Controlee

86. Kindness

Rule 65: Kindness is worth it.

Now that Aizawa and Yamada had formally put themselves against the Ogawas for custody of Otsuka, a court date had been confirmed. On Sunday, Otsuka would have a full day with with her work studies mentor to work on the case AG had been put on. On Monday, Otsuka would face her parents in a court of law.

Aizawa and Yamada had been kind enough to talk her through how it would all work as best they could. She hadn't exactly hidden how anxious she was about everything going on, so they'd been trying to prepare her for it all, hoping it would alleviate some of her stress. It was sort of working, she was pretty sure.

Today though, she'd been gifted one short reprieve. It was a Saturday evening, classes just over, and Aki had been positively vibrating at lunch with a surprise they refused to tell Otsuka about. Aizawa and Yamada had also been kind of shifty today, they'd both taken her aside for a word at one time or another today and checked she didn't have any plans for this evening.

Considering only half her class were willing to be around her and she was grounded to UA's confines, she wasn't entirely sure what they thought she might have planned, but she'd only had the usual in mind— time with TT, time with Aki and Shinsou, sometimes Oboro tagging along. The new normal.

They hadn't explained why they'd asked her about it. They'd just told her to run along, and Uraraka had been more than happy to drag her onwards the moment she saw Otsuka slowly walking out of the classroom with a light frown on her face.

She didn't know what was going on, but Aki was waiting for her outside of the 1-A dorm house when all was done for the day. "Is everything ok?" Aki didn't usually meet her here. Normally, Otsuka would get out of her uniform, then head to TT's (sometimes bringing homework along), and she'd meet Aki and Shinsou at the 1-C dorms afterwards.

Aki frowned, head tilting. The black spike stood out against their blue hair, though it seemed to be barely hanging on. Considering Aki was already dressed in normal clothes, despite it only just being passed the end of school time, Otsuka was willing to bet they'd got changed fast and not realised their spike had been knocked loose.

"Your spike's coming out," she warned, reaching up slowly in an offer to fix it.

Aki's hand reached up to it, tugging it to test it only for it to release fully. They huffed, annoyed, but ducked their head and handed the spike over. "Thanks," they muttered.

"So what brought you to the 1-A dorms?" The spike had a pretty simple clipping system, but it still took Otsuka a few tries to get it to look right on Aki's head. They'd probably had a lot of practice putting it exactly where they wanted it. Otsuka had the advantage of not having to do it in a mirror or on herself, but she still struggled.

She patted Aki's shoulder when it was all done and they straightened up, reaching to the spike to feel it back in place and smiling. The sunlight overhead made the silver flecks in their eyes glitter.

It wasn't often that those silver flecks caught Otsuka's eye, they were easy to see really close up but it wasn't like Otsuka got that close that often. Now though, it had to be some miracle of the light. They had to be standing at just the right angle or something.

It was just so pretty. Honestly, it was like Aki's eyes had become molten metal. Staring into them was almost too bright, the shine too much.

"Otsuka?"

She blinked, focusing her attention on the bridge of Aki's nose instead. "Um, sorry, yes, surprise." Aki had been talking and Otsuka had not at all, even vaguely been paying attention but she was pretty sure the word 'surprise' had been brought up.