A Frog's Tale [Tsu x Male Hero]

Chapter 79: Rewind

With Misaki mourning the loss of her lover, Shinsou mourning the loss of his mentor, and Class 1-A mourning the loss of their father figure, which a surprising amount of us didn't have besides him, there was one person we were forgetting about do to the fact that she wasn't in the hero course just yet. Little Eri, the girl Midoriya and Mirio saved. Mister Aizawa had also been tutoring her, along with Mirio helping out and showing her the wonders of the world, so with him gone, that was yet another life negatively affected.

I'd never really interacted with her too much before, but there's one big part of life that all of us need to learn and keep working at, even now... When you're going through a bad time, isolating yourself is the worst thing you can do. So instead of wallowing in my own pity, I decided to try and do what a hero is supposed to do; I went to reach my hand out to help someone get up and out of their slump.

"Good morning, Eri." I said, standing a few feet away from her in the kitchen while I made breakfast for myself and Tsu as a surprise for her. It was a bit earlier than I was used to, but I'd fallen asleep early and woken early as my sleep schedule got completely destroyed from staying up so long with Shinsou to try and catch our second dad while he was conscious. There were a lot of us who were struggling to sleep, really, as evident by the young child being up so early too.

"Good morning, mister." She replied politely, giving me a bit of a half smile, as if she were forcing it but trying not to make it too obvious. "Aha, you don't need to be so formal with me, I don't mind being called by my name. Where I'm from, it isn't impolite." I let her know, so I could ease whatever tension there may have been. "Uhm..." Eri seemed a little lost, which made me realise how little we had actually talked.

"Oh yeah, my bad, I guess we haven't talked too much have we? Then let me introduce myself properly. I'm Alex!" I stirred a pot of miso soup I was preparing, and then a pan with a stir fry in it. The girl seemed curious about what I was making, standing on her tiptoes for a moment before replying, "It's nice to meet you, Al...Alex!" Once again reminding me that our cultures and languages were different, Eri struggled somewhat to pronounce my name, but she got the hang of it almost immediately.

"Hey, not bad! Maybe you could get some extra marks in school if you take English, I bet you'd be a natural!" I tried to make small talk with the small person, keep her company at least for a little while. She didn't really have anyone she could play with or talk with as kids, so it must have been really hard for the poor girl to deal with the amount of stress that was building up without having many ways to relieve it. But at the same time, how much experience did she even have with other kids? Was that why she was so well-spoken?

"Thank you..." She looked like she wanted to say something else, as her mouth opened a tiny bit before shutting instantly, hesitating. I gave her a moment, before asking, "What's up? Everything alright?" Of course, nothing was really alright these days, but getting her to open up and say it was what was important. Being able to express yourself is a skill in of itself, let alone feeling safe enough to do so. 

"It's nothing, I was just wondering... You're making lots of food, but not enough for everyone, are you cooking for someone else too?" I looked away from the hob where everything was being cooked. She was highly intelligent... She was dead right, I had a stir fry, miso soup, tofu, rice, and boiled eggs all on the go at the same time. I was making a semi traditional breakfast, still struggling a little to get a proper grasp on the way things were done by habit in this country.

"Quite perceptive, huh? You're pretty smart, yeah, I'm making breakfast for me as well as my girlfriend, Tsu! I'm... Trying to make it a traditional breakfast, and make it look nice, Japanese cuisine is a lot more uh, intricate than where I'm from." I told her, to which she looked up over the counter again to see what I was cooking, with a puzzled expression on her face when looking towards the eggs.