Infectious

ch. 26

Chapter Twenty Six;;- Nighttime Honesty

As part of their camp, the students were cooking their own dinner from the second day onward. [name] felt a little useless, just watching them, but seeing them smiling despite the exhaustion cheered her up.

Instead, she spent the time by Aizawa. They chatted occasionally about whatever came to mind, but most of the time, they didn't speak. Listening to the chatter of the kids was more than enough to keep the atmosphere from being awkward--although considering they've talked in the bath before, one would think it would be difficult for the two to be caught in an awkward atmosphere.

It was up to the kids to clean up, too. Then, Aizawa and [name] split up. Aizawa took the five that needed remedial lessons to a separate classroom for their lessons and [name] supervised the rest-- making sure they all got cleaned up and in bed by 10 p.m.

Aizawa, changed for bed, crept through the hallways. It was just past 2 a.m., the time when the remedial lessons had ended. He made sure that all five made it into bed safely, then he changed and headed for his and [name]'s shared bedroom.

When he slid open the door, [name] was, similarly to the night prior, sitting with her back propped against the wall with a pillow cushioning it and the comforter of the futon drawn up around her knees. Resting on her thighs was a book that Aizawa couldn't see the cover or spine of. Her eyes danced across the pages, lapping up the words displayed on them.

His footsteps on the tatami flooring made [name] glance up. Aizawa lifted his hand in a silent wave as he made his way over to his luggage bag.

"Remedial lessons go well?" She asked, tucking her thumb at her spot on the page and closing the book. When [name] shut the cover over her finger, he noticed that the book was an English one.

Aizawa nodded. "They're far from the brightest in our class, but at least they work hard." He tucked the day's clothes away in his suitcase. When he finished, he sat on down on his futon with his legs crossed, looking over at her. He wondered whether the question he wanted to ask would be answered if he really did ask.

She blinked back at him, lips parted and eyebrows raised in obvious confusion. "Everything alright?"

Well, you never know if you don't try, right? "You said earlier that when you decided to be a hero, you trained like they did. How did you do that?" As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized that the question probably wasn't as serious as he made it out to be moments before.

[name] hummed. "I was unemployed at the time so I took up volunteering at the hospital. I would stay in the infectious diseases areas and just took in all of the viruses I could. It raised my body's immune system and I got practice learning how to transfer viruses from myself into other people." She averted her gaze as she turned her head to find her bookmark, taking a moment to gently tuck the scrap of paper in her spot. Afterward, she set the book on the table that separated their futons and looked back at him.

Aizawa was caught slightly off-guard by the look she gave him. Maybe it was the exhaustion muddling his mind or the way that the night can make you think weird things, but there was something in that look she gave him that was weirdly... expectant? Was that even the right way to say it?

It didn't seem like she was expecting something good, though. It was like she was preparing herself for a scolding.

He realized that just sitting there slack jawed probably would make things weird, so he swallowed the observation. "Was your immune system weak before you did the training?"

[name] smiled, the expectant look disappearing when she blinked. "Yeah, kind of. My quirk naturally made my immune system a little bit better but being sleep deprived can make it worse. Since I never slept and my quirk attracted all sorts of disease to me, I ended up being sick a lot." She rubbed her neck sheepishly. "That's where my original hero name came from-- I was so bad at controlling my quirk that I would infect our whole household if we weren't careful..." Her smile faltered as she broke eye contact. "I stayed in a separate part of the house from my family after the first couple of times..."