Bonds - The Past Echoes | MHA Reader-Insert

As Was Forewarned

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"This is unreasonably good. Obscenely, actually. It feels like I'm committing a crime by eating this." Asahi expressed in an equally indecent fashion. He was still young enough to get those falsetto notes that added to his showman persona. How he was using them here, however, was just...wrong.

"Yeah, and that crime is that I'm not being paid for this. Usually, people who perform miracles don't ask for money, but I'd like to see them try turning bare cabinets and an empty fridge into a half decent ramen." You responded to his comments, enjoying the bowl in front of you considerably less than the one he was savoring in his hands.

"Half decent?" Face-Off let out, questioning your sanity first, then his own. He seemed to be loving your cooking as well based on his loud slurps, but him being turned towards the wall made it impossible to confirm that.

"I'm sorry about that. None of us are particularly good cooks, so we usually order takeout and a lot of delivery. That's mostly what the camera outside is for." Asahi revealed, pointing backwards with his thumb.

Despite how poorly stocked the Serreno agency's kitchen was, it took up a good chunk of the space reserved for its rooms. Though, this was the same situation as the rest of the warehouse, where only a single edge of the room was actually in use.

Aside from the aforementioned cabinets and the appliances (and door) that separated them, there was a single table in the center of the room. With the longer sides being large enough to seat four, you and Asahi (especially you) felt like monarchs. Which technically, would be more accurate if you were sitting at the head of the table like Face-Off, but there's no point in arguing semantics.

The one empty side of the table remaining was pointed towards the kitchen's entrance, a reward for whoever was victorious in the battle that raged outside. As if there was even a remote chance for her to be the one who comes out on top, that side was chosen so that Yuko could sit alone.

Honestly, you were more surprised to learn she ever came down from the ceiling. If there was something you were sure had no chance of happening, it was that.

"Now that you're here, I suppose we could go grocery shopping for something that isn't cigarettes for once. Just one of the neat little perks of being treasurer." You weren't sure how to interpret Asahi's horribly phrased second sentence. Did that mean he was illegally redirecting funds to use on his addiction? Or–

"Why are you treasurer? Should someone who can't even control a single person be in charge of money?" Unsure if you should question that other thought, this is what you settled on asking.

"Ouch. We decided to start having elections a while back. For some reason, that was the only position I won. Nai-san was voted into the rest." Revisiting that day visibly confounded the young man. Something like that grew more iffy the less people there were to participate in them.

"I lost by one vote. I then proceeded to win the others by one vote, so it evens out." Face-Off added randomly, throwing a finger up underneath his sleeve that was, again, about the size of a pencil.

The air of confusion that the three of you were generating was fanned away by the sudden opening of the steel door to your right. As you figured out about ten minutes earlier, the door tended to jam, requiring it to be forced inward with all the opener's might. Or in this case, some of it, as the girl who waltzed in possessed more than enough strength to not have to swing inside with the door (as Asahi did earlier).

"Nii-chan."

Mimitaka called out to you quietly, as she slowly closed the door behind her. After what she experienced outside, and the reason that it came about, she felt inclined not to behave in any way like the woman she left lying facedown on the concrete.