A sudden weight on the mattress made Mariko stir from her peaceful sleep. It wasn't enough to completely wake her up though. She was about to settle back down when a hand was placed on her shoulder. Immediately, her eyes flew open and she sprang into a sitting position. Her free hand shot towards her shoulder, tightly gripping the wrist of whoever had dared attack her while she slept.
"Ow ow ow ow ow, Kid it's me! Keigo!" he exclaimed, wincing, and trying to pry her hand off of his.
Her grip loosened as she slowly processed what he said. "Keigo? What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice slightly raspy with sleep.
The blonde looked at her and pouted, gingerly rubbing his wrist. "Well I was going to do something nice and take you out to breakfast but since you attacked me I'm not so sure I'm in the mood for it anymore," he huffed brattily.
"Oh...sorry, you scared me," she apologized rubbing her eyes sleepily. It didn't sound sincere, but Keigo couldn't tell whether it was because she didn't care she'd nearly snapped his wrist or because she was still half asleep and wasn't aware of everything yet.
"What a heartfelt apology," he quipped sarcastically.
Mariko didn't respond, running a hand through her slightly tousled hair she let out a quiet yawn.
Keigo couldn't help but smile at her sleepy state. Her little gestures were quite endearing and made it impossible for him to remain upset with her.
"What time is it?" she asked.
He grabbed her phone off her nightstand and checked the time, "Just past nine," he told her.
The brunette groaned and fell back onto the mattress. "It's too early," she grumbled, covering her head with her comforter. She'd been asked to cover a colleague's shift last night and had been working until four in the morning.
He shook his head slightly and pulled the comforter off her face, smiling cheekily as she protested, turning away from him and trying to bury herself under her pillows. "Nope, come on we're gonna go out today," he told her, taking her hand and yanking her into a sitting position.
"Why do I have to go? Why can't you just let me sleep?" she whined.
"'Cus I feel like it, come on, get dressed," he insisted.
Mariko just wasn't having it though. She remained motionless on the mattress.
"Mariiiii," he whined, grabbing her arm and trying to get her to sit back up. The plan backfired on him completely though, as the brunette overpowered him and caused him to faceplant into the pillows beside her.
"Sleep," she muttered tiredly. She was too exhausted to go out.
Keigo chuckled, adjusting himself so he was laying on his side, "There are sexier ways of getting me into bed y'know."
"Shut up. I'm tired," she mumbled, wrapping herself up in the blankets even more.
"I wanna hang out today though," he told her.
"That's fine, but you're out of your mind if you think I'm leaving her for the next seven hours," she sighed.
"Jeez, what's got you so tired?" he asked. He hadn't seen her the past couple of days since he'd been on night patrol that week.
"Long shift. Got home at 5 a.m. Lemme sleep," she told him.
"Hmmm, that makes sense. So you're just gonna sleep then?" he asked.
"If someone lets me, yeah."
The blonde sighed in defeat. He'd wanted her to go to a modeling gig with him, but wasn't gonna force her to go out if she was tired.
Unbeknownst to him, the female had chosen that particular moment to peek over at him. His expression was one of obvious disappointment and it almost physically hurt to know that she had been the one to cause it.
"Let me sleep for a bit, then we can go out if you're not busy," she said quietly.
Keigo perked up at the sound of her voice and turned towards her. Her eyes, however, were once against closed and she was acting as though she hadn't spoken at all. He beamed at the brunette, happy that his plans to go out weren't rejected. He opened his mouth to explain where they would be going when his phone dinged loudly with an incoming message. Seeing the sender put a frown on his face immediately.
Mariko opened her eyes at the sound of the notification, and she looked at him curiously. "Why's he making that face?" she wondered.
"Who's that?" she asked, bringing the covers up to her chin.
He sighed at the message from Dabi, telling him not to look for any information on Taniko Baisho and just concentrate on Shimizu. "It's just work," he told her.
"How's that been going by the way? You haven't mentioned it lately," she said, closing her eyes.
Keigo looked at her and smiled softly, "she's kinda cute like this," he thought. "Works been good. Got a lead on Shimizu, an emergency contact but the name was redacted on all of the papers. It'll be a while before I find her but hopefully, they'll have some food info," he said. It was a little white lie, but a lie nonetheless, and telling it to her made an uncomfortable not twist in his chest.
"Oh?"
Her eyes were open now; all her attention was on him.
"The League seemed to be interested in the type of work she was doing with genetics," he said. He would leave most of the details out on purpose. Even though she knew about his mission, she was just a civilian. There were certain things she was better off not knowing and he definitely didn't want to be the one to have to explain that her deceased friend had been an insane villain.
Mariko, however, knew much more information than she let on. Contrary to the male's beliefs she knew exactly what had happened to Mineko Shimizu, and the thought of others sharing in her ideology or trying to exploit or take advantage of it was enough to make her feel physically ill. "I heard it all got destroyed though," she said, her voice faltering. If the league got their hands on her research, a lot of people would get hurt and die. The notion sent a chill down her spine and for the first time ever, she was thankful that the warehouse had been blown up.
Keigo frowned at her tone. Mariko had become distant again, and her expression was dark and weary. He placed his hand on top of her head, ruffling her already messed up hair slightly. "Don't worry, the League won't get any of it." He assured her.
The brunette nodded, already knowing that they wouldn't be able to.
"Can I ask you something though?" he asked. Her being Mineko Shimizu's emergency contact was still eating away at him. He had to know if his suspicions were right about her distancing herself from her childhood friend.
She looked up at him, a cautious look in her eyes. "What is it?" she asked, her voice low.
"Why did you two stop being friends?"
Her breath hitched as a wave of anxiety crossed over her. For a moment she was no longer looking into a pair of golden eyes but electric blue ones. These weren't warm- they were icy, callous, and sinister.
"Mari?" he asked, his voice brought her out of her daydream. Worry was written across his face as he stared down at her. As soon as he'd asked the question, her breaths had become shallow and her face went pale. Her eyes were distant as if she weren't looking at him at all. He placed a hand on top of hers, silently asking her if she was alright.
The brunette sighed but nodded telling him that she was okay and agreeing to answer his question. "She'd always had this curiosity about genetics and quirks. Ever since we were kids. It wasn't anything unhealthy or dangerous then," she started. "She got her degree and everything and she was fine. As years passed she became less... empathetic. She was in the military, so I guess the things she saw over there really affected her..." she told him.
Keigo nodded, encouraging her to keep going.
"Six or seven years ago she went on a mission. I don't know anything about it except that I couldn't contact her. She was gone for months and when she came back she was completely different." She let out a short, bitter laugh, "She compared herself to God," she told him. "She thought her quirk entitled her to play and change people however she wanted whenever she wanted. She gave people genetic disorders they weren't born with, changed how their quirk worked, removed it completely. At first, I tried to help, tried to get her to see someone, I read books on PTSD and tried talking to her, but nothing helped. I started distancing myself when she started pressuring me to help with her experiments. She thought my quirk would be useful I guess," she revealed. "I said no of course, but she was really intense about it. To the point where she would go to my house in the middle of the night to convince me, then she tried to blackmail me into it and that was the last straw. In the end, I took a job abroad to get away for a little while. A little while after I came back I got the news that she'd died."
"Mari..." Keigo trailed. He didn't know what to say. What could he say to that? He'd had his share of toxic friends in school but nothing even remotely close to what Mariko had experienced with Shimizu. Her story worried him though. Shimizu had apparently told Mariko a lot about her experiments, making the brunette a potential target for the League. "Did she ever talk to you about her experiments in detail? Like explain her process?" he asked.
She shook her head, "At first a little bit. When I called her out on how dangerous and inhumane they were though she stopped explaining or would just lie about it."
The blonde sighed in relief, the less she knew the better. He nodded and looked down at her, she looked even more exhausted than when he got there. A pang of guilt hit him- he'd basically interrogated her when she was sleep-deprived. "I asked too many questions, sorry," he said. He leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head.
The woman held an unnoticeable smile after he pulled away.
"It's okay," she muttered her eyes closing slowly.