Smile for Me

Chapter 49: Crash

Aizawa POV

He woke up to find Emi sound asleep on his shoulder. He remembered them falling asleep on the couch fairly quickly, but he woke up before her. He looked at the clock on the wall to see that it was 9:48 am.

Almost 5 hours of sleep. Great.

He looked down to see he was propped up on the edge of the couch with Emi snuggled against him. He didn't want to be the cause of her waking up again, so he decided to just sit there for a bit.

This is becoming a pattern.

He didn't admit it to himself, but it was a pattern that he didn't mind repeating. He held her just a bit tighter, and she made a small happy hum in response. Aizawa saw that her eyelids were fluttering.

She must be dreaming.

She gripped onto his arms (which were wrapped around her) and curled up a bit. Whatever she was dreaming about must have been odd; she was happy, then concerned then happy again? Whatever. It wasn't his job to keep track of everything.

He decided it was time for him to get up and he managed to wiggle his way out without waking Emi. He had noticed that she was a heavy sleeper, at least when she was dreaming. Aizawa went to take a shower and get dressed. When he got back he saw she was still asleep.

Weird...

Emi groaned on the couch and rolled over. The dark haired man wondered if she was in pain and went to check. He hoped it wasn't another one of those Madame Maniacal nightmares again...

"S-Shouta..." she mumbled.

He blushed at the sound of his name being said that way; in her sleep no less. She squirmed around, grinning but beginning to sweat.

"P-please.." she moaned.

Aizawa has no idea how to feel about this. She sounded like she might be having a nightmare about him... but that couldn't be it; sometimes she would smile. He decided to go ahead and wake her just to be on the safe side.

Aizawa walked over to the couch and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Joke." He whispered.

She moaned again, clawing desperately. He realized that he loved that sound from her lips, and waited just a bit longer for a few more... Then he got a grip and shook her a bit.

"Emi."

She sat up, looked around and steadied her breathing. She looked up to see Aizawa standing over her from the other side of the couch.

"Are you okay?" He blushed.

She turned bright scarlet. "Y-yeah, of course! W-why?" She asked nervously. 

"Well, you're sweating a lot and at the end you started calling out my name so I thought you were awake. I came to check on you but you were...still asleep." He knew it was a lie, but he didn't want to deal with telling her the full truth right now. "You had another nightmare about people close to you dying? I guess it was me this time." He said, trying to convey sympathy (which for him took effort).

"What? N-no, no! I just um... well..." she tried to explain.

"It's okay, Joke. It was just a dream." He said walking back towards the kitchen to make some tea. He heard her mutter something that sounded like a curse then saw her get up.

"I-I'm going to take a shower..." she said, speed-walking to her room to get clothes. He shrugged it off and finished making his highly caffeinated tea. He went with black tea this time, only stirring in a but of sugar. He fed Sumairu then went to put away the blanket Joke used last night. He was glad he got up before she started sweating.