Deep Red

21

I hadn't been sleeping well. Or a lot. I kept having the strangest dreams and I kept waking up. When it was shortly before 7 I just decided to get up and get ready to leave. There was no point trying to sleep any longer. The landlord would be standing in front of my door soon and then I had to be out of here.

I quickly got dressed, brushed my teeth and did... something to my hair. I couldn't make coffee, because I had already stored my coffee machine in the locker at work.So I just put the last few of my things into my backpack and rolled up my futon. I was proud of myself when I managed to roll it up tight enough to actually tie it to my backpack, but then I quickly remembered why I had to pack it up in the first place and my pride faded within several seconds.

Just as I was all done, I heard my landlord knocking at my door. That was it then. Now my life on the streets would begin. Unless he was willing to give me another chance. But knowing him, that was highly unlikely. I took a deep breath and opened the door with a smile on my lips.

"Good morning, Mr Shiroyama." I said to him.

"Miss Takahashi, if I may have the keys, please?" he asked, not wasting any time on formalities.

"I assume there is no point trying to convince you to let me stay, right?" I replied with a sigh and held up the keys.

"You are absolutely right. I'm not going to change my mind." he answered. I nodded and gave him the keys.

"I understand, Mr Shiroyama." was all I could say. I stepped outside of the apartment while Shiroyama was giving me a pitiful look.

"Look, Miss Takahashi, I really don't like doing this, but you left me no choice in this matter." he told me. I nodded.

"Yeah. I know, this is on me. Well, it was nice living here and all. I guess, I better get to work now." I said and turned around.

"Goodbye, Miss Takahashi." Shiroyama replied. I didn't feel like answering him, so I just waved without turning around. I knew I'd get overly emotional if I looked back now. And I had a full day of work ahead of me.

I made my way to the train station. There was a lot of news about the Sports Festival in the newspapers and on bulletin boards. Most of them were showing Bakugou with his medal in his mouth. It was a pretty disgraceful picture of him to be printed all over the news. I knew that Shouta wouldn't be happy at all about that.

I was glad I wasn't easily recognizable as a hero, since I didn't dye my hair anymore. It made the commute to school a good bit easier. Any of the students that had more outstanding features would be easily recognized and bombarded with questions and congratulations for the next few weeks until the excitement from the festival had finally blown over. Some of them might enjoy it, but I personally hadn't been a fan when I was at U.A. It was just stressful.

The commute to work somehow seemed shorter today. Maybe because I didn't really want to get there fast. It would definitely raise questions when I got to the staff room with my futon and a big backpack. I wouldn't really be able to hide the fact that I had just become homeless for much longer.

But I guess I couldn't just stay away from work forever. Or hide from the sad facts that were my life right now. And I desperately needed some coffee, too, so I swallowed my pride and walked into the staff room, trying to look as if nothing was weird about carrying your bed around at work. (To be fair, Shouta did that ALL THE TIME with his sleeping bag, so technically it wasn't that weird.)

"Morning." I said loud enough to be heard by most people sitting close by the door, but not loud enough to catch the attention of anyone further away. Not that there were too many people in the staff room anyway. Snipe was there, preparing some lessons by the looks of it, Shouta and Kayama were there, having a lively discussion, Recovery Girl was sitting at one of the desks, typing up some reports on student injuries and Ectoplasm and Nezu seemed to be going over some plans for tidying up the remnants of the festival.