A Flower's Affection (KiriBaku Flower Shop AU)

Red Riot

        Kirishima growled at his phone, tossing it onto his red duvet. He hadn't meant to hang up, but he certainly wasn't going to be the one to call her back and have her laugh at him some more. That wouldn't be very manly. He'd wait for tomorrow to check in during their daily phone call. 

        Instead, Kirishima stood, rolling out the kinks in his shoulder, and glanced out the window. There was still an hour or so before it would be dark enough for crime, but the shop was closed and he needed to blow some steam. He went downstairs and checked on the shop, remembered to log the purchase he had forgotten to earlier, tended his plants, hung up his apron, and then went further down to the basement.

        The shop's back storeroom had been large enough that they'd never needed to use the basement for anything, so Kirishima had taken the basement as part of his home. His one employee had never found use to go down there, but if he had, he most likely would have found it suspicious that the basement was the only room in the building with a coded lock.

        Kirishima inserted his key and punched in the code, smiling a little when the door opened and released the familiar smell of wood and leather. The redhead flicked on the dim lights, grinning when they illuminated the room. Red foam mats adorned the walls and floor around rotating battle dummies, a black punching bag dangled from the ceiling, and near the center of the back wall was a wooden wardrobe. There was also a treadmill, a leg press, and a pull-up bar in one corner, and a television in the other. Off to the side, in a smaller room that was probably meant to be a large closet, was a bathroom.

        He gave the leather punching bag a shove as he walked past it, pulling a set of workout clothes out of a drawer in the wardrobe and changed in the bathroom, tying his hair up in a tiny ponytail. Kirishima liked working out down here in the afternoons, and it saved him the money of having a gym membership. (Seriously, he used to spend way too much on the gym. The small fortune it cost to remodel this room was nothing in comparison.)

        He got started with a warm-up and some stretches. He would have put some music on, too, but he'd left his phone on his bed like an idiot. Instead, he flicked on the T.V. and watched the news while he exercised. When he felt his muscles loosen up, he turned on the treadmill, lazily skimming the readings under the broadcast.

        There was praise for the hero work today, like always. An interview with a fan-group trying to catch the infamous, ever-reclusive underground Hero Eraserhead--what was up with that name? Kirishima couldn't help but wonder if the guys looked like the flat end of a pencil. In this world, you could never tell, but his quirk was the ability to temporarily disable others', and Kiri thought that was pretty manly.

        The news switched to a gossip segment featuring Hizashi Yamada and a few other UA alumni, and Kirishima almost lost his footing. 

        "Last night, we received more reports of Red Riot appearances," an anchorwoman said. She was dark-haired and very attractive according to most men Kirishima knew. He didn't see the appeal. What was her name? Nemuri Kayama? "' The hero is identified only by his shock of red hair and unique headgear. However, despite his great reputation in the community, we know nothing about him."

        "Seriously," another scoffed. This one, Yu Takeyama, was blonde and young, and she often got into on-air spats with Kayama over which one was more attractive. "At least tell us your quirk--we're dying over here. There's only so much digging the media can do before we draw up blanks, and you're not even registered in the system."

        "Calm down, now, Takeyama," Yamada chuckled, ever the hypocrite. The radio host was known best for being very loud and excitable."It's not like it's completely illegal not to register your quirks. Honestly, I think the government has been very cooperative where heroes are concerned since they're such a big help. Besides, it's not every day that we find a hero like Red Riot willing to stay up all night to keep everyone safe."