Eraserhead and Scribe III

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Scribe felt a shock through her entire system. Someone who looked like her, someone with a mental quirk? She looked up and caught Aizawa's eye. She gulped back her guilt. "Um, thank you, Joey. You've been very helpful."

She stood abruptly, her vision so narrowed, she was actually feeling her way to the door. She left her coffee, didn't look to see if Aizawa followed or if her friends understood her abrupt departure. All she could think about was getting outside where she could breathe.

He looked like me. She shoved open the glass door and stumbled out onto the sidewalk. She still couldn't breathe. The only light seemed to come from the end of a small, dark tunnel. She stopped, reaching out for something...anything...to hold onto. And Aizawa's hand caught hers. He tucked it under his arm. Lean on me. I'll get you home.

More grateful than she could articulate, she let him walk her back to the bookstore. By the time they arrived, her heart had calmed its erratic beating and she could draw a full breath again. She paused, looking at the red door. She didn't want to go in yet.

She didn't say anything, hadn't even thought anything, but Aizawa turned toward the waterfront. They walked together, but she was strong enough now to stand on her own. When they reached the beach, she sank into the sand looking out at the blue water dotted by crystalline reflections of the sun. He sat next to her, silent. He wanted to know what was happening in her head, but he wouldn't ask.

Because you know I'll tell you. She sighed, digging her hand into the sand next to her.

I hope so. He looked at her. Do you know him?

Not really. She let the sand filter through her fingers, thinking of the sand in an hourglass. How it filtered inevitably into the base. Her mother had owned an hourglass. When she was little she could never tire of watching it.

A sharp lance of pain in her chest made her gulp. She hadn't thought of her mother in years. It always brought pain when she did.

Scribe? He took her hand. What's wrong?

You don't want to know. She looked away.

He touched her face lightly, not forcing her to turn to him but inviting it. When she did, she felt as if she were falling into his eyes. The eyes she'd fallen in love with on her very first day at UA. Tell me.

I...have a brother. She dropped her gaze, ashamed to admit she'd never checked on him after she left. But the pain of her family turning their backs on her after she shamed them with her actions at UA still haunted her. A younger one. His quirk is kind of similar to mine. And I don't know what happened to him after I left.

I don't understand? He can affect people in his story? Why is that a bad thing?

She laughed out loud. "Oh Shota. You remember, don't you, how you felt about my quirk when I first used it on you?" She looked at him directly. "When I made you kiss me? When I took away a choice you might never have made if I hadn't forced you? And what if I'd used it whenever I wanted to make things happen however I wanted them to? Does that not seem like a bad thing?"

For a moment he was silent, but she could see him remembering that moment in the hallway when she'd walked up to him and he'd placed his hands on her waist and pulled her into a deep kiss just like the ones she'd already fantasized about...

It wasn't even that anyone would have blamed him. As an exchange student from America, she already held a certain fascination for several of the guys in the support class, possibly some in the hero class as well. But Eraserhead wasn't the type. He was all business, totally invested in his small group of friends, with his eyes on the years beyond school when he could make his living as a hero.