Deep Red

59

It was one of those nights when I couldn't sleep, but also didn't want to go and bother Shouta yet again. He wasn't getting enough sleep as it was and if we didn't want people to get suspicious of us, we couldn't meet up on campus that much anyway. If even Shinsou had already noticed...

Honestly, all I had going through my head were random memories of my time in school - seeing Shouta standing on the roof with his two friends and Nemuri, him looking Sensoji straight in the face while he was taunting him, the way he sometimes made eye contact with me when we were both at the lockers and no one else or only very few other people were around.

Or my graduation party. God, that was a weird time. It wasn't too long after... well... one of his friend's had died. He probably didn't even want to be there and I could absolutely understand why, but Hizashi and Nemuri had probably dragged him there, so he'd get at least some sort of distraction.

And I was there, kind of scared of the prospect of actually leaving school, when school was all I had ever known, and having to make a living for myself, trying to go independent after a few years, so I didn't get stuck in my career, managing all the dangerous parts of being a hero, all the paperwork, all the overtime.

It was stressing me out immensely at the time and I honestly just wanted to get all the difficult parts over with. And now I was again stressing out, not sure what the future would look like, with all those villains around, will Allmight retired. It seemed just as scary as back then.

I was turning the wine glass in my hand, trying to distract myself from my thoughts that were spiralling out of control slowly. I had been panicking about what I would do after school and whether I would manage to make it as a hero ever since I had started my work studies in second year.

And now it was all already over and while I had sort of a plan, if that failed, that was it. I didn't have a plan B or even a plan C or anything and it was stressing me out. Maybe this whole hero thing wasn't really suited for me after all. Maybe I should have just started doing something else instead.

I looked around the room and saw someone sitting at one of the tables, head resting in his arms on the table. Shoulder-length black hair and a bit of a stubble. I smiled a little. Shouta Aizawa. He probably didn't want to be here. There was this big thing where one of his friends had just died during work studies.

Well, it had been a big thing on the news when it happened, but U.A. only mentioned it shortly and then quickly moved on. I felt sorry for Aizawa. He seemed to be taking it really hard and it was like everyone else was acting as if it never even happened. It really sucked, if I was being honest.

I sighed, as I got up and made my way over to him. I had no master plan for this or anything, but he looked like he could do with some company and I could do with some distraction. And this was my graduation after all, so I might as well try and do something I had been wanting to do for a good while.

"Hey. Anyone sitting here?" I asked him. He looked up at me in confusion, as if I had just woken him up from a deep sleep and then shook his head.

"Nah, you can take it away." he muttered, obviously referring to the chair. I chuckled a little and shook my head.

"I didn't ask for the chair. I figured I could sit with you for a while." I said and sat down on the chair next to him, leaning back and propping my feet up on one of the other chairs. I could barely stand wearing these stupid high heels any longer. I had no clue whose idea it was to dress up in fancy clothes, but they deserved a smack up the head. Nothing more and nothing less.

"Why would you wanna sit with me? You don't even know me. I'm not even in your grade." Aizawa said and scoffed.

"Woah, woah, woah, so? I know you. Shouta Aizawa, class 2-A, and your Quirk is Erasure. You're pretty cool, dude." I admitted. I mean, I'd probably never see him again after all this, so what the hell.

"Tch, yeah, I'm that dude with the lame Quirk. Or the villain Quirk, depending what theory you subscribe to, personally." he muttered and looked over at me. I raised an eyebrow at me.

"I don't subscribe to either of those. I think it's a cool Quirk. Really useful. Rare." I commented. He raised his eyebrows and let out a quiet laugh, which was more of a huff, really.

"Didn't one of your friends try to kill me in first year?" he asked. Oof. I didn't think he'd bring that up again...

"Well, yeah. I absolutely didn't agree with that, for the record. And to be honest, they're not really great friends. Otherwise I'd be hanging out with them right now." I replied and let my head fall back, looking up at the ceiling.

"So you were left with the gloomy loser one grade below? I'm flattered." he said sarcastically. I looked back at him.

"Dude, ouch, why do you keep burning yourself like that? You're not a loser." I replied, shaking my head. My shoes were really, really annoying me right now. I leaned over to take them off.

"Sorry. I guess you did save me back then. And you threw your friend off the roof." he muttered.

"Yeah... In our defense, we were all drunk as hell." I told him and sighed, putting my feet down again. At least the heels weren't annoying me anymore. So that was a plus. Aizawa chuckled.

"Kinda figured. So what's it like? Graduating?" he wanted to know. I just shrugged and poked at some of the decorations on the table.

"Anxiety-inducing. I have literally no clue what I'm going to do with my life after tonight." I answered.

"Sounds bad."

"It is."

"Guess you better make the best of tonight."

I scoffed and looked at the clock on the wall. It was 11:45 pm. This whole thing would maybe go on until around 2 in the morning, but it wouldn't really count as 'tonight' anymore, would it?

"Not much of tonight left..." I muttered. I hadn't even gotten around to dancing much. Not that I had anyone to dance with. Aizawa made eye contact with me and I swear he read my thoughts.

"Wanna dance or something?" he asked. I tilted my head, when I looked at him questioningly.

"Dance? Like... now? Why?" I wanted to know. He shrugged and looked down at his feet, almost as if he was embarrassed.

"You wanted to make the best of tonight. I figured that would be one good way to get something off the graduation bucket list without wasting much time." he answered with a shrug.

"And you'd wanna dance with me?"

"Well, you wanted to sit around here with me, anyway. It was just a suggestion, we don't have to..."

"No. No, no, no. You committed to this. We're doing this. But under one condition. My shoes stay off." I said. I was honestly surprised he had suggested it. Sure, we had danced that one time, at the school festival, but that was for a bet.

"Sure. Whatever, you big weirdo." he replied with a smirk and got up, holding his hand out for me. I laughed and took it, heading onto the dance floor with him.