out to a restaurant. Alone. Aizawa -- Shouta -- had been too preoccupied, held up by grading and another parent-teacher conference hosted at UA. Hizashi had managed to wriggle free from his own evaluations the day earlier, so he'd suggested they go out, just to catch up, as they hadn't talked for quite a while.

"It's a delicacy," he insists. Digging into the food, proving her point further as he (with an ungloved hand, of course, he's no heathen, he'd rapidly reassured) scrapes another chicken out of the bucket. "A national treasure. Honestly, it pains me that ya don't know taste when you see it sometimes, Em!" 

Considering her past taste, looking down at the shimmering silver steel ring laying pliantly on his finger, she thinks, brought back to long black hair, it can't be too bad.

She snorts. "You're a good comedian, that's what."

"I'm never inviting you on my show again," Hizashi threatens, falling into Present Mic once more. He tended to get amped up when defensive. It was cool. He's cool.

Not one to argue about the semantics, she simply reaches over to steal one of his chicken bites, and laughs hard, hard, and harder when he squawks, like a cockatiel.

"Here."

She swallows when what's clearly a hardcover thumps against her chest. Shouta looks unbothered. With how smug his expression is, she almost feels a sense of pity for herself wash through her. "You wanted to know what I liked. Read this. Report back to me when you're done."

Emi vows never to spend another afternoon book-less around him again.

In her head, she begins to know them only as Shouta and Hizashi, and she does not stop smiling.