A Life Worth Living (Aizawa x OC)

18 - A Date And Not A Date

"You know, just yesterday I was in one of Hizashi's lessons again and the class was ... special. You would have loved those kids. They are definitely your kind of special. There's this girl. She's such a cutesy, so bubbly and excited. She's basically running around like a toddler. Aaaaaand, she definitely doesn't know any boundaries. Maybe she's aware of them and just decides to ignore them anyway. What's her name again?" Himari stopped for a second, biting her lower lip as she tried to dig the name from her dusted memory.

"Right – Nejire! She was all over me the whole time, bombarding me with one question after another. Hizashi repeatedly scolded her for just leaving her place during the lesson, but she ended up simply ignoring him as well as the rest of his lesson. Man, it took my rusty brain some serious effort to come up with excuses to dodge her questions. She genuinely reminded me of one of these little girls from your class, the one that drew you that picture you put on the wall above your desk. Ira was it, I think. She didn't even stop to pester me after the lesson ended. She even introduced me to her friends, two boys with ...let's say unique personalities. Apparently, the three of them together are called the Big Three – students with bright and promising future careers as heroes. I had lunch with them – not by choice, but well, they told me everything about their internships, their dreams and hopes for the future. At least, two of them. It's great to see that there are such amazing young people out there. By now, I can totally understand what you always meant with they are our future."

Letting out a sigh, she paused for a moment to eat her ice cream, sitting crisscross applesauce on the ground.

"Right now, I'm truly looking forward to trying out that whole teaching thingy myself. Although, I'm still nervous as fuck. No need to sugarcoat that. The new school year starts in roughly a month. I mean, I'll be teaching English. That's nothing special. But I want to help them improve. I'm not a hero anymore. Also, I didn't exactly deliver the best performance out there, and I wasn't....as successful as I should have been. Nevertheless, I've done the job for quite a time. Fuck, when did I get so old? That's why I thought that I could try to give them some practical advice or help them to grow in some other ways. Nezu told me that I could participate in some of the practice training lessons or join them as a second supervisor if I want to. Considering how much time I spent on my close combat skills, I think that I could show them one or two handsy tricks. Though, Nezu emphasized that it's entirely up to me. They're way too generous at the U.A., I tell you that. But who am I to complain about that?"

Himari was so engrossed in her vivid monologue that she'd started to wildly gesture to accentuate the points she was trying to make, ignoring that she was basically holding an ice cream cone in her hand.

Her pulse spiked as she saw one of the scoops leaving the cone because of her frantic motions. Her reflexes kicked in, and she quickly reached out to catch the scoop with her hand, glancing left and right to ensure that she was alone before she licked the ice cream from the palm of her hand with a satisfied hum.

"They've all welcomed me with open arms. Well, most of them. I've already told you about grumpy Mr. Sleeping Bag, who turned out to actually be not that grumpy but a diva with hilarious mood swings. I like them all though. A lot. It's a crazy bunch. I appreciate that they accept me, although they don't know shit about me. To be honest, I expected some of them to be wary because duh – hero business and stuff. But Nezu assured me that they secured all of my data when they got me out of the hospital. Anyway, it's almost like I've been granted a new family at school, even though I'm only here for what? Four months? I've never had anything like this. The only thing close to a family I ever had was you, and you were in the exact same situation as me. No, I put that wrongly. You weren't my family. We were a family. I thought I'd never be able to feel happy again. Never. But here I am, laughing about Nemuri and Hizashi scrambling like kids, Aizawa acting as a gloomy and blunt voice-over, Recovery Girl's often quite desperate attempts to brighten my mood with bad dad jokes, and all the others with their strange habits. Even Nezu, that weird little guy."