Motivation - SPORADIC UPDATES

Twenty-One

"Holy shit, Kimura-kun, what happened to you?"

Kazue blinked at the exclamation hurled at his face as he pushed open the roof access door, foot hovering over the threshold. "Um," he said smartly, gaze darting around the open space until it settled on the speaker. "Villains. At the USJ facility."

Hamasaki narrowed her eyes for a second, then clapped a hand over her mouth in realization. "Right... you're in Class A..."

He snorted, shaking his head as he sat down on the ledge. "Yeah," Kazue muttered, staring off into the distance while trying to figure out the best way to ask the question burning in his mind. In the end, he just decided to do it bluntly. "Hey, I've been meaning to ask you something. Who gave you permission to come up here?"

The support course student scratched the back of her head, then shrugged. "I don't really pay attention to heroes or what their super secret code names are, but it was this lady in an outfit that was definitely not school appropriate. She was with a guy who looked like he was an insomniac. Why?"

Ah. So it had been Midnight. "No reason," Kazue lied, splitting his chopsticks and muttering his thanks under his breath.

"Hold on, did she give you permission, too?" Hamasaki asked, pointing hers at him with a raised eyebrow.

He cringed. "Maybe. She told me I'd be alone."

She snorted, covering her mouth to hide her grin. "That sounds like the plot to a shitty fanfiction you'd find on Wattpad or something."

Kazue squinted at the website's (or app's) mention, then at the word 'fanfiction'. He wasn't judging, not at all, rather agreeing, but wished that there were more male original characters that he could relate to. Sure, there were a few male readers here and there, but he could never picture himself in the story, let alone read 'M/N' as anything but those two letters. "If this is a fanfiction, then what the hell is the original storyline? Also, we'd be breaking the fourth wall right now."

"Oh yeah... someone better tag that 'Fourth Wall Rebuilder' account," Hamasaki mused, not seeming embarrassed in the slightest about casually throwing fanfiction into a conversation. Ah, to have such confidence, even in a one-on-one conversation... Kazue could never when it came to what exactly he read in his spare time.

"What's your account name?" Kazue asked as innocently as he could, glancing up from the manga he was reading. "For science."

She spat out her milk. "Over my cold, dead body," Hamasaki choked out, pounding her chest with her fist as her cheeks flamed. "You do not wanna see my reading lists."

It was the brunet's turn to choke on his drink, coughing out his lungs at the innuendo while trying to keep his arm as still as possible. "I'm not sure what's worse," he coughed, gulping down half of his bottle of water and swiping a hand across his mouth. "People with obvious inexperience writing smut, the sheer obsession with it in the first place, or just the lack of anatomical knowledge."

"Oh, no, I only add the good ones to my reading lists," the girl wheezed, whatever redness that had been there previously nowhere to be found. Apparently, Kazue essentially admitting he'd read that sort of thing had negated her embarrassment. Must be nice. "How'd we end up talking about fanfics, anyway? I thought you hated talking because of the last two times and not showing up yesterday."

"I don't hate talking," Kazue shrugged as he ignored the fact that Hamasaki did, in fact, have 'good' smut reading lists, letting his chin rest on the heel of his palm. "I tolerate it. However, when it comes to topics I actually enjoy, well... it's nice, I guess. As for yesterday, I was kidnapped."