A Girl can be the number 1 Hero

Chapter 24 - Memories of the Past That Don't Belong to Me

Seeing the person two days in a row was not dating, right? Anyway, why was I worrying about this? My face was hot and red with embarrassment as I laced up my gym shoes and remembered everything I'd done on the date the day before.

Shinso was strangely...lovely. He didn't talk much, but listened, but at various times he would pull my hands to kiss them, or give me a kiss on the forehead when I was close enough. He liked kissing – and not that it was a problem. He interrupted several of my sentences for this, at first I freaked out of embarrassment, not knowing what to do, then I got used to it and even sought his lips before he even mentioned it.

But well, during our meeting we talked a lot about the dream of being heroes. Obviously I couldn't tell that I was a non-quirk, but within my possibilities we talked a lot about it. And I promised that I would help him train to enter the hero class – since today he belonged to regular high school. Which brought me to that moment.

Sunday, 8 am, putting on my training clothes to meet him on the same beach I used to train with All Might, that gave me a certain nostalgia.

When I got there Shinsou was already waiting for me, wearing sports clothes. He pulled me in for a kiss and with a smile on his face said:

"Good morning, little thing".

I felt my face redden, I couldn't imagine that the boy with an unfriendly face would greet someone else like that. But I kissed him back and we started our workout. Shinsou was out of shape, I only used 3% of my power that morning and I beat him in everything: running, stamina and fighting. I must have dropped it in the sand like 30 times before 10 am.

I threw him a bottle of water from my bag.

"I knew I'd get hit. But I didn't think it would be that much. And you're not even remotely tired".

I sat next to him.

"I've been training every day for a few months now, Shinso. You will get there soon. You just can't give up". I made a 'peace and love' sign with my fingers at him.

"And who said about giving up?" he smiled that determined – and a little crazy – smile that he sometimes showed. "You know, you can call me Hitoshi".

My face flushed. Call him by name? Wasn't that too intimate? Okay, so was kissing. But it looked different.

He shrugged.

"No stress, when you feel ready" the tone of voice was serious, it shook me a little. Had I hurt him? "Let's continue?"

"I have a favor to ask of you. I want you to brainwash me".

"Now?"

I nodded.

"For what?"

How could I say that? I wanted to investigate those shadows I saw at the school championship since All Might couldn't explain about them. But I smiled and lied.

"Well, you're training the body, I need to train the mind, I can't be so easily controlled".

He twisted his mouth into an unpleasant smile. Yesterday Shinso had commented that he didn't like to use brainwashing outside of a fight, so maybe my request was inconvenient, but I wouldn't miss that chance.

"Hey little thing." He brought his lips to my ear, breathing hot there.

"Huh?" I replied, feeling a shiver run through my body. And then nothing but the fog in my head and the feeling of not controlling my own will.

"Call me by my name," he said.

"Hi..." I started to say and something started to get weird.

Seconds ago it was as if I saw him through a fog, now everything was dark. Was the darkness inside my head? My body was there, I walked through the darkness, ran through it until a distant scream caught my attention. A cry of deep despair.