Of Black Cat’s and Golden Retrievers - Mirio x Reader
Friends to lovers, for @whisperofwonder for the Milestone Event Week 1
5,7k words, my hand slipped. I fell in love with Mirio while writing - Join My Taglist
- 6 -
“Can’t you at least try to smile normally?” Your mother asks as you pose for a picture.
Your lips are turned downward. It’s too bright outside and she forced you into a bright pink shirt that hurts your eyes.
“Look, a butterfly,” someone exclaims to your left, running straight into you.
“Can’t you look at where you’re going?” You ask, already annoyed.
The boy seems about your age, blue eyed and blond, his bright yellow shirt stained with dirt.
“Sorry,” he smiles as he rubs his neck. “I should have phased through you, I apologize.”
“Phase through me?” Is he stupid or something? He can’t just use his Quirk like that.
“Oh, are you Togata-san’s son?” Your mother asks at that moment and you already know you’ve lost the fight and the war too.
“Yes, do you know my parents?”
“I do,” your mother smiles like he’s just handed her a present. “We moved into your street just last month, your mother mentioned you. Do you want to be on the picture too? That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
You turn your face away. Nice would be something else.
“Oh, sure, if you want to, but I can just go back and play-”
“No, no, stay.”
They chat for a while as the sun tries it’s best to burn holes into your head.
Eventually, he gets right next to you and moves to put his arm around you.
“Do that and you’ll lose that arm,” you threaten him, voice low enough that your mother can’t here. He takes it back immediately.
Good.
- - -
- 7 -
The boy’s name is Mirio.
Mirio’s always around.
He lives too close for your liking and his parents are too friendly with your parents and now he’s at your house almost every day, asking if you want to come out to play.
You don’t want to, but your mom is not letting up.
“Don’t you like having friends?” She asks and you scuff your shoes on the sidewalk as an answer. Yeah, you want friends. But does it have to be him? Does playing always have to be outside?
Mirio soon brings another friend to these playdates.
Tamaki is not that bad. A little quiet, maybe, but he respects your personal bubble and never once asks you to come out of the shadow when the sun is at it’s brightest, like Mirio likes to do.
-
“What’s your Quirk?” Tamaki asks one day after he’s managed to push a tiny flower out of his palm. He’s proud of himself for exactly five seconds before the doubt settles in again.
You huff out in annoyance.
“It’s so lame.”
Mirio turns too, always the curious one.
“What is it? Is like your mom’s? Oh, is it like your Dad’s?”
“No,” you cut him off. “It’s my very own! But it’s lame. I don’t…” You hesitate. “I don’t like telling it.”
“Is it weird?” Mirio has no shame. No sense of privacy either. “In my class I have a boy who can make his boogers explode.”
“It’s not weird, it’s just lame,” you defend yourself before giving in under their curious eyes.
“Fine,” you huff, looking both ways before turning back to them, “I’ll show you.”
You form a globe with your hands, focussing. There’s nothing to see but you feel it, expand the form until it surrounds the three of you.
Inside, there’s just silence. A deafening, all encompassing Silence. Nothing else.
You let it fall into itself again, disappear into thin air, so to say.
“I can create silent… rooms, or something like that. One time I think I turned off the light too, but I don’t know how I did that. It’s really lame, like, what do you even do with that?”
“You could do espionage,” Mirio offers up immediately. “No one would hear you coming.”
“I wouldn’t hear myself, is what you meant to say,” you tell him flatly before pulling into yourself again. “Whatever, I’m going back into the shadows. Call me if my mom turns up.”
- - -
- 9 -
“I don’t wanna celebrate with them!” You tell your mother for the fifth time in twenty minutes. “I told you! It’s my birthday, I should be allowed to decide!”
“And I told you that they’re our friends! They’re your friends! It’s not normal how you keep shutting everyone out!”
“Well, maybe I am not normal!”
“Please,” your father interjects from the kitchen table, rubbing his temples. “Can’t you find a compromise?”
“I don’t want a party at all!”
“Fine!” Your mother snaps. “No party. No presents. I hope you’re happy about it!”
You slam the kitchen door shut instead, stomping up to your room.
You hate her! You hate this! You hate everything!
Only when your headphones settle heavy on your ears and the music turns up loud and angry, you calm down, glaring holes into your opposite wall.
You wanted a guitar for your birthday. Maybe go out for snacks too. Something small and just the three of you. Mom is not as pushy about things when it’s just the three of you.
About half an hour in you can see it from the corner of your eye, Mirio’s bright, stupid grin in front of your bedroom window. He’s climbed the wall again, that idiot.
“Go away!”
His head phases through the glass. “What did you say?”
You don’t even need to turn the music off to know what he’s saying, you can read his lips well enough.
“I said go away.”
“Mom said you’re not getting a party.”
“What?” You turn your music off. “What did you say?”
“Mom said you’re not getting a party. Did you do something bad?”
“I didn’t. Mom’s just stupid.”
“Oh,” he hesitates. “I got your present with me just in case, can I come in?”
You think about it for a moment.
If you say no, you won’t get any present at all.
But if you say yes and your mom finds out, she’s going to be terrible about it.
“Give me a minute,” you tell him, before creating a silent room. They’re a little stabler now, that you’ve aged. You still haven’t found much practical use in it.
When you open the window, he stumbles inside without a sound.
He’s almost fun to hang out with, Mirio, when he’s unable to talk. You can’t hear his jokes or his laughter or any of what makes him so dear to your mother.
His present is small enough to fit into the pocket of his pants. He wrapped it, too, though he’s done a bad job.
The wrapping paper is matte black and you take it off slowly, resolving to keep it. You’ve got not enough black in here anyway.
Dumbfounded you stare down at the guitar picks. There are three of them.
Mirio points at a matte black one. “Tamaki,” he mouths. The next one is a shiny black one with a little silver insignia. “Me and Tamaki,” Mirio mouths. The last one seems black at first but when you hold it up to the light you can tell it’s the darkest kind of red that looks almost bloody when you hold it into the sun. “Me,” Mirio points at himself.
The gift itself is pretty pointless. After all, you’ve got no guitar to use it on and the one you use in school comes with standard picks you have to use.
But the sight of it, so clearly tailored to your taste, does something weird to your insides. Your stomach feels tight and fuzzy and you wonder if you’re maybe just getting your period early.
Before you can think properly about it, you reach out and hug him. He smells of sweat and freshly mowed grass, of sunshine and toothpaste and usually you hate all this about him, but today it’s okay.
The hug is over as quickly as it begun and you take a step back to check the door. You have no way of knowing if your parents are already coming up the stairs or not.
“You should go,” you mouth to Mirio.
“What?” He mouths back.
“Go,” you point at the window. “Go.”
He seems to get it now, making his way back out the window with one last smile and a wave. If sunshine could be poured into a person, it would be him.
No wonder you hate him so much.
- - -
- 11 -
“You’re weird,” someone tells you at lunch. You ignore them.
On the outside, you look like everyone. You wear the same uniform and the same dead eyed stare everyone else wears so close to the exams.
Students are not allowed to wear make-up or fancy hair-does or you’d come here in all the goth glory you could manage to cram into the twenty minute train ride to school, only to wipe it all off on the way back.
Still, there must be something noticeable if people can call you out on it so easily.
“Hey,” Mirio takes the seat on your left. “Are you eating that?”
He points at your Bento. It’s a rainbow of color, courtesy of your mother.
“Depends,” you counter. “What have you got?”
He checks his Bento. “Sorry,” he slides it over. “I asked Mom three times to make the Halloween special again.”
The Halloween special, as you call it, is nothing more than very crudely made food, meant to look a little gory and all over the place. You love it. Togata-san not so much.
“I-I h-have,” Tamaki slides onto the bench on your other side, “r-raw fish, if you want?”
He’s still working on his stutter, the shyness forcing his shoulders up and around his head like a shield.
You sigh. “It’s not as good as bloody meat, but we can mix.”
-
“Are you okay?” Mirio asks on the way to sport, as usual on your left like a bodyguard while Tamaki either stays on your right or as close to Mirio as possible, like a purple shadow. “You look kinda pale.”
“Stomachache,” you point out. “It feels like someone’s stabbing me with a hot knife.”
Tamaki squeaks on your left. “There’s blood on your skirt.”
“Where?” You turn, but it’s a lost battle trying to gain a look onto your behind.
Mirio’s eyes widen almost comically. “Are you getting your period? My mom told me all about it!”
“Why would your mom tell you all about it but my mom hasn’t told me anything?”
“Mom says it’s good to be prepared!”
“Yeah, well, what do I do now?”
“Nurse,” Mirio decides, taking your hand. You pull back immediately and he lets go with an apologetic smile. He knows you hate to be touched without consent. “Sorry. Tamaki, do you wanna go ahead and let the teacher know we’re coming a little later?”
“On my own?” He looks like he’s about to pass out.
“Do you wanna go to the nurse than with her and explain?”
“On my own?” Tamaki asks, voice turning up higher.
Mirio blinks. For once, he doesn’t know what to do.
“I can go on my own-”
“What are you guys doing here?” A teacher asks, stepping forward. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“I’m bleeding out of my ass-” “Uterus,” Mirio corrects you but you blunder on. “And they’re going to take me to the nurse because who knows how long I’ll still be able to walk properly.”
The teacher, male of course - thankfully - pales at your answer, especially when you turn to show him the growing blood stain in your skirt.
“Move along then, make it quick.”
-
“How nice of your friends to help you,” the nurse points out twenty minutes later when the painkillers have started working and she explains under Mirio’s and Tamaki’s curious eyes what a pad is and how it’s supposed to be used.
“It’s good to always have some on hand,” she adds with a smile, offering a box.
She’s not prepared for Mirio taking the box and counting them out, one bundle for you, one for him and one for Tamaki.
“We need to always be prepared,” he points out proudly, stuffing the pads into the pockets of his uniform trousers. “Right, Tamaki?”
“R-right.”
Idiots, you think. But at least they’re your idiots.
- - -
- 13 -
Mirio wants to try out for U.A. soon.
Tamaki’s going to follow him there, of course.
It’s not as easy for you.
Yes, you finally figured out how to turn off the light in your silent rooms, and how to form another room in the first room where you can hear what’s going on, so you’re carrying the silence around you like a shield, but that’s not going to help you score any points anywhere.
“Do you want to be a hero?” You ask yourself weekly, thinking of the future.
The answer is: not really.
But if you don’t want to become a hero, what else could you become?
And how can you convince everyone else that you need to go to U.A. for it, because there’s no chance in hell you’re going to go to another school, find new idiots and train them until they’re likable!
- - -
- 14 -
“I hate this,” you cough. Mirio grins as he passes you. Tamaki is close behind.
You hate running.
“I hate this,” you groan, sweat dripping down your temple. Mirio grins on your left, lifting thrice the weight. Tamaki looks as miserable as you feel. He shouldn’t have tried lifting this much this early either.
You hate weightlifting.
“I love this,” you cheer down in Mirio’s dumbfounded face.
All the hours of watching training videos on martial arts and wrestling finally paid off.
If you can’t beat them with strength, you have to beat them with intelligence.
Oh how you love working smarter, not harder.
-
The entrance exams are coming closer.
You might not yet be sure what you’re going to do with your life, but at least now you feel like you have a fighting chance at the practical exams.
And even if you don’t make it into the Hero Course, you’ll be just fine in the General Department, right? Mirio and Tamaki won’t be too far away.
- - -
- 15 -
You make it out of the Practical Exam with a broken leg and one single point.
The pain is almost unbearable but it fades when you realize how far behind you are.
One single point. It pales in comparison to what Mirio racked up.
-
“You can wait outside a minute longer,” you hear a voice from the other side of the white door.
When it opens, death stares right into your eyes.
He’s tall, dark haired and the dark circles around his eyes carry their own designer bags, it seems. You like him instantly.
“My name is Aizawa Shouta, I’m a teacher for the Hero Course,” he introduces himself before taking a large sip out of the cup of coffee in his hand. “Care to explain your Quirk?”
“My Quirk?”
“Yes,” he snarls, clearly impatient. “Do you see anyone else here that I could be asking?”
“Well maybe the invisible girl right behind me,” you snap back, just as annoyed. Your leg is hurting like a bitch, after all. “I could be Quirkless after all.”
“You wrote “Silent Room” in your application,” Aizawa points out. “Now?”
You explain begrudgingly. He looks like he’s falling asleep just listening to you.
“Now?” You ask as soon as you’re finished. “What was that for?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Aizawa turns back to the door. “Keep your weight off that leg.” And he’s gone.
-
Despite the weird encounter, or maybe because of it, you make it into the General Course of U.A. High. It’s a bittersweet win.
Classes are tough, but not the same level tough as Mirio and Tamaki’s, who tell you tales of blood and gore while all you can offer is the horror of endless homework.
-
Mirio gets popular quick.
Maybe it’s his sunny personality or his dumb jokes or maybe someone really is into these bright blue eyes of his, but there’s always a group of people around during lunch, all of them wanting to eat with him or talk to him or share the same air he breathes.
Sooner or later you’re pushed to the side and you hate it.
Tamaki understands because Tamaki always understands. He’s not in the same class as Mirio, struggling to keep his anxiety somewhat in check, to grow with his Quirk, to not die during ridiculous exercises.
And then there’s Nejire.
Stupid, pretty, always happy Nejire.
You wanna claw out her eyes and feed it to the ravens, you think sometimes, especially when she flutters her eyelashes at Mirio or laughs about one of his jokes.
But you’re just someone from the General Course.
Just someone who happens to walk home with Mirio and Tamaki every day.
Just someone.
-
Aizawa-san picks you up after class one day wearing a sleeping bag like a fashion statement. It’s bright yellow and the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
Soon enough you’re sitting in a detective's office wondering if you’re being accused of any crimes.
You knew U.A. is tougher about these things but you’re pretty sure you can’t be incarcerated for stealing a few steamed buns at lunch. No one was going to eat them anway.
“Hi,” the Detective looks like a younger, short-haired version of your teacher. He offers you his hand. “I’m Detective Tsukauchi. Do you know why you’re here?”
“Should I?”
He smiles. “What do you know about the work of a Detective?”
-
When you get to leave an hour later, a bundle of infomaterials in your arms, Aizawa guides you to a nearby coffee shop.
“Do you want anything?”
“No.”
“Good, wait here.”
He’s back in a heartbeat, a gigantic cup of coffee in his hands.
“I’m not doing this because I like you,” Aizawa starts, eyes focused on the steam curling up from his cup. “Or something like that. Get that out of your head if you thought that was the case. But every few years or so we find someone with an interesting Quirk in the General Course and we offer them a chance. If you make yourself known at the Sports Festival, you can switch over to the Hero Course if you want.”
“And if I don’t want that?” The papers in your arms are heavy. Aizawa looks at them instead of your face.
“Well, I offered you a different route, didn’t I?”
“So I can either become a Hero or a Detective? That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Did you have any other plans?”
You huff. No, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“Can’t I be both?”
He looks surprised. Good. He should know better than to underestimate you. You hate being underestimated.
“My class is pretty easy to handle at the moment. I can offer you training every Friday after classes end. You’ll have to handle the rest yourself.”
“Can I train with other students from the Hero Course?” You know Mirio and Tamaki get the Training Rooms to themselves twice a week and there’s a Gym at school too. God, you hate going to the Gym.
“If you find someone who lets you train with them, sure.”
-
“I’m training with Nejire on Tuesdays,” Tamaki explains softly when you ask him. “And Mirio on Thursdays. I’m sure we can take you in on those days as well, no problem.”
“Why are you training with Nejire?” You ask, annoyed to hear her name again. “Why not me?”
Tamaki blushes. Ah. So that’s how it is.
“Fine,” you pat his arm. “I’m gonna ask Mirio.”
“You asked me first?” Tamaki sounds surprised and you pull back, annoyed.
“Yeah? So what. I can ask whoever I want.”
“Sure, I just figured. Nevermind… I’m sure Mirio has time for you.”
-
“It’s not like I need you to train with me,” you tell Mirio half an hour later on the way home, Tamaki thankfully silent next to you. “I was just wondering if you wanted to train with me since you’re always complaining about how you get no one to train with you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mirio smiles. “That would be cool. Can you train on Fri-”
“Not on Fridays.”
“Oh,” Mirio blinks. “No problem. I have an open spot tomorrow and we can figure out a schedule if you like.”
“Well, if you want to have a schedule, we can.” Tamaki’s not buying it, you can tell, but Mirio’s smiles are as bright as usual.
-
“Oh my God!” You shriek, hands in front of your eyes. “Put your pants back on.”
He still tackles you to the ground, not stopping, while you keep your eyes firmly closed.
“I can’t help it,” Mirio tells you and his voice sounds a little pouty, but you know better than to open your eyes too early. “You shouldn’t let your guard down like that. You’ve seen me naked before.”
Your cheeks aflame you open your eyes again to glare him down.
“Accidentally! It’s not like I was peeping.”
Mirio’s smiling, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Still. It’s not like I changed much. I need to use my Quirk while training, so I can’t help getting naked during it. You need to be comfortable with it until they’re able to make a suit that can phase with me.”
Swallowing thickly you get back in position.
Despite his confident statement you know he’s wrong. He has changed. He has changed a lot.
- - -
- 18 -
Your life is starting to feel like a murder case.
Tamaki likes Nejire. Nejire might have a crush on Mirio - although you haven’t confirmed that yet. No one knows if Mirio even knows how to like someone.
And you- Better not go there.
-
“Work study today,” Mirio apologizes after school, taking a different train. You watch him go, the stupid, stupid way he walks.
Usually you’d take the train with him, walk down the few blocks to meet up with Tsukauchi like you usually do on Tuesdays.
Not today though. Today is one of your rare days off.
Tamaki follows you into the train, slumps into the chair next to you.
“Tired?”
“This Kirishima kid is too excitable,” he complains. “Do you have a present for Mirio already?”
You have but you don’t want to talk about it. It’s stupid. You won’t give it to him.
“I’m gonna buy him a new joke-book,” you tell Tamaki instead and he’s got the decency to pretend he doesn’t know you’re not entirely honest.
-
It’s a little past Dinner when you sneak out of your bedroom window, down the wall and through the backyard of your neighbours, over the fence and into yet another backyard.
The lights are on, the window tilted. You open it with the skill of a future spy - if you might call yourself that - and slip inside, your dark clothes a great camouflage.
You’re at the Desk when the door opens, your homework open in front of you.
You pretend not to notice when the door opens, though you see very well how Mirio’s face lights up at the sight of you. He’s fresh out of the shower, towel around his neck.
“Trouble with English?” He asks, strutting through his room like a peacock. It looks ridiculous, and, if you dare to say it, adorable.
“No,” you huff through your nose. “I just focus better in here. The lighting is better.”
He preens, sliding his chair a little closer.
You wonder, sometimes, if you remind him of his cat, little Pusheen who pretends she’s only in his bedroom because it gets the most sun when everyone knows she’s just obsessed with the belly rubs he gives.
As if summoned by your thoughts Pusheen mewls at the door, begging to be let in.
Jealousy crawls up your throat like thorny vines.
Mine, you want to tell the cat. After all, she has him to herself plenty of time. You always have to share him with others.
-
In a few months, you’ll all be graduating.
All three of you have jobs lined up.
Tamaki’s going to join Fatgum’s Agency, Mirio’s going to work with Sir Nighteye and you, well, you’re going to separate your time between the Agency Aizawa works for and the Police Force.
You know Tamaki wants to move into his own place, despite being too anxious to even plan it properly and you know Mirio would say yes to that idea in a heartbeat if he knew about it.
All you have to do is tell him about it, ask if you can move in with them too.
But that would be clingy. And weird. And you don’t have a reason for it, or rather, not a reason you’re willing to say out loud.
You hate that you’re at his place even when you tell yourself you’re perfectly fine going a day without seeing him.
You hate that you bought him funny underwear for his last birthday and didn’t gift it to him because you got afraid of your own bravery last minute.
You hate that he went all the way to the other end of town to buy you a necklace you’ve been thinking about getting yourself for your own birthday and you hate that he knew how much it meant to you and you hate that he gave it to you with a smile and you hate… you just hate that you don’t know if he likes you like that.
-
“Are you going over to Mirio later?” Your mother asks at the breakfast table and your shoulders pull up to your ears in anger.
“Why would I?”
She blinks back in surprise.
“Why wouldn’t you? You’re friends. You spend a lot of time together.”
“We do not.”
“What?” She laughs in surprise. “Yes you do. You walk home after school each day.”
“Because we live so close. I’d not spend so much time with him if I didn’t have to.”
Your mother gasps in shock. “Is that how you talk about your best friend?”
“Stop trying to make him my best friend.”
You stomp up the stairs up to your bedroom, anger flooding your veins.
This is stupid. So stupid. So very very stupid.
The window opens up without a problem, the way down and over the fence is ingrained in your brain.
Mirio left his window open and you slip inside, glare at Pusheen who’s curled up on his pillow, and slip under the covers.
His bedsheets smell like him and you hate that you know that.
“Oh,” his voice is warm, his hand as well, rubbing circles onto your back. You must have fallen asleep for a second there.
“Don’t read anything into this,” you tell him, face still mushed into his mattress. “My mom pissed me off and I needed a place to hide.”
“Anytime. Bed’s open for you anytime.”
“That sounded cocky.” You pull your head up to glare at him. He’s grinning back at you.
-
And then everything is different…
-
You paint Mirio’s fingernails black as he sleeps, because you know he will laugh about it when he wakes up.
When, you tell yourself again and again and again. When he wakes up. Because he’s going to wake up, you’re sure of it. He has to.
There’s a little girl that calls him her hero and the man that Mirio called his hero is no more.
Your brain can’t fully comprehend how so much can happen in so little time.
How so much can be lost so easily.
“Oh, you’re here?” Togata-san squeezes your shoulder with her hand. “How nice of you.”
“I was just passing by,” you lie. Tamaki knows you haven’t left since the minute they let you step inside.
You know Rescue Girl is one of the best there is, but this is Mirio you’re talking about.
Strong Mirio. Funny, dumb Mirio who’s never lost hope once.
Mirio with the weird Qui- you forgot he’s Quirkless now.
Your hand curls around his. The black nails don’t suit him. You should paint them blue, the color of his eyes instead, but you’ve never once owned any blue.
“When you wake up,” you tell him in the silence of an empty room, the grown ups outside, talking about all the important things you don’t want to hear. “When you wake up, Mirio, I’m gonna tell you everything, okay? Like, what I feel and stuff. So you got to wake up, okay?”
His eyelashes flutter and your heart drops to your knees at the sight.
You’re not ready to tell him yet, not when he’s like this, not when he needs someone just as bright and wonderful as himself to cheer him up, not the blackest, most miserable cat there is.
When he blinks awake you’re already gone.
-
“Mirio’s back home,” your mother tells you over Dinner.
You don’t answer. The noodle dish she made tastes like cardboard in your mouth.
Maybe you picked up some weird germ at the hospital.
“Leave her be,” your father sighs and you look up in surprise. He’s not once interfered like this before.
“But-”
“She’ll do whatever she will do,” he points out, one hand on your mothers arm, one hand close enough to touch you, if he wanted to. But he doesn’t. He lets you come to him, smiling when you reach out and curl your fingertips around his.
You already know the way, out your window and through the backyard, over the fence and through the tilted window.
Mirio’s awake, blue eyes following your movements as you slip into his room.
“I left my eraser here,” you tell him, feeling horrible about the lie.
You can’t even be honest now.
“Should I help you look for it?"
“No,” you shuffle your feet on the floor. “How- How are you feeling?”
“I’m in no state of mind to be smiling,” he mutters, though his lips are quirkign up already, just the faintest of smiles nonetheless.
“Why are you doing it then, anyway?”
He shrugs, winces. He must be tender, still.
“You’re here.”
You let that sink in, unable to move for a second.
Mirio’s always been good at surprising you.
“Still some space in that bed of yours?”
He lifts his blanket and you crawl under, one arm across the broad expense of his chest. He’s warm and big and so much Mirio it hurts to think about.
“I haven’t changed much, have I?” He asks. You know he talks about his Quirk. The loss, the grief, you’ll talk about later.
“Not at all.”
You lie like that for a while, warm and comfortable in this shared sense of grief and insecurity.
And maybe it’s the darkness growing bolder around you or the soft breaths of him that wash over your face, but you open your mouth and the words spill out, the words you’ve kept inside for way too long.
“I got you a different present for your birthday, actually.”
“Hm?” His hand is rubbing a circle into your back and you hate that it makes you shiver, this gentle touch of his.
“Yeah,” you admit. “I’ve done that a few times now. I- It feels stupid to gift it to you and even though I know you’ll never laugh about it, I just don’t give it to you.”
“What did you get me this year?” He asks and you know you could lie or tell him that it’s none of his business - even though it is - because you’ve done it before and he smiled and kept the space you’ve carved out for yourself.
But you cannot do that any longer.
Not when death is no longer something far, far away.
Not when you’ve just got him back.
You take a breath, open your mouth and admit it, to yourself and to him, finally.
“A kiss.”
-
You’re not really sure who kisses whom.
But his lips are warm and he tastes like sunscreen and Ramen broth and his arms pull you in until you’re resting on top of him like the worst blanket of all and you’re drowning in his embrace.
There’s a knock on the door and you pull apart, breathless and minds blank.
“Yes?” His voice is hoarse and you have to bite your lips to keep from giggling.
“We’re going to bed, honey. Do you need anything?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Okay, sleep well. See you tomorrow.”
“Have a good night.”
Silence envelopes you after that encounter, thick and all-encompassing, as if you’ve draped your silent room over the two of you.
And although he doesn’t speak first, Mirio’s hand draws another circle into the skin of your back and you sink back into him as if you’d never been apart.
“I’m sleeping here tonight,” you declare and you can feel his smile against your lips.
You don’t even have to make up a reason for it.
- - -
- 25 -
“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” Mirio asks and your coworker almost chokes on her coffee.
“Are you trying to imply that I’m Satan?” You ask back, your best angry face on as you usher the two robbers into the police van.
“Maybe?” He’s full on grinning now, this fool.
“Is that really the Number One Hero?” Robber Number 1 asks, his face a little bruised from his earlier fight with Mirio.
“What?” You scoff at him. “A little dumb humor is all it takes to make you doubt?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Mrs Policewoman, Sir, err, Ma’am.”
“Sure,” you close the door in their face before turning back to Mirio. “Really? Flirting on the job?”
“How could I not?” He asks, presenting his best puppy-dog eyes. “You know I’m a sucker for uniforms.”
“Don’t!” You snap your fingers in front of his face. “You’re going to lose all credibility if you keep this up.”
Mirio smiles. “Ah, but Togata-san-”
You press your hand to his mouth to shut him up. He kisses the palm of your hand, right below the ring that has made him your husband.
He’s a romantic at heart.
You knew that and you still married him.
What a fool you are. A happy one. A very happy one indeed.
-
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