Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was one of those rare days when not one, not even two, but three of Saitama’s most trusted supermarkets were having big sales. They were practically going-out-of-business sales. Sixty percent off milk. Two pounds of rice for the price of one. Three pounds of beef for less than a thousand yen. Beef was never that cheap.

She and Genos split up. Saitama gave him a list and some coupons and sent him to the farthest supermarket, the one in City J that was practically throwing their eggs away. Genos had argued that it made more sense for her to go to the farther store since she would be able to get home faster, but she reminded him what happened last time she went out to get eggs. She just wanted the eggs they bought to come home in one piece this time. Besides, Genos had mentioned wanting omelets earlier in the week and she promised to make some for him for dinner after their trips.

This left Saitama to go to the supermarkets in City D. They were separated by only a few blocks, and with the smaller amount of food she was going to be picking up, Saitama guessed that she would be back at the apartment well before Genos. Maybe if she gets back early enough she can take a bath. She hadn’t had a nice hot bath since Genos moved in, and she was starting to miss the feeling of it. Genos always took forever to clean. He said that it was because of the intricacies of his joints: his shoulders and hips were constructed to mimic the natural ball-in-socket joints of the human body, but his elbow and knee joints had multiple points of articulation that, along with a unique plasticized rubber that Dr. Kuseno had pioneered blah blah blah blah. In the five minutes it took him to explain the mechanical details of his joints and ligaments, he never explained why he had to keep the warm water running for the hour and a half he spent cleaning the gunk out of his elbows.

She turned the box of soap over and over in her hands. They were nearly out, and there was a specific brand that they could both use. She didn’t have a coupon for it, but the pennysaver said that all products for a certain brand were fifteen percent off, and she wasn’t sure if that included this soap because it was part of a smaller company that larger company owned. If it did include the smaller companies than she could get the larger bottle and—

“Excuse me.”

Saitama half turned around. Behind her were a trio of high school girls. Two were standing on the other side of the aisle, a tall one and a black haired one, with their backs almost pressed into the shelves. The girl closest to her, a brunette, was holding her hands in front of her stomach, fingertips twitching against each other. The brunette glanced away for a second when Saitama faced her and answered, “Yeah?”

“Um,” the brunette mumbled, “I…we just wanted to ask you, ah, if you were the Caped Baldy?”

Saitama’s mouth twitched into a small smile. Were…were these fangirls? The two farthest girls stared at her in anticipation. She spun the box of soap between her palms. She wished Genos was here to see this. With his mountains of fan mail and the twenty different forums dedicated to him, was he ever stopped in public? Well, yes, but this was the first time Saitama had the chance to speak to her admirers. She closed her eyes. “Why, yes, I am.”

“Oh my God,” the brunette gasped. “So, okay, do you really know the Demon Cyborg?”

Saitama stopped spinning the soap in her hands.

Oh.

“Um, yes,” she said quietly and carefully.

All three girls squealed.

The brunette took a step closer. “Is it okay if we ask you questions about him?”

Saitama blinked. “Like what?”

“Is he naturally blond?” the tall girl asked.

Saitama squinted at her. “He’s a cyborg.”

“That must mean that he is,” the black-haired girl whispered. The tall girl covered her reddening cheeks with her hands and turned to her friend. The brunette took another step closer. Saitama took a step back. The girl’s hands were clasped tightly together in front of her chest. She stared up at Saitama with round, glittering brown eyes.

“Is he as great as he seems?” she asked.

Saitama touched the back of her head. “How does he seem?”

The brunette’s gaze fell to the floor. “Well, he just seems so determined and brooding,” she said quietly. She squinted and her eyes moving slightly from side to side as she continued: “But…he doesn’t seem conceited. It’s like, like maybe he’s actually fighting for something.”

The hand that had been touching her head cupped the soap box still in her hands. Saitama ran a thumb over one of the corners. How long have they been living together? Three months? She must’ve known him for at least four months, then. That didn’t seem long enough. She thought of a night, back when she was still C-class, when she came home tired after uselessly running around town all day, and she opened the door and he was there, back straight against the wall, legs fully extended with his laptop open and sitting on his thighs. He looked up at her and said, “Welcome home, Sensei,” just like any other day. And for whatever reason, for that moment, she was weightless, like she could drift through the ceiling and glide over the floor.

“He’s better than you can even imagine,” she said.

The brunette looked up at her. Saitama realized she was smiling only when she saw the girl beaming.

The black-haired girl raised her hand. “Can I ask you something?”

Saitama looked at her. “You know you’re not in school right now, right?”

“Have you seen him naked?” she asked.

The brunette whipped around. “Setsuna!” she cried. The tall girl hid her face in her hand. Setsuna asked what was wrong with asking.

Saitama shrugged. “I mean, we live together,” she said. She has seen glimpses of him naked around the apartment, though he tried his hardest to never be without clothes around her, a consideration that Saitama had never reciprocated. He was also naked at the Hero Test, though that was so long ago that Saitama could barely remember what he looked like.

The girls fell silent. The tall girl pulled her hands away from her face and stared. Setsuna’s face turned scarlet. The brunette stood completely still. Saitama heard her mumble something about a demon cape being real.

“Wh-What do you mean you live with him?” Setsuna challenged. Her fists were raised and she was leaning toward Saitama, her weight resting on an extended foot.

“We live in the same apartment,” Saitama said.

“Does living with an S-Class hero make it easier for you to take credit?” Setsuna demanded. “Or are you just that thirsty for him?”

Setsuna’s friends shouted at her. The tall girl wanted her to stop. The brunette wanted her to shut up.

Saitama tossed the soap box into her shopping cart. She walked down the aisle, away from Setsuna’s claims that Genos would never want to do her and how she was barking up the wrong tree because some freak bald liar would never be good enough for the Demon Cyborg. Other customers were staring as she walked past, face blank and eyebrow twitching as the voices of the teenage girls faded into furious whispers. Brat didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.

The apartment was empty when Saitama returned. The curtains in front of her sliding doors dulled the bright, late afternoon sunlight and kept the room cool and dim. She dropped her groceries in the kitchen and opened the curtains. A cat was napping on the wall of the balcony. Its feet were tucked underneath its chest and its head dipped forward solemnly. The trash and the cactus were still out there. She needed to remember that trash pick-up was changing. A monster had torn up the waste management plant and she and Genos hadn’t helped. Now that there were enough trash trucks to service the edge of the ghost town, they didn’t have to walk a mile with leaking bags of trash at six in the morning just to make them someone else’s problem.

Saitama turned on the news and went back to the kitchen to put away her groceries. The anchorpeople chattered about a another monster in a another place that other people defeated. She hefted a bag of flower into a cabinet, pushing it toward the back and pulling the nearly empty bag to the front. Always use up what you have first, her mother had always said.

Freak bald liars will never be good enough for Demon Cyborg!

Brat.

When all of the groceries were away, Saitama pulled a pan out and set it on the stove. She needed to wait for Genos to turn up with the eggs, but this way they wouldn’t be bumping into each other in the tiny kitchen. She watched the news for a few moments, catching the gist of the conversation—some expert was drawing a connection between the high unemployment rate among recent college graduates and the kind of scents human resource people liked the least—before turning off the TV. She still wanted that bath.

The mirror fogged as warm water filled the tub. She kicked off her pants, socks, and underwear, and pulled her sweatshirt over her head. She slid into the small tub, submerging her head while her bent knees poked through the surface. Like little volcanoes, she thought. Mountains sinking into the ocean as she pulled herself up, her head like the moon taking reign of the tides. She rested her head against the back lip of the tub and stared at the beige, stained ceiling. Did they have a leak in their ceiling? There were floors above theirs. Maybe she and Genos could find a way into the upper floors and find where the leak was coming from.

Are you just that thirsty for him?

Thirsty…what did that even mean?

Maybe she could ask Genos. He knew more about teenage slang than she did. But then she might have to explain where she heard the term from, and that would inevitably lead her to tell him about the girls and the last thing she wanted was an angry cyborg on a witch hunt for his teenage admirers. She'll just look it up herself.

She lathered the remainder of their old soap between her hands and ran the slick down her arms and up her shoulders. She massaged little circles on the sides and back of her neck. She sighed and sunk deeper into the tub, the pleasant water resting against her bottom lip. Her hands, dragging against the water, moved down from her neck, over her breasts. Her fingers flew over the ripples of her abs and felt the deep creases of her pelvis.

Her fingers stayed there, moving back and forth, feeling the connection between taught muscle, hard bone, and velvety skin. She closed her eyes. Her legs hinged open. Fingers splayed wide on her inner thighs. She tipped her head back, leaving her mouth fully exposed to the misty air. There was a roiling in her stomach, a fluttering wave of warmth that pitched higher and higher with each beat of her heart, coloring her face cherry pink and leaving her mouth open, waiting, wanting.

“Sensei, I’ve returned.” Saitama heard the door close and Genos’s heavy footsteps as he walked into the living area, pause, and then walk back to the entrance. “Sensei?”

“Baaaaaaaaaaaath,” Saitama cried out. She closed her legs and dunked her head under water. The water muffled Genos’s response. She lifted her head to hear him move back into the kitchen. She cupped her hands and rubbed the soap off of her shoulders and neck. She should finish up and help Genos put the groceries away. She was starting to feel peckish, and Genos probably wasn’t feeling any less hungry. They hadn’t eaten since this morning, and it had to be well after six in the afternoon at this point. Saitama looked at one of her hands. Her skin hadn’t even started to prune yet.

“Sensei…” she heard Genos say, his voice near but quiet, ashamed.

“What?” Saitama squawked.

“Forgive me Sensei,” Genos said, this time a little more loudly, but still unsteady, “but…the eggs…”

Saitama jumped up. Did they have to change their dinner plans? Damn it! She just wanted to make omelets! She wrapped a towel around herself and leapt to the door.

Genos was standing in front of her, head bowed, arms bent and hands extended, offering the carton of eggs, a web of cracks running down the left side of his face and cheek. They started near the corner of his eye—somehow still intact and firmly connected to its socket—and spread to his ear, crept under his hair, and reached the bottom of his jaw.

“I apologize, Sensei,” Genos said, sounding like he was in pain.

“Your face…” Saitama said. “Did you get into a fight?”

Genos looked up, looking Saitama in the face. “Yes. When I was leaving the supermarket a monster was terrorizing the shopping center. I dispatched him quickly, though as you can tell he did manage to damage my face.” His gaze fell, settling at Saitama’s collarbone. His irises were dimmer than normal, making them pale, unfocused. “In my rush to fight the monster,” he continued, voice low and rough, “I am afraid I was not gentle with our food.” He shut his eyes tightly. “I apologize, Sensei. I should have checked before coming back home.”

Saitama looked at the carton of eggs. There were four or five eggs that had been well smashed, their yolks splattered against the plastic, their wrappers shredded. Some eggs had albumen leaking lazily from their shells. A few had already dried and weakly glued the wrapping to the egg. The rest were fine. Better than some of the previous times Saitama had brought eggs home.

She looked at Genos’s face. “Do you need to see Dr. Kuseno?”

Genos shook his head. He looked at her when he answered, “My face is a very minor injury. I have an epoxy and bond to fill and seal the cracks. It should be back to normal within a day.”

Saitama smiled. “The eggs are fine. We might just have bigger omelets than I originally planned. Let me put on some clothes and drain the tub.”

Genos scanned her face. He nodded. His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch as he thanked Saitama and stepped away from the door.

Saitama lay on her back, her head propped on her folded futon, a manga hovering half-open above her face, eyes glazed over as she stared at a single panel of a demonic high school student shooting a gun wildly into the air. The sun had set. The night was warm and the sliding door was cracked open allowing a gentle breeze that ruffled the hem of Saitama’s pajama bottoms. Dirty plates with crumbs of cooked egg had been taken into the kitchen hours ago. The only sound in the apartment was Genos’s periodic, quick typing and Saitama’s slow breathing. She lowered the book onto her chest. Genos was sitting at the desk, back to Saitama. His shoulders were square. His arms moved slightly whenever he typed. She closed her eyes. If she concentrated hard enough, she could make out the muted whrrr of Genos’s core: the power surging through him, electricity rushing through the most disparate parts of his body--his prancing fingers, running brain, allowing his synthetic skin feel shirt on his wide back, pooling in his palms, ready to ignite.

“Sensei.”

“Hmmmm?” Saitama hummed. She opened her eyes. Genos was turned around in the chair, arm slung over the back, serious face terse and golden eyes waiting patiently for her.

“I apologize—” Genos said.

Saitama interrupted, “You ‘pologize too much.”

“—but I wish to ask you a question,” he finished.

Saitama closed her eyes. Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow? she thought. Then again, it might be important. She opened her eyes. “’Kay.”

“Have you mentioned our living situation to anyone besides our closest acquaintances?” Genos asked.

Did she? Saitama closed her eyes. The black-haired girl’s face was projected onto the back of her eyelids. She heard her shrill insistence that the Demon Cyborg does not find desperation attractive. “Yeah,” she said quietly, groggily. “Ran into a couple of your fans at the supermarket. They asked a couple of questions, told 'em we lived together.” She twisted onto her side, still facing Genos, nose dug into the bent crook of her arm. She yawned. “Why?”

“Nothing, Sensei.” She heard the chair scratch as Genos got up. “Will you be comfortable?”

“Yah,” Saitama mumbled. She heard Genos walk closer to her. After a few moments of rustling behind her head, a blanket drifted down on top of her. She smiled and gripped the edge of it. She felt rubber and metal brush against her fingers and shoulder as Genos adjusted her blanket. She dug her nose deeper into her arm. “G’night,” she mumbled.

“Good night, Sensei.”

Chapter Text

Their sparring matches had devolved into advanced and destructive games of tag. Saitama would tap him at the beginning—“IT!”—and if she could get a hand on him at any point during the brawl, it was game over and they headed home. It was a much safer, less suicidal alternative to Genos’s original demands, which he accepted without a fight after their first match.

She launched herself off the side of the canyon a moment before Genos’s incineration cannons toasted the rock. Her cape wrapped itself around her face as she flipped in mid-air. She landed on the far slope and struggled against the fabric as she slid down. When it was off, she saw the singe along the hem and smiled.

Genos was revving his shoulder boosters. She jumped straight up and looked down as her momentum began to slow. The final embers of twin orange streaks disappeared behind her. Saitama clenched her stomach and swung her arms to the right, dodging Genos’s punch. She twisted around him, grabbed his extended right arm, curled her left arm around his chest, and held him tightly against her. “Gotcha,” she said. They were, what, half a mile in the air? Yeah, this would be fine. She heard a gurgle of shock just before the deafening rush of air as they hurtled towards the ground. Genos shuddered against her. She held him closely. The muscles in her back tensed and her legs were straight as rods under Genos’s. Genos held tightly to her arms.

Hitting the ground sounded like an explosion. Dirt and pebbles flew hundreds of feet up, thickening the air and briefly putting out the sun. The canyon is a lot smaller than I thought, Saitama thought when she could see, then quickly amended it with, Oh.

Genos was motionless against her chest. His hair was falling into her mouth. She spat it out and tapped him on the chest. “How ya doing?”

Genos gasped.

Saitama let go of him. “Yeah, take your time. Just remember you’re kind of heavy.”

Genos lay on her, breathing softly. After a few seconds and, she assumed, a diagnostic of any damage to his body, he slowly stood up. From the careful way Genos curled forward, tested his weight on his feet, and extended his knees, pushing himself into a standing position, he may have been worried about damage to his joints. His legs were less protected than his chest. Nothing, from her point of view, looked out of place, however. Saitama sat up. Genos, at the bottom slope of the crater, extended a hand to her. His hair was a mess and he was covered in dirt. She took his hand and levered herself onto her feet.

“Hurt?” she asked. Genos shook his head. Saitama smiled and clapped his shoulder. “You did really well,” she said. She held up her cape. “You even got a bit of me.”

Genos gazed at the bottom of Saitama’s cape. He blinked and looked at her. “That’s very kind of you to say, Sensei.”

Saitama dropped her cape. She hopped six feet out of the crater. “Are you hungry?”

They started their walk back into town in silence. Had she been too hard on Genos? She took most of the impact, but they had been holding on to each other pretty tightly. She could have knocked loose something vital in his chest. A wire or a cable, maybe something akin to a vein had burst and Genos was experiencing the cyborg version of internal bleeding. Then again, he had survived worse things. Saitama wasn’t sure if she could withstand contact with acid. She also wasn’t willing to find out.

“Perhaps,” Genos said, “we could discuss my performance over lunch.”

They were at the edge of City Z. The road to the quarry required them to pass through some of the more populated suburbs and, eventually, the city center. Pleasant houses began to appear on the horizon, with friendly trees reaching to the sky. The top of one tree waved in a breeze only it could reach. Hello, it said with a tilt of its head. Pleasant day for a walk.

“We could talk about it now,” Saitama said.

“I wish to take notes of your criticism,” Genos said. “I left my notebook in our apartment.”

“Kay,” Saitama said. “What do you want for lunch? We could make something when we get back home.”

“I would like to get you lunch,” Genos offered. “It’s the least I can offer after your resounding victory.”

Saitama sighed. “Genos, we’ve been over this…”

The houses grew denser. Saitama and Genos continued to fight over getting lunch. Cats chased squirrels that braved the chance of dirty leftovers in trashcans, slept with their luxurious bellies exposed to the sun, sat with their paws tucked underneath their chests, heads dipped solemnly. There were children’s cries that floated over the gray roofs of squat houses from hidden gardens. Genos kept his eyes forward, his arms swung stiffly, his back was straight as a ruler, shoulders pulled back. He argued, “It should be part of my responsibility to provide for you financially, even if it is a rare occasion.”

“Doesn’t helping pay for rent count for that?” Saitama asked.

The houses grew narrower, taller. Passersby became more frequent. Preteen boys passed them on bikes. Stay-at-home mothers chatted in doorways. The unemployed leaned against walls and balconies, stared blankly off into the distance. They walked through a cloud of smoke as they passed a dark-windowed building with a scruffy, unwashed man sitting out front. Saitama ignored his crooked, yellow-toothed smirk. A bell chimed as the time turned three.

“It’d just make more sense,” Saitama said, “if we went home for some rest.”

“I am quite rested,” Genos fiercely insisted.

The buildings grew higher. Green space shrunk from square gardens and wide neighborhood parks to evenly spaced trees. Streets fractured into alleys, side streets, bike lanes, pedestrian walks, two- and four-lane highways. Shops grew larger, better lit, had artfully displayed wares on mannequins and shelves. Crowds grew closer as the sidewalks became wider. Saitama and Genos walked closer together. Pedestrians stared as an S-Class hero walked by. They strained forward as they tried to understand his whispered conversation.

“Fine, let’s just go to McDonald’s,” Saitama acquiesced.

There was a line at McDonald’s. Saitama stood with her arms crossed over her chest and her foot tapping away. Genos stood right next to her, faced forward with his hands in his pockets. The restaurant smelled like antiseptic and old grease. Groups were crowded around tables, two or three extra bodies squeezed into each table. The buzz from all of the conversations was digging into Saitama’s skin. Did you see the news last night? Shame about your office, you never know where monsters are going to show up these days. I saw the idol showcase but nothing really stood out to me. Is that the Demon Cyborg? Who’s that bald guy? Oh, haven’t you heard?

Saitama wondered what she should get. She was a little hungry, but didn’t want anything too extravagant. Maybe she could get a regular hamburger with a side of fries. Well, at that point you could just get the meal. But would that be too much? Maybe she could just get the fries, then. But in the large. That way Genos won’t question why she wasn’t getting more. Was he even going to get anything?

“Hey, Genos,” she said as she turned to look at him. She saw a table of high school girls glaring at her over his shoulder. He looked at her, waiting for her to continue. “What did you want to get?”

Genos was about to answer her when a hand from the woman behind them reached through and tapped Genos on the shoulder. They both turned around and saw a shaking middle-aged woman with gray-brown hair and a notebook in one hand. “E-Excuse me,” she said. “Is, is it okay if I asked you a question Mr. Demon Cyborg?”

“Yes,” Genos answered.

The woman brightened up. “I have this nephew, you see, and he’s a big fan of yours. He’s had a rough year and recently he…” The woman took a deep breath. “Well, he had to get an artificial leg and he’s…I’m sorry. He really looks up to you, and, uh, c-could I get your autograph for him?”

Genos’s shoulders drooped as the woman spoke. He was frowning as he agreed and waited for the woman to find a pen for him to use, but his eyebrows had relaxed and risen higher, hiding behind his bangs. The line moved. Saitama took a step forward, away from the teary woman profusely thanking Genos for his kindness. Saitama watched as he handed the notebook and pen back to the woman, whose fat tears were dripping onto her blouse and sliding down her neck.

“Th-Thank you s-s-so much,” she gasped. “He-He’s g-going to l-l-love this.” The woman wiped the tears from her red face. She turned to Saitama. “Y-You have a w-wonderful boyfriend.”

Saitama blinked. She lifted a hand. “He’s…” she started to say, but the woman had already turned around and sprinted from the restaurant.

Genos set the table up for lunch when they got home. He had two plates, utensils, and napkins laid out before he pulled the burgers out of the brown sack they were carried in. This is too much, Saitama thought as she watched how carefully Genos unwrapped the burgers from ketchup-stained paper and placed them on the plates in front of their intended recipient. Saitama sucked on her straw. Always so serious.

Genos threw the waste in the trash before taking a seat at the table. Saitama pulled her gloves off and tossed them towards the kitchen. They barely missed Genos’s shoulder as they hit—splat—under the window. Saitama picked up her burger, her fingers sinking into the soggy bun, ketchup and mustard dripped from the sides as she bit into it. Genos sat seiza across from her and pulled his notebook out as she chewed.

“Sensei,” he said as he opened to a page and clicked the pen, “when you are ready, please tell me about how my technique could improve based on this past sparring match.”

Oh, yeah, shit. Saitama forgot he had asked. Her chewing slowed. What did he do this time? Well, he caught the bottom of her cape, but she wasn’t able to see what he had actually done to do that. So that could easily have been her own mistake. Didn’t he try to burn the ground underneath her. No, wait, yes he did, but that was the match before this one. What did she say when he asked her about that? God, that was, what, two weeks ago? She couldn’t remember that far back. Well, that was clever, did he do anything clever this time? He made her jump into the air. Kind of forced her into a direction. Yeah, maybe she could say something about that.

She swallowed. Genos stared at her in anticipation.

“Uh,” Saitama said, “I liked it when you tricked me into jumping at the end.” Genos scribbled the note into his notebook. “It…uh…it showed initiative.”

“Initiative, Sensei?”

“Yes…” she said carefully. “It was as if you were trying to determine my movements before I made them. Trying to force your opponent into a corner. It was, uh, different. You’ve been doing that more often recently, right?”

Genos was making notes as he answered, eyes following back-and-forth over the lines of the paper. “I have been trying to fight differently recently. I’m happy to hear that you’ve noticed.” He looked up at her. “However, I feel that my new tactics have been ineffective.”

“Well, we haven’t fought any big monsters recently,” Saitama said. She sipped her soda. “How would you think that monster you fought the other day would rank?”

Genos touched his chin, eyes dropping to the tabletop. “It was not a very smart monster. Strong, yes, but I could trick it easily. I doubt it would have even been ranked. But perhaps with a more intelligent foe I could make more anticipatory decisions and try to force their actions to become more advantageous for us.”

Saitama took a large bite out of her burger. It was lukewarm and the patty tasted like it was starting to congeal. “Eat your food before it gets weird.”

Genos blinked at her before following her instructions. Saitama poured her cup of fries onto the plate. They were short and burnt. She pouted, then glanced at Genos. He was carefully digging into the burger. Always so methodical. Saitama knew how he was going to finish lunch. First, he was going to finish the burger. Then, he was going to eat his fries, one stubbly little potato stick at a time. It’ll probably take him half an hour before he even got to his soda. It will be flat by then and how could anyone stand flat soda? Genos was weird.

“May I ask you another question?” Genos asked, not looking up from his plate.

“Yeah,” Saitama answered. She tossed a fry into the air and caught it in her mouth. “Go for it.”

“Were you…off put by the woman who thought we were a couple?”

Saitama shrugged. “Nah. She didn’t know better.”

He glanced up, then took another bite of his lunch. Saitama tapped her fingers on the table. “Were you?” she asked.

Genos took his time to answer. He finished chewing, then he delicately wiped his mouth with a thin napkin. “I don’t believe so. I did feel the need to correct her.”

She did too. But the woman was gone so quickly. And this wasn’t the first time someone had confused one of Saitama’s male friends for her boyfriend. The one friend she had in high school was a boy. He was decent to look at, quiet, a tad shorter than her, and they spent most of their free time together. So, yeah, it made sense when they were voted “Most Likely to Get Married” in their senior year. Where he was now? The last time they spoke, he was going on and on and on about his new boyfriend. He went on for so long Saitama dozed off, woke up, and he was still talking about him.

“Did you have a girlfriend growing up?” she asked.

Genos didn’t answer immediately. Saitama watched him closely. His irises dimmed. Saitama tore at her napkin. Stupid question. If Genos had been as handsome then as he was now, he probably had every girl in his class falling over him. He could’ve made up this face. But that wasn’t Genos. Honest, virtuous Genos.

“I dated a girl very briefly in high school,” Genos said tersely, focus drifted to a distant corner of the apartment. “I wouldn’t call her my girlfriend.”

“Did you kiss?”

Genos’s head shot up. Saitama leaned forward. Her elbows were propped up on the table and her chin was nestled in her palms. Her stared at her, mouth shut tightly into a thin line. She flipped a fry into the air, aimed for her mouth. It bounced off her forehead and fell on the floor. She stared at it. Would it be weird to pick it up and eat it off the floor? When was the last time they cleaned it?

“We did kiss. Quite a lot.”

Saitama looked at Genos. That fry was a lost cause. “There you go. You had a girlfriend.”

“Did you ever date, Sensei?” Genos asked.

“No, not really.”

Genos leaned away. “Why not?”

Saitama shrugged. “Well, normally you need to find someone who wants to date you first.”

Genos scowled. She sighed. “Sometimes that kind of stuff just doesn’t happen.”

Genos blinked. He looked at his barely eaten food. Saitama shoved the rest of her burger into her mouth. “Have you ever wanted to date someone?” Genos asked.

Saitama wiped her mouth. Has she? There were people she wanted to sleep with. A few guys in high school. She managed to get laid at least twice in college. But date them? Saitama hadn’t actually thought about that since middle school.

It was the first White Day she had received chocolates from someone other than her father. Sat wrapped in colorful tin foil in the middle of her desk in homeroom, nestled in a baby pink-and-white basket, were cubes of white chocolate stacked neatly on top of one another. They came with a note: Please meet me at the bike racks after school. Saitama couldn’t sit still all day. She carried the chocolates with her, displayed at the front of her desk. She studied the faces of her classmates. Maybe she could spot the boy before she met him? Maybe she could catch him checking to see if she still had her gift. Maybe one of the girls in class would see her and whisper to her friend, the boy who wanted to meet her, during lunch. Maybe he was in another class, had always seen her from afar and thought about how pretty she was, how nicely her hair had been brushed that day. Maybe when they met he would walk her home and along the way they would hold hands and that could become their thing: they meet at the bike racks and they walk home, hand-in-hand, maybe stopping for ice cream or maybe they could meet in the library and study together or maybe…

“Saitama-chan!” her teacher had bellowed. “Where is your homework?”

Saitama blinked out of her rosy haze. “Uh…”

Her teacher kept her late to scold her about lack of responsibility and the importance of her school work or something. Saitama didn’t care. The final bell had rung and she was stuck in a classroom with a bull-headed teacher instead of outside. She held onto her chocolates throughout the lecture, hands shaking, and thought about the mystery boy at the bike racks. How long was he going to wait? Was he even going to wait? He had to! Not everyone could be on time all the time. He had to understand that. When her teacher let her go, it was thirty minutes after final bell. Maybe he was still there? She ran all the way through the school, halls nearly empty as students disappeared into classrooms for their clubs or went to the library or went to the dressing room to change into their sports uniforms. Maybe he would understand. Maybe he got held up too.

She threw open the front doors of the school.

No one was in the courtyard.

Saitama panted. Maybe he had to go to a club meeting. Maybe he got detention. She walked to the bike rack. There weren’t any bikes left. Maybe he didn’t ride a bike. Maybe this was just a convenient place to meet. She sat down on the ground. Maybe, after his club, he would come by and check to see if she was there. She unwrapped one of the chocolates. He wouldn’t mind if she tried some of the chocolate. She wanted to save some for him. They could eat it together on their walk home.

She left when the chocolate was gone and the sun had nearly set. Her mother had screamed at her about walking around by herself after dark and getting her uniform dirty and getting home after dinner and sent her to her room without anything to eat. Her father slipped her a little bowl of dinner later that night, as well as some chocolate, and a quiet, “Happy White Day Saiko-chan,” but Saitama was cocooned in her blankets, watching the static on her television.

“Yeah,” Saitama said to Genos, “once or twice.”

“And you never pursued your feelings?”

“Like I said,” Saitama said, ire making her voice serious, “sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”

Genos’s eyes widened. She rarely used her serious voice around him anymore. And this kind of topic didn’t necessitate her getting angry with him. He didn’t understand. Maybe he couldn’t.

“Are you done eating?” she asked. She stood up. “I’m gonna get changed.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

The sky was bleeding orange and pink as Saitama took down the laundry. Drifting, languid wisps of clouds carried the last shades of blue over the apartment, towards the sunset. Night had already settled on her balcony. The yellow light inside the apartment weaved through cotton drapes to rest on Saitama’s back and the towels she was unclasping from a suspended white rope. Across the street, on ruined and rotten buildings, gold light was receding like the tide at midnight: incrementally, with dwindling evidence drying up as quickly as it had been left. Saitama covered her eyes as the last glare shone in the window directly across from her.

Saitama stepped inside with her overflowing laundry basket and slid the door closed with her foot. The anchors joked with the weather man about the early spring. The best part of global warming was the nice weather, right? Well, with all of the early blooms, the worst is going to be the allergies! Saitama unfurled a towel—fwahp—and threw it over her arm. If spring was going to come as early as they were saying, maybe the department stores would discount their winter clothes. If so she could stock up early. She needed a new winter jacket. She loved her hoodies, worn and soft and big enough that she didn’t have to wear bras all the time, but they were awful in the cold. Breezes went right through them. And her winter coat had practically disintegrated halfway through December. Did Genos get cold? Because if he did then she would need to find a BOGO sale. Even a half-off BOGO would be better than having to get two full winter coats at the same time.

“Stay tuned for Access Entertainment! Mako and Kaito have the latest in movies, television, and your favorite dashing Heroes!”

No thank you.

Saitama plopped the folded towel onto the table. Where did she leave the remote? She tipped over old bottles, looked under the table, kicked up her futon. Had she been the last person to use the remote? Maybe it was Genos. Where did he put it? Was it in the kitchen?

“Tonight! We have exclusive set pictures of the eighth installment of FLYING CAR RALLY. Whose car is on fire and why might they never fly again?”

Genos opened the door to the living room. He was holding cleaning bleach in one hand and untying his apron with the other.

“Have you seen the remote?” Saitama asked.

“I believe it’s in the kitchen,” Genos answered.

Saitama looked through the window. There it was, right next to the sink. “Why do you always leave it in the kitchen?”

“But before we get to that, an unexpected romance has cropped up for one of our favorite heroes!”

“That’s right! Is the Demon Cyborg dating infamous B-class hero Caped Baldy?”

The remote broke a plate as it fell into the sink. Shit, she thought, gonna have to get a new plate now. She turned around to look at the TV. The hosts stood on a neon stage. Behind them, on a large high definition screen, were their Hero Registry pictures were poorly Photoshopped together into a heart shape. Other little hearts and flowers were exploding from the sides while blue birds twittered and flew around their heads.

“Rumors started about a week ago when cell phone video of Caped Baldy allegedly telling some fans that she and Demon Cyborg lived together went viral.”

The picture behind the hosts transitioned into a shaky, blurry bad-sounding video of Saitama taken from between some shelves at the supermarket. Part of the brown-haired girl’s head was in the way, but you could see what may have been Saitama saying, “I mean, we live together.”

“Social media has been burning up with the most important questions: How long has this been going on? Are they really dating? Or is Caped Baldy just making things up to look cool?”

“You know with her history, anything is possible!”

Saitama heard the bottle of bleach pop. She looked at Genos. The cables in Genos’s neck were bulging. Steam trickled out of his shoulders. Bleach dripped out of his hand. His jaw was clenched and his eyes burned. Saitama reached into the sink. She didn’t want to have to pay for new plates, new bleach, and a new television.

“We asked you on Facebook what you thought about—”

The television hissed into silence. Saitama heard the clinks of trembling metal against metal.

“Forgive me, Sensei,” Genos growled. “You should not be the subject of such disparaging talk. I will find those responsible for releasing that video and I shall make them pay for their disrespect. And I shall make those fake reporters apologize for—”

“Did you know about that?”

Saitama stared Genos down. His neck softened as his eyes widened. Silently, he nodded.

“Where did you hear about it?” she demanded.

“How did you find this forum?” she whispered, stunned at the sight on her laptop.

In a big blue and yellow banner was THE CYBORG AND HIS SHINING STAR: THE OFFICIAL DEMON CAPE FORUM! To the side of it was a hand-drawn picture of her and Genos wrapped in a loving embrace. She was a full head shorter than Genos, her cheek pressed into his chest, eyes closed, blushing. Genos was resting his chin on the top of her head, arms firmly wrapped around her shoulders and upper back, looking lovingly down at her, smiling softly. The background was silver, styled after Genos’s armor. Each post had miniature versions of her gloves pointing up or pointing down with a number between them. At the top of the page was a topic reading RULES: PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING! Underneath it was a topic titled DEMON CAPE CONFIRMED!!

“I was searching for theories about what could have granted you your strength,” Genos said, “and this happened to be the only place discussing it.”

“R-Really?”

“Yes,” Genos continued, “but their theories are severely flawed. For instance, the contributors to this forum seem to believe that there is a correlation to your strength and my being in trouble. I do not blame them, however, when you consider how the only times your feats have been publicly recognized happened when I was in severe distress. They did not appreciate when I pointed out how they were wrong.”

Saitama scrolled down the page. There were topic posts for art, fiction, theories, news articles about Genos and herself, pictures, other websites, discussions, on and on. At the bottom of the page were chibi versions of them holding hands with hearts floating around them. She scrolled up.

“Here,” Genos said, pointing to the second topic. Saitama clicked the link.

The first post was long and there were over a hundred comments following it. Saitama scanned it.

So, I was out with my friends after school and we stopped by a supermarket… We saw Caped Baldy! We were all, “AAAAAH SHOULD WE TALK TO HER?”… Ended up doing that… OMG, she is SO tall and nice enough to talk to us and answer the questions we had… Told us that she LIVES WITH DEMON CYBORG. Like, can you believe it? They LIVE TOGETHER GUYS! I wanted to ask her more, but my friend started flipping out…

But this is big news, right?! Like, she wasn’t expecting us to come up to her and she didn’t have to answer our questions but she did and she told us that THEY LIVE TOGETHER and she didn’t have to tell us that! What do you guys think?

Saitama scrolled down. Most of the comments were the same: excited agreements, screaming, random letters in all-caps. There were a few questioning whether “living together” meant the same thing as “dating each other.” A little further down there was a link to the video they saw on the news. The original poster said she didn’t know anything about it. Someone else said that she was a liar. Saitama backed out of the forum.

The art on the front page had changed. It was a black-and-white, in-profile drawing of them kissing. Saitama was, once again, drawn much shorter than Genos with long eyelashes and big eyes and big, round breasts that mushed against Genos's broad, hard chest. “People really think about this…” she muttered.

“There are other websites like this,” Genos said. “This happens to be the only one for us, but there are other forums where fans discuss and fantasize about their favorite heroes in romances.”

Right beneath the discussion was a topic titled [FAN ART][NSFW] “THAT’S THE SPOT!” Saitama clicked on the link. A large full-body, black-and-white line drawing loaded on the screen. Saitama was front and center, naked from the waist up, head thrown back against Genos’s shoulder as she seemed to cry in pleasure. Genos was stern, concentrating on the task at hand. He cupped one of Saitama’s breasts while his other hand disappeared into her panties. The artist had taken their time to meticulously outline the fingers as they rubbed a delicate part of Saitama’s anatomy.

Saitama looked at her chest. My breasts aren’t that big. “Genos, look,” she said as she turned around. Genos had turned his head and covered part of his face with a hand. “Oh…” She backed out of the topic. “It’s gone.”

Genos uncovered his face. His eyes were closed. “Forgive me, Sensei,” he said. His voice sounded rough, like static was creeping in. “I should have warned you. Topics with the letters NSFW in their titles have…explicit material.”

“It’s okay. If that stuff bothers you, then why do you keep going back to this forum?” Saitama asked.

He looked down at her. “This is one of the few forums that I have found that will discuss your feats and which will not tolerate insults towards you. As for the explicit material…” He looked at the screen. “I find that their tagging system provides enough information where I can avoid material that I find uncomfortable.” He glanced back down at Saitama. “Did you not find that picture…uncomfortable?”

Saitama shrugged. “Well, it’s like you said. It’s just a fantasy, right?” She pointed at the screen. “And those people in that picture weren’t us. I know you didn’t see it, but that girl in that picture—she had much bigger breasts than I do! And they get our heights wrong, too!” She stood up. Genos took a step back to avoid the desk chair. “What, you and I are only an inch apart in height?” she asked as she raised a hand to her forehead. “In their pictures there’s probably something like five or six inches of difference!” She crossed her arms. “It’s like they haven’t seen a picture of us standing next to each other!”

Genos smiled slowly. “You’re right, Sensei. We should divorce ourselves from how others think of us.”

Saitama smiled as well. “Yeah. And this whole thing, the stuff we saw on the TV? That’ll blow over.” People will get bored. Amai Mask will change his hair style. A monster will destroy another city. Something newer and shinier will come along and everyone will forget that they live together.

Chapter Text

Saitama heard the fuzzy hum of the incoming drone just before it landed on the balcony. The watering can trailed off, leaving a dark path on the concrete, as she turned to watch it release a black box and take off. Must be Tuesday. She put down the watering can and carried the box inside.

Genos was writing in one of his notebooks, a glass of ice water at his elbow. Saitama plopped the box on the table. The ice tinked as the table shook. Genos looked up as she sat down. His eyes and forehead poked over the mail. “Look what came in today,” she said, rubbing her hands. She unlatched the handles and threw the lid toward the futons before she began digging through.

Bundles of fan mail were stacked to the rim, each tied with twine and pressed down to fit as many of the stacks as possible. Parcels and padded envelopes were squeezed down the sides and between the expanding stacks. They had never gotten so many letters before. Growing notoriety? She smiled. Maybe one of the stacks was for her? She tossed the bundles labeled for Genos at him. He scrambled to catch them as they came flying at his face. Saitama had one bundle, comprising of about a dozen letters that she found on the very bottom. She shoved the box off the table, in the same general direction as the lid, and gently laid her letters on the table. Genos was nearly buried under all of his letters. She rolled a short length of twine between her thumb and forefinger. Her letters never came with twine before.

Saitama untied the stringy little knot and took the top envelope off of the stack. It read, To Class B Hero Caped Baldy in friendly, bubbly handwriting. She inspected the back of the envelope. It was taped down. She rested the envelope on her fingertips. Not very heavy. Probably no more than a page. She glanced up at Genos. He had already opened his first letter and was quickly scanning it. She returned her attention to the letter in her hands. Saitama tucked her thumb underneath the untaped corner and eased under. She bit her lower lip. Her heart was beating in her ears and blood rushing to her nose and forehead.

She wiggled the letter out careful to not catch it on the tape. Her lips pressed together. Breath stopped in her chest. Her back curled forward as she unfolded the letter.

Dear Ms. Caped Baldy,

We are proud to announce the establishment of the first Hero Association-sanctioned Official Caped Baldy Fan Club! Only clubs authorized and approved by the Association can be called an “official” club and…

We are also excited to offer you an honorary membership and the privileged status of Board Member At Large!…

The hair on her arms stood up. Her nerves exploded, releasing a powerful surge of energy that made her stomach flip and inverted the colors in her vision. “Genos!” she cried. She held the letter out for him but his attention was captured by one of his packages. In one hand, crushed from his grip, was a note. The other held an open padded yellow envelope. His head was tipped forward, eyes hidden by bangs. Saitama took part of the note out of his hand. Genos’s head shot up. She read, get at her you luc— before Genos snatched her portion of the note.

He stood up. His pupils had contracted to bright pinpoints and the cords connecting his jaw to his neck were bulging. She followed him out onto the balcony and watched as he threw the padded envelope into the air. Its contents slid out. Shiny square pouches fell like wet leaves after a hurricane, flipping through the air to reveal clear sides with colorful cores and landing on the pavement below with barely a sound. Genos crumpled the note and threw it down with the condoms. He held both palms out. He hissed, “Incinerate.”

Saitama’s shirt rippled from the force of Genos’s cannon. She blinked against the heat. She peered over the balcony wall when the cannons powered down. The pavement was molten and a few street signs had melted. She backed away.

Genos turned around and reentered the apartment. Saitama hid her letter behind her back. She stepped in to see Genos packing his fan mail back into the box and clicking the lid closed. He pushed past her and dropped the box on the balcony.

She poked her head out. “Will the post office take all that back?”

Genos sneered. “If they don’t, we will dispose of the rest on our own.” He glared at the cactus. “I didn’t want you to see that,” he said stiffly, softly.

Saitama shrugged. “People are gross, dude.”

“But to imply such things about you…”

Saitama rubbed the back of her neck. What else could she say? People are assholes. He’s already figured that out. People are always going to assume we’re having sex. Also another given. He’s not going to look at the rest of his mail. But he’s never cared about that. The wind swept the smell of burning tar up to the balcony. Why does he have to care so much?

“You wanted to say something, Sensei?”

Saitama blinked out of her train of thought. Genos was looking at her. With the slight downward tilt of his head and the upward turn of his brows, he looked tired, disappointed. “Oh. Oh, yeah.” She stepped onto the balcony and revealed her letter. This might make him feel better. She held it out to him. “I got this.”

Genos took it from her. As he read his face lightened up. His forehead relaxed. The tilt of his neck straightened. He even began to smile a little. He looked up at her once he was done reading. “This is excellent! People are finally recognizing you, Sensei.” He handed the letter back to her. “Popularity becomes more significant in the higher ranks.”

“Really?” She looked at the letter. Stuff like this really counts?

“Yes. Fan clubs are a powerful resource, since they will work to promote you on social media and will act as witnesses to your victories.”

The Hero Association interviewed witnesses? Well, makes sense. How else were they supposed to award points or rankings or whatever. She stepped inside. Her little stack of mail sat undisturbed on the table. She leaned backwards to poke her head out. Genos was somber as he stared at the street. His grip on the wall was cracking the cement.

“Genos,” she said. “I’m gonna close the door. The road kind of smells—”

“I will be inside in a moment, Sensei.”

“Kay.” She slid the door closed and sat down at the table. She picked up the stack of letters and flipped through them. To Ms. Caped Baldy. For Class-B Hero Caped Baldy. For the hero Ms. Saitama. For Mrs. Demon Cyborg. Saitama started to rip that one up, but stopped. It was a particularly thick letter. The edges of the envelope were rounded, stuffed to their fullest. She was met with resistance when she squeezed with her thumbs and forefingers. She let it rest in her palms. Someone took the time to write this to her. How many pages did they stick in here? What could they have to say? She looked over her shoulder. Genos was still standing on the balcony, still staring at nothing. She stuck the letter in the pocket of her hoodie.

Genos came back in just as she was opening an official-looking letter from the Hero Association. She felt him hover over her shoulder. The notice was about a semi-annual meeting of B-class heroes. Every six months, as a show of solidarity… Join us at your local branch to meet your fellow… Refreshments are provided by the association--

“Oi, Genos, is the street still on fire? I have to go to a meeting.”

Saitama had to jump across rooftops to get out of the abandoned section. Genos apologized for…something. He apologized a lot. Maybe it was his short-sightedness this time? Maybe his temper? Saitama waved him off and asked if he wanted anything while she was out. Since she was going out anyway and the Z-City Branch Headquarters was in the commercial area of town, it made sense to pick up a few things. Genos mentioned how he had nearly filled his most recent notebook and Saitama promised to get him another one. There was a little bookshop near the center of town where she liked to get her manga. One of her favorite series just released a new tankouban, so she could get him a new notebook while she was there. Genos thanked her before she raced through their open sliding door and jumped across the street.

Maybe the street will be back to normal when I get back, she thought as she hopped down on the populated side of the fence. She put her hands in her pockets. She pressed the thick letter against her stomach and walked into town. Her nails flicked the envelope’s corners. She’ll open it later, maybe after the meeting if it wasn’t too long, or during if it was really boring.

She had never been to a hero meeting by herself. She’d been to that one emergency meeting with Genos but that was kind of by accident. She didn’t even think B-Class had meetings. How many people were in B-Class? It was basically the Blizzard Group, right? No, there had to be more people. Everyone couldn’t be associated with Fubuki, could they? That wouldn’t be fair. Did Genos know? Probably. But she had no way of asking him now, did she? This is why she needed a phone. Genos had been bugging her about getting one recently and she had insisted she didn’t need the extra expense. He praised her for her frugality, then reminded her how very nearly shit-out-of-luck they had been when they were separated en route to fight the Deep Sea King. The what? The giant fish guy that spat acid. Oh yeah and the crazy nipples. They shouldn’t have to rely on dumb luck to protect each other. She also shouldn’t have to worry about Genos getting ripped to pieces after every fight and yet…

Not that she would ever mention that to Genos. He already got an earful from Dr. Kuseno every time they showed up at the lab with Genos in three different pieces and holding on to Saitama with his last remaining extremity. That was probably why he took up all of the spare closet space with his extra parts. She had suggested making one of the other empty apartments into his workshop. They had the entire apartment building after all and if Genos was going to store, like, five spare pairs of arms they probably shouldn’t go next to the dried goods.

Saitama stopped at an intersection. The light was green for the traffic running perpendicular to her. She heard a scooter putter to a stop. She looked to the right, no cars for miles. She looked to the left, no cars but the scooter and its two teenaged passengers, a boy and a girl, patiently idled in their lane. The boy was wearing a gray and black version of her “Oppai” hoodie. She didn’t realize they still made that. She’d had hers for at least a decade now. The girl sitting behind him, her arms slung around his waist, had long black hair tied into a high ponytail and had shaved the back and sides of her head from her neck up to her ears. The girl turned to look at Saitama. Her eyes widened. The light turned green. The boy took off while the girl whispered something to him.

The cashier of the bookstore didn’t look up from his magazine when Saitama walked in. She didn’t say anything to him or the couple of teenagers huddled near the magazines. She went straight to the back where the manga was and quickly scanned the shelves. She found the volume she was looking for and headed back towards the register. On her way back was a bookcase of notebooks, some simple, like the single-ruled notebooks Genos tended to prefer, some were more finely crafted. Hard backs with decorative colors, “environmentally conscious” recycled paper, leather covers, soft acid-free pages with secret pockets stitched in.

Saitama picked up one of those. It was a plain mauve with a matching ribbon for a place marker. Inside was a page for labels—fat inch by half-an-inch rectangles for the front and skinny eight inch long ones for the spine. The pages were numbers and in the front was a section labeled “Table of Contents.” She flipped through the pages. Turned the book over in her hands. She looked at the price on the back and felt her heart stutter and her lungs deflate. Saitama put the book back on the shelf, shoulders slumped forward. She took one of the simpler notebooks. This’d be fine.

Saitama dropped her purchases next to the register. The cashier looked at her from over his magazine, Stars Now!. He put the magazine down on the desk and rang her purchases. Saitama’s eyes were drawn to one of the pictures in the magazine: a “Hot-ometer” with pink mercury that graduated into warm magenta as it rose up. The degrees were labeled “Barf!”, “Nuh-uh!”, “Meh…”, “I Can See That…”, “Yes Please!”, and “Unf!”. Inset, just below the bulb, was a composite image of her and Genos together made from their hero profiles. The mercury in their “Hot-ometer” had risen to “Yes Please!”

“Ma’am.”

Saitama jolted, her attention returning to the bored cashier. “1500 please,” he intoned, barely opening his mouth to get the words out. She dug out her coin purse and began pulling money out, digging around for exact change. She broke into a sweat as her fingers felt for another five hundred yen. There was an itchy feeling on the back of her neck, reminding her of the times when her hair had gotten caught in the stiff-collared blouses she had to wear in high school. She felt a roiling queasiness in her chest, like thunder clouds stuck in a whirlpool. When her fingers failed to secure a hundred yen coin for the fourth time, she upended the coin purse on the desk.

“Y-You don’t need to—” the cashier began to say, but Saitama insisted: “No, no, I have the money, just you— HERE!” She pushed the last five hundred yen toward the cashier. She collected the rest of her change in her palm and dumped it back into her purse. She looked at the cashier. There was a particularly aggressive mole above his left eye. “Is that enough?”

“Yeah…” the cashier said. His mole twitched. She took the notebook and manga from the desk and hurried out, rubbing the back of her neck as the door shut behind her.

Saitama knew the meeting-party-thing was a dud when she was forty-five minutes late and was still the first person there. She showed up, her purchases tucked under her arm and was instantly met with a short, perky blond in a smart suit with strangely shaped glasses that almost seemed to wrap around her head. She held a tablet in one arm, pressed against her ample chest.

“Hello! Good afternoon. You’re Miss Saitama, correct?” she said. Her lipstick was a shade of pink so light it was like she had just licked her lips until they were wet and chapped. Saitama worried that if she smiled any more her lips would split open and blood would start dribbling down her chin.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Perfect!” The blond tapped on her tablet. “Please follow me. I’ll show you to the event space.” She turned on the tip of her shiny black heels and pranced toward a bank of elevators. Her heels clomped on the reflective black tile, disturbing the otherwise dead silent lobby. Saitama looked around. Maybe this was a bad idea. But there was free food. But this girl was smiling so widely her eyes were squeezed shut. But…free food.

The blond beckoned her to the elevators. Saitama stuck her hands in her pockets and followed her. The blond called the elevator when Saitama reached her side. “I think they just put the food out upstairs. I know you’ll really enjoy it. It’s super delicious!”

And it was. There was a whole banquet set up against the back wall manned by bored waiters in black pants and white dress shirts. There was at least one who hadn’t looked away from his phone in the twenty minutes Saitama had been scarfing fresh tender tonkatsu, juicy meatballs and sucking down bright, sweet lemonade as she sneaked bananas into the pocket of her hoodie. The blond had left Saitama alone in the big empty room, promising that more heroes were coming soon. Saitama thanked her and took note of the time. If no one else showed up in thirty minutes she was going to go home. If Genos asked her why she was home so early she could just tell him that it had been a flop. There wasn’t anything important to talk about, no one showed up but she brought some stuff back with her. If she got home early enough and if Genos was hungry enough they could make dinner. Maybe if she was quick enough she could pick up a movie and they could settle in with their dinner and have a nice quiet night in.

Just as she was thinking about mapo tofu and the ingredients they might have for it, the elevator doors slid open. The blond skipped out, showing the room to two other female heroes. One had short, wild red hair held back with a headband. She wore silver chain mail under red armor that covered her chest, shoulders and arms. There was a sword strapped to her hip, right where the chain mail ended and a red skirt started. The other hero had a full head of poofy black hair and wore a black cat suit with a large stiff neck that started at her shoulders and covered her chin. She had a tattered black cape and wore a pair of goggles on the top of her head. Saitama stared at them. They stared back.

“Okay girls,” the blond said, “Hope you all get along! Have as much food as you want! I’m sure there will be more people coming as the party rages on, so don’t hold back!” The blond stepped backwards into the elevator and waved as it closed.

Saitama blinked. The black-haired girl put a hand on her hip. The red-head’s eyes ran up and down Saitama, making three whole rounds before finally resting on Saitama’s head.

“So, who are you supposed to be?” the red-head asked.

“My name’s Saitama.” She pointed at them. “Who’re you?”

The two girls smirked. The red head pulled out her sword and thrust it into the sky before swiftly squatting down, blade extended towards Saitama. “I am Class B rank 54 hero Truefire Paladin!”

“And I…” The black-haired girl lifted an index finger and blew on it. A thin flame extended from the tip. She spun around, leaving a trail of fire that spread out, whipping into a thin line that surrounded her and her companion. She stopped with her fire finger pointed at Saitama, legs spread apart, half-turned away. “Am Class B rank 53 hero Blaze Commando!”

Saitama squinted at them. Do they do this every time?

The two heroes stepped out of their poses. Blaze Commando extinguished her fire. Truefire Paladin put her sword away. “So, are you with the Blizzard Group?” she asked. “You’re pretty dressed down to be one of Fubuki’s goons.”

“Oh…uh, no. I don’t really work with a group,” Saitama said.

Blaze’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “You don’t have a partner?”

“I do,” Saitama said. She touched the back of her neck. It was starting to itch again.

“They didn’t want to come?” Blaze asked. Truefire crossed her arms and squinted at Saitama. She jingled as she moved.

“No, he’s at home,” Saitama said. “He wasn’t invited because he’s not B class.”

Truefire’s eyes widened. Her posture stiffened, forcing her to stand completely straight. Blaze looked curiously at her companion. Truefire pointed at Saitama and shouted, “Y-You’re Caped Baldy, aren’t you? You’re dating that guy from S-Class!”

“What?” Blaze smiled. “Really?”

Shit. “Uh…”

The heroes ran up to her as Saitama took a step backwards. They stopped right in front of her, both of them were smiling and staring hopefully, eyes practically glittering. Blaze held her face and rocked back and fort from her heels to the balls of her feet. Truefire bounced, arms straight at her side, hands clenched into fists. She kept rattling, chain on chain on armor.

“I can’t believe it!” Blaze whispered.

“Okay, you have to tell us how you landed an S-class!” Truefire insisted.

Saitama took another step back. Truefire hopped closer. “Wait—”

“So how did you two meet?” Blaze asked. “Was it before or after you joined the Hero Association?”

“I heard that you two tested at the same time,” Truefire interjected. “Is that true? Is that where you met?”

“Did you start dating immediately or did you wait until you heard about his ranking?”

Saitama raised her hands and shook them. “No, we’re not—”

“Have you met the others in S-class?” Blaze asked. “Could you introduce us to some of them?” Blaze leaned in very close. She was blushing. “Have you met Metal Bat? Are you friends with him?”

“What about Atomic Samurai?” Truefire shouted. “Is he looking for more apprentices?”

“Listen—”

Blaze shielded her mouth from Truefire and asked quietly, “Do you know if Metal Bat has a girlfriend?”

Truefire slapped her friend’s back. “He is too young for you and you know it!”

Blaze turned to face Truefire. “What about Atomic Samurai? He is old enough to be your father!”

Truefire blushed. She crossed her arms and defiantly said, “He’s younger than my dad.”

“Yeah,” Blaze said, “by just a couple of years.”

Saitama squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart thumped loudly in her head and her ears were uncomfortably warm. “I’m not dating anyone in S-Class!” she shouted. She opened her eyes. The female heroes were staring at her, confused and a little shocked. Saitama sighed. “That’s just a rumor. Genos and I are just friends. We met shortly before taking the Hero Exam and moved in together right after we joined the Association.” She paused for a second. “Rent’s cheaper that way.”

Truefire’s shoulders slumped. Blaze rubbed her head. Seeing their expressions, with the similar frowns and the disappointed creases between their eyebrows, made Saitama’s eye twitch.

“Shame,” Truefire mumbled.

“Yeah. I was hoping you’d give us some tips.” Blaze said. She twisted a lock of curly black hair around two of her fingers. “We thought you’d figured out a way of getting around the Blizzard Group’s domination of B-Class.”

“What?” Saitama asked.

“We were thinking,” Truefire answered, “that you were getting around the roadblock Fubuki set up by tagging along with some more powerful heroes. Y’know, getting to fight bigger and badder monsters, getting more credit and reward for your efforts. Dating a higher-ranked hero is probably the easiest way to get in on that action, but just being friends and fighting partners probably works.”

Saitama’s jaw clenched.

“May work out for the better,” Blaze speculated. “If you two were dating he might not want you to get hurt. Then you’d miss out on all of the best monsters.”

“See, I’ve told you, that’s why it’s better to be an apprentice,” Truefire said. “Close enough for the benefit, far enough that you can actually do stuff.”

“That’s not how it is,” Saitama said. Blaze and Truefire were half-turned from her, close enough to hear but willfully deaf. They strategized about how to meet the more powerful heroes. The easiest way would be to simply meet them in battle, maybe find a way to impress them. Yes, or they could do some reconnaissance and find out about their personal lives so that they can meet them off-duty. Truefire waved her friend off. Heroes are never off duty, they should both understand that. Saitama shoved her clenched fists in her pocket. She felt the edge of the unopened envelope she had received earlier that day. How long has it been? Surely more than thirty minutes had passed since she got here.

Truefire and Blaze walked past Saitama to the nearest banquet table. She could hear a trail of their plans. Some of the heroes they wanted to meet had moved into the Hero Association apartments, so it wasn’t like they could respond to a single city’s Demon- or Dragon-level threat. Why not respond to some Tiger threats? S-Class heroes don’t really respond to Tiger-level threats, though. An A-class might, but if they wanted the big boys they would have to face Demons and Dragons. Blaze wondered if they would be strong enough to face threats like that. Truefire shrugged. Not alone, but together…well, there was only one way to find out.

The elevator doors slid shut. The last thing Saitama saw was Blaze blowing a lick of fire in her friend’s direction.

Saitama nearly broke the sound barrier trying to get around the blond girl. She slowed down once she was outside and began her march back home. The sun was beginning to set. Maybe I should run back? Nah, she can just walk. It was only five miles. Her shoulders were hunched and stiff but her hands were shaking and her knees felt like jelly. She rolled her shoulders and started off at a leisurely pace. Besides, the day was so nice: light breeze, sixty degrees, a gentle sun. She adjusted the books under her arm. Maybe that was why her shoulders were stiff? She probably should’ve waited for the cashier to give her a bag, but whatever. She could deal. She put her hands in the hoodie pocket.

Her fingers brushed against the letter. Oh, yeah, that. She pulled it out. For Mrs. Demon Cyborg was neatly written in thick black lines. She hummed. The very least they could’ve done was do their research. Even if the rumor mill was going crazy—and at this point she was apprehensive about what people were saying about her and Genos—there shouldn’t have been a reason for this to be labeled “Mrs. Demon Cyborg.” She hoped. Saitama slid her thumbnail across the top and eased the stack of papers out. Shit. How much did they write?

There were a total of six tri-folded pages. The stationary was a plain off-white color, as thick as loose-leaf, with lines were on the smaller side, giving the writer plenty of space to fill in every inch of the six pages with their thick, perfunctory handwriting.

Dear Mrs. Demon Cyborg,

I just wanted to let you know how happy I am for you and Mr. Demon Cyborg. You are a beautiful couple and I wanted to let you know how wonderful it is that you two have met and formed such a wonderful, beautiful relationship. I genuinely hope you both find the utmost happiness with each other—which I’m sure you have—and I wanted to let you know that it’s because of you two that I have recently met a lot of wonderful and supportive friends. I wouldn’t have met any of these great people without you or Mr. Demon Cyborg. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there’s this forum…

“Dammit,” Saitama whispered.

…I found after seeing pictures of you carrying Demon Cyborg after the incident with the Deep Sea King. Do you remember? It was the fight where you KO’d the fish thing with one punch. I could see in the pictures that were in the news and up on Twitter, from the way you held him and the way he looked at you that you two were in love. After such a brutal display, you were so gentle with him. Which makes sense since Mr. Demon Cyborg was pretty badly damaged, but even then…

Blah blah blah blah. Saitama was exceptionally gentle. The Demon Cape forum was the only place that wanted to talk about her contributions to the fight in a positive way. They had so many more pictures from the witnesses in the shelter. The forum was really welcoming and there were people who responded well to her contributions. She was struggling to find friends after moving from her hometown for a job. Yada yada. Hadn’t really had a hobby in years. Reignited her love of writing. Met so many people, some of them in real life. Wished that she could meet someone who loved her as much as Demon Cyborg loved Caped Baldy.

I know that we’re different people and you’re beautiful and powerful and lead an amazing life, but I still get this feeling that if a relationship like yours and Demon Cyborg’s can exist in this world, then maybe normal girls like me can find something like it.

Fuck.

Saitama frantically flipped the enveloped around in her hands. Was there a return address? Could she ask the post office about who sent this? She had to find this girl and tell her the truth. It’s a misunderstanding. Genos doesn’t love her. It’s amazing that she has all of these new friends and thinks Saitama is cool and found a purpose in life and everything but she and Genos were nothing more than friends. And she shouldn’t compare herself to her fantasies. What she thought was happening between Saitama and Genos was always going to be ten times better than what was actually happening. And, dammit, if this girl was nice enough to take the time to write six rambling pages about how much she loved the love between two people she is never going to meet, she was going to find happiness somewhere and it better be someone who could love her as much as she was able to love and fuck everything. Saitama crushed the letter and threw it over her shoulder.

“Excuse me, but littering is not appre—. Oh, Saitama-chan.”

Saitama turned around. Mumen Rider was holding the crumpled letter she had just thrown away, one foot on the ground and one hand keeping his bike standing straight. “Oh…Mumen…” She hadn’t heard him approach.

Mumen dismounted from his bike and lowered the kickstand. “Is something wrong?” he asked. “You look flustered.”

“I do?” She touched her face. It was warm. “It’s been a weird week.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” Mumen asked, unobtrusive but leading. Did he know? Did it matter? The way Mumen offered she could easily say no if she wanted. He wouldn’t judge her. He understood that her privacy had already been prodded and scrutinized he didn’t want to force her to expose any more of it. Dammit, why was Mumen so nice?

“Maybe. Are you free?”

Chapter Text

Saitama didn’t drink regularly. Her mother kept the alcohol locked away and she’s lived frugally for as long as she can remember. Alcohol was a luxury, best reserved for when she had a job or when other people were buying. Such as now.

Saitama swished the cold, clear shochu back and forth in its glass. Mumen Rider had offered to take her to a nearby bar — as long as she was comfortable of course. A dark, quiet place, a real hole in the wall. He thought she would like it. It was dimly lit and sparsely populated when they arrived — just a pair of cooks, a waitress who served them their drinks, and two businessmen relaxing after work. There was a muted CRT television playing the news above the middle of the bar, closed caption running haltingly across the bottom of the screen. The waitress gave Mumen Rider a respectful smile as he ordered a bottle on their way to a booth in the back corner. It was almost complete privacy. They could talk about anything back here.

She took a long sip of her drink. Her stomach clenched as the alcohol hit it. Maybe this was a bad idea.

“What were you doing at headquarters?” Mumen Rider asked.

“Hm?” Saitama blinked. “Oh, uh, there was a party thing for B-Class, but no one showed up so I left.”

“They do that for B-Class too?” Mumen Rider asked. His thumb ran along the lip of his full glass. “The Hero Association puts on meet-and-greets for the C-Class heroes. They’re a little weird. So many people come and leave C-class that it’s hard to keep track of everyone, so teams will organize their own happy hours. There are even a few bars that are dedicated to and run by C-Class heroes.”

Saitama’s eyes drifted to the television as Mumen Rider spoke. The jittery closed caption was running a few seconds behind the person speaking, which meant Saitama could see the pictures of the vicious pterodactyl-like creatures that shot lasers from their mouths and spoke in broken English before the serious anchorman could introduce the story. The Hero Association had dispatched their best heroes and the flying, squawking menaces were quickly defeated. The news cut to Metal Bat. He was wiping blood off of his bat with his already bloody gakuran. He said dismissively to the press: “Yeah, yeah, dem birds were easy. Went down in just a coupla hits. Hardest thing was to get ‘em to come down, but birds’re stupid so it weren’t all that hard. Now, if ya don’t mind, I need to pick up my sister from school.”

I wonder if they called Genos. Her gaze drifted down. She thought about Blaze and Truefire. Would they have raced to fight the pterodactyls if they had known? She looked at Mumen Rider. His head was bowed, obscured eyes pointed in the general direction of his glass. “What were you doing around headquarters?” Saitama asked.

Mumen Rider looked up. “I was just on patrol,” he said cheerily. “I normally follow a patrol schedule for the different cities, but there have been robberies recently in the commercial section of City Z.”

“How did that go?”

Mumen Rider leaned into the table. “I didn’t find the thieves, but I was able to talk to some of shop owners who had their properties broken into. It sounds like the robberies are more organized than I originally assumed.”

Saitama hummed. She made a face in the condensation on her glass with her thumb. The eyes melted almost immediately. Two beads of sweat rolled down the cheeks and over the chin and down the base of the glass to pool on the table. She should ask another question. That’s polite, right? That’s friendly. Saitama looked up. Mumen Rider’s attention was drawn to the news, now moved on to a more light-hearted human interest piece about puppies playing soccer with orphans. He sipped his drink.

He asked her to come here because he thought she was upset. And she was, earlier, when she was reading that letter and thinking about the two B-Class heroes and how everybody thought they knew what was going on in her life and making insipid news stories and rating how attractive she and Genos were as a couple and being inspired by what they thought her love life was. So she agreed and came here and now she was…not over it, but not as upset as before. Maybe she was okay with the idea of talking to someone about it, all of it, but her throat has closed up and her jaw was locked and Mumen Rider was too polite.

This was a waste of time.

The news transitioned to a discussion about the country’s favorite current topic: the relationship between S-Class Hero Demon Cyborg and B-Class Hero Caped Baldy. “Here to discuss, number one in the popularity polls and expert on hero affairs, A-Class Rank 1 hero Amai Mask!” The program cut to a close-up of Amai Mask, featuring a brand new smart faux-bob, before transitioning to a wide shot of the anchor and Amai Mask sitting next to each other on a brightly-lit pastel stage. Amai Mask thanked the anchor for inviting him here and smiled demurely.

The anchor asked Amai Mask about his thoughts on the two heroes dating each other. Amai Mask, with his long silvery eyelashes and feathery blue hair, gracefully leaned forward in deep consideration. His mouth moved and the caption caught up with it several seconds later: “My philosophy has always been that heroes are meant to be beautiful symbols of justice. Their focus should be on protecting the public and avenging the horrors committed by the evil beings we face each day. To dedicate your life to peace can make a person lonely. I should know.” He opened his piercing blue-gray eyes to gaze at the flushed anchor. “Demon Cyborg is a passionate young man with a bright future. I worry what would happen if a dedicated hero such as him becomes…distracted. Love — especially the sweet, all-consuming nature of young love — is a wonderful thing, but being a hero is a life calling. What risks will he take if part of his heart is not involved? Whose lives will he risk because of this one woman?”

Saitama turned her head away from the screen. Fuck everything. She downed her glass in one gulp and slammed it on the table. The wood splintered around her fist. Bottles and glassware clanked against each other as the cooks and waitress scrambled to keep everything from falling. A car alarm started blaring outside. Mumen Rider stared at her, shocked. She pointed at his glass. “Drink up. Next round’s on me.”

Saitama bought the next bottle. They were sticking with a sweet, smooth shochu mixed with oranges and oolong. Mumen Rider said it was one of his favorites. Saitama thought it tasted like the turn of the seasons, when the last bonfires eased summer’s navy blue night skies into autumn’s purple ones, deep as infinity, with crackling, glowing embers. “Yeah,” she agreed, “S’good.”

Saitama’s cheeks were warm as Mumen Rider cracked open their third bottle — his treat — and refilled her glass. Her ice had melted two or three drinks ago and sweet, polite, generous Mumen Rider, was filling her glass to the brim. They should slow down. It’s been so long since she’s drunk like this and it’s only been, what, an hour and a half since they got here? Maybe? What time was it? Her stomach rumbled. She should eat something. She ate at the party, but that could’ve been hours ago and she was hungry again. If she ate something and finished off the night with this last bottle she would be good to go.

“Do you want skewers?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Mumen Rider agreed, cheeks and neck flushed crimson.

They ordered yakitori and vegetable kushiyaki. Saitama could hear the vegetables sizzle and their seeds pop from the heat. She could smell fat from the chicken thighs drip onto the charcoal and puff into sweet steam clouds. She licked her lips and sighed.

“Do you date, Mumen?” Saitama asked.

Mumen Rider quietly looked at his half-empty glass. “Sometimes I do,” he said. “It’s very casual. Hero work makes it difficult. You know, there’s not a lot of free time between patrols and investigations.” He smiled, just a little, just enough that his glasses didn’t move. “And girlfriends don’t like it when you get hurt all the time too.”

Saitama propped her head up with the back of her hand, elbow bent and resting on the table top. “You’re a nice guy,” she said.

“Thank you,” Mumen Rider said, face reddening as he leaned back.

Genos is pretty nice too, she thought. Would he like a place like this? He has been pretty amenable to the ramen shops Saitama has dragged him to, though he was pretty hard to read most of the time. Did he drink? Were cyborgs capable of getting drunk? She imagined him relaxed with a goofy little smile and his face and ears bright pink. Her stomach clenched. When were they getting their food?

The bar was half-full when their food came out. Businessmen with their friends and girlfriends were belly-up at the bar, talking and laughing, throwing back drink after drink. The waitress approached their table with a pair of hot plates. She bowed to Mumen Rider after she put the plates on the table and thanked him for all of his hard work. Mumen Rider nodded and stuttered out a “thank you” for her kind words. His fingers were twitching on the table as the waitress winked at him.

Saitama refilled Mumen Rider’s glass as he continued to fidget. She dug into the sizzling yakitori, slowing down only to wipe the drool and marinade from her chin.

“Hey, Saitama-chan,” Mumen Rider said as he poured her the last of their bottle. “What was that wad of paper you threw away on the street?”

“Huh?” Saitama grumbled. Her cheeks distended around her half-chewed chicken. Paper? What—

Oh! Saitama tried to swallow, but a solid chunk caught in her throat. The muscles of her esophagus contracted as she coughed, trying to bring the piece back up. Mumen Rider jumped to her side, asking if she needed the Heimlich Maneuver. Saitama punched herself in the sternum. The jolt shook the chicken piece free just enough to be washed down with a glass of alcohol. Saitama gave a pleased, dramatic sigh when her throat was clear. She gave Mumen Rider a huge smile and a thumbs-up. He smiled back.

She heard someone gasp: “Is that Mumen Rider?”

Then, like the blinding light on the nose of the bullet train rushing towards them, someone shouted enthusiastically: “It is! That’s Mumen Rider!”

A wide hand clasped Mumen Rider’s shoulder. Mumen Rider seized, his smile morphing into a thin, tight frown. The hand on his shoulder was connected to a barrel-chested, pink-faced man with a spotty five o’clock shadow. “Mumen Rider! The greatest hero in the world!”

“Oh,” Mumen Rider said quietly, leaning away from the stranger. “Thank you so much. That’s very nice of you to—”

“Lemme get you something to drink!” the stranger said loudly. “Something for you and your pal here! Whatcha drinking?”

Mumen Rider began twisting himself out of the stranger’s hold. “You really don’t need to.”

“I insist! Hey,” the stranger looked over his shoulder at the rest of the bar. “Let’s all get a bottle of something for this guy!” The crowd cheered. A chorus of clinking glasses and a swell of “Whoooooooo” rose above the chatter. The stranger turned back to Mumen Rider. “Do you like whiskey?”

Saitama had started to keep time by the number of drinks each stranger diligently and generously poured them. Then she tried to keep track through the number of empty bottles left abandoned on their table. Then she forgot how numbers worked.

“H-Have I told you,” Saitama slurred, her hand flopping in Mumen Rider’s general direction, “about the people who pretend heroes date each other?”

Her face was warm and her ears felt like they were on fire. The breeze from people walking past to greet Mumen Rider and shake his hand and thank him for all of his hard work and offer to get him something to drink sent her into endless shivers. She wasn’t sure if her eyes were rolling side to side on tides of alcohol, or if the world always tilted like this and she was just noticing it now.

Mumen Rider was like jelly in his seat, eyes unfocused, mouth agape, and head bonelessly thrown back against the head rest. Saitama saw Mumen Rider’s neck muscles clench and strain as they failed to lift his head. Saitama reached over the table and pulled Mumen Rider into a semi-straight sitting position. She slapped his shoulder. “There ya go,” she said with a dopey grin.

“’S why I don’ go out much,” Mumen Rider mumbled as he tilted forward. Saitama held him up with both hands on his shoulders. “Wha’ abou’ datin’?”

“Genos showed it,” Saitama said. “There’s — the one he showed me was ‘bout us, but it’s all these people an’ they were pretendin’ we were datin’.”

Mumen Rider’s eyes widened. He flopped his hand back and forth in the space between them. “Y-You an’ me?” he squeaked.

“Nooooooooooo,” Saitama drawled as she laid her chest on the table. “It was with me an’ Genos.”

Without her support, Mumen Rider’s chest slowly lowered until it was touching the back of Saitama’s head. “S-Sorr—” Mumen Rider’s shoulders rocked side to side as he tried to…sit up straight, maybe? Saitama wasn’t sure but he stopped moving when he was comfortably — or uncomfortably, if the extreme bend in Mumen Rider’s neck was any indication — slouched against the wall.

“That’s weird,” Mumen Rider huffed. “Why did he know about it?”

“I dunno,” Saitama said to an empty sake bottle. “He said he was lookin’ for somethin’ else an’ he found it.”

“What was he lookin’ for? ’S really specific,” Mumen Rider said, concern poking through his drunkenness.

“He follows news ‘bout me an’ I guess tha’ was somethin’ tha’ jus’ popped up in onna his searches I guess.” She sighed. “Whadda waste of time.”

“Saitama,” Mumen Rider said very seriously as he laid a hand on her head. “Saitama, onna the reasons I wanted to talk to you was ‘causa Genos. Ya see, I see you two together an’ I see a lotta red flags.”

Saitama lifted her head. She willed herself to look at Mumen Rider directly but her gaze kept drifting off to his right ear. “Not the pretendin’ people, ‘cause they seem nice but with a lotta time on their hands. But Genos lookin’ up all tha’ stuff every day. There’s nothin’ new from day t’ day until now sooo why bother right?”

“See, tha’s a bad sign,” Mumen Rider continued. He hit the table with his open palm. “I worry tha’ Genos is obsessed wi’ you an’ obsession is offen paired widda controllin’ or dominatin’ personality. ‘Se personality tha’ excels in the Hero business, but Genos especially—”

“You tryin’a say that Genos is a bad guy?” Saitama asked. She propped her chin on the table. She tried to glare at Mumen Rider but fell short and squinted at him instead. “Genos is onna the best things tha’s happened to me. He’s my first friend in forever. Or maybe even ever.”

Mumen Rider’s upper body bent forward and his head hung low enough that his chin hit his chest as he said quietly, “Predators are able t-to find vulnerable people an—”

“I dunno what I would do withou’ him,” Saitama said, ignoring Mumen Rider’s babbling. “I’ve had this dull life since I was a kid. Borin’ childhood. Borin’ adolesence. Borin’ super strength. Borin’ borin’ borin’. An’ then Genos shows up one day an’ refuses to leave me alone an’ I though’ he was jus’ an annoyin’ kid, an’ he is an annoyin’ kid but he makes my life so much less borin’.”

She had never known peace like she did after Genos came into her life. The tumult of boredom, with its endless waves throwing Saitama back and forth, submerging her, overwhelming her, subsided into a still pool that she could rest in for the first time. She could dive in knowing that Genos will be there with his enthusiasm and dedication to keep her warm. She could peer through clear depths and see a fragile pink bud growing in the deepest parts of the pool, its stem bent like an old man’s back but its glow, staining the black water red and pink and white, showed its strength, its willingness to survive.

Saitama sat up. The bar and her stomach did a quick somersault and her vision blinked out for a moment.

Holy shit.

“Mumen…” she whispered. “I-I think I love ‘im.”

“…an’ there’s no shame in admittin’— Wait, wha’?”

“I think…” No, there was no ‘think.’ She was. “I love him.”

She loved him. Holy shit. She loved him. In twenty-five years of life she had never loved anyone, not like this. Fuck. Was that why she thought about him so much? Why she felt so weightless and refreshed when he was nearby? And was this why the subtle sounds of his body — his humming fans, his clicks, the static in his voice right before he falls asleep and just after he wakes up, the crackling of electricity rushing like blood — lulls her to sleep? God dammit.

Saitama stood up. She stumbled back into her chair as the floor immediately tilted to a forty-five degree angle. “Nnf!” she gasped.

“Saitama?”

“I hafta go,” Saitama said. “I should tell ‘im. Imma gonna go home an’ tell him.”

“But you’re drunk,” Mumen Rider hesitantly reminded her.

Saitama slowly stood up. It felt like the bones in her legs had melted and saturated her muscles with a gelatinous substance that barely supported her weight. Willpower, rather than muscle, was what compelled her up and slowly out of the booth. “I hafta!” she said loudly. “I hafta tell ‘im!”

“You shouldn’ go all the way home by yourself,” Mumen Rider exclaimed as he stood up. All of the color immediately drained from his face. His entire body shuddered, then wobbled, then gave out, sending him tumbling back into his seat.

“’Re you okay?” Saitama asked. “You should go home.”

“N-Not without you,” Mumen Rider insisted. He used the table to leverage himself up. Saitama could see his horribly shaking legs and the growing curve in his spine as he slowly failed to keep himself upright.

Saitama held his shoulder. “Lemme take you home,” she said. Mumen Rider’s arm slung around her shoulder. Saitama held him up by his waist and guided him to the door, hoisting him further up on her hip as Mumen Rider’s feet floundered on the floor behind them.

Saitama stepped out of Mumen Rider’s apartment building. It was muggy and clotted gray clouds blanketed the sky. She took off, sprinting at half-speed. The streetlights were too bright — she squinted into the the blinding smeared lights that stayed on the periphery of her vision. She was going to be sick. Her stomach was not ready for this much activity. She was ricocheting off of buildings and people and whatever else happened to be in her way.

She thought, Aw, man, I’m running pretty fast, I hope no one gets hurt.

And then she thought, I wonder if Genos has a dick.

Dammit.

Well, that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because she loved him and there were so many ways to tell someone you loved them. She couldn’t really think of them right now, except for just opening your mouth and saying “I love you because X” and even that was borderline not romantic. That sounded like a presentation. And Saitama was sure that confessions had to be romantic — they were always romantic in her childhood manga and those were the only references she had at the moment.

She had an idea of what she was going to do when she got home. She’d find Genos waiting up for her in the living room, either on the computer or watching television. He’ll greet her, like he does: “Welcome home, Sensei. How was your night out?” She’ll approach him, silent and confident with her shoulders squared and pulled back. That will grab his attention, unless he was already paying attention to her, and he probably was because he likes to look at her a lot. He’ll ask her what was on her mind. Maybe he’ll scan the room for his nearest notebook. She won’t wait for him to find it. She’ll stand as straight as she can and say, plainly, that she loves him. And then…

Uh…

Well, there were a few things that she wanted to do. She wanted to take his face between her hands and trace those big lips. She wanted to feel his hair between her fingers and the steam from his vents puff against her chest. She wanted to know what he would look like with his eyes unfocused and his face bright red.

Do cyborgs blush?

Do they like sex?

She was determined to find out.

Her throat swelled as she reached the edge of the abandoned zone. She easily leapt over the top of the fence, but her trajectory was off just enough to throw her gracelessly face-down on the other side. Heavy coughs ripped through her chest, venturing uncomfortably close to gags before she caught her breath. She spit out a pool of hot spit as she leveraged herself into a kneeling position. The world spun again. She closed her eyes and waited. When she opened them again the tops of the buildings slowly circled a gash in the clouds. Saitama could see a bank of the Milky Way and a corner of the moon. The sky was beautiful.

Was their sidewalk still on fire?

She stood up. The apartment wasn’t far. She could have waited until her knees stopped shaking or the buildings stopped swaying or until she could walk in a straight line, but that would only slow her down. If her legs were too weak, she would crawl. If the world turned sideways, she would scale the streets and buildings. Genos was waiting for her and she wasn’t going to let anything get in her way again.

When Saitama couldn’t find her keys in her pockets she kicked the door down instead. Genos was in the entryway in a moment, palms raised and charging, stony face creased with anger.

“Genos!” Saitama shouted.

Genos blinked, shocked. He lowered his arm. “Good evening Sensei. Why did you kick the door down?”

“Genos!” Saitama shouted again. She took a step forward, replaying the plan she had formed on run home. Attention. Confession. Kiss.

But first she needed to take her shoes off. She held herself up with the wall. “H-Hold on. I gotta…” She started to slide down the wall as she lifted a bent leg up to her chest to untie the laces. “Justa…”

“Sensei, are you okay?” Saitama heard the twist of camera zooming in on her. “Your motor functions seem to be impaired. Have you been poisoned?” he asked, a growl underlying the word “poison.”

“Nah,” she answered. “Mebbe drunk.” She hopped against the wall. Her fingers were shaking and her knee was practically resting on her cheek and the stupid fucking lace wouldn’t untie and she only felt herself slipping down the wall after she was staring at the quickly approaching floor.

“Sensei!” Hands tightly gripped her biceps, just underneath her shoulders. She was lifted to her feet, now face-to-face with Genos. Saitama swallowed the excess saliva collecting in her mouth. Her eyes jumped from Genos’s eyes to his lips to his checks and his neck and his eyes again. If she stared too long his eyes merged into a third one or his mouth separated into two. She felt the floor tilt to the left. The wall behind Genos was slowly turning in the same direction. Saitama gripped Genos’s shirt.

“Can you stand on your own?” Genos asked, fierceness subsiding into growing worry.

“Nah…” Saitama mumbled. Her heart was beating against her ribs. Genos was still gripping her shoulders. She was staring into the faded light of his third eye. She leaned into him. She could feel the vents in his torso against her chest and their heat sink into her hoodie. There was a low vibration emanating from Genos, running up Saitama’s arms and filling her entire body.

“You’re really warm,” Saitama told Genos.

Genos blinked. “Excuse me, Sensei, but could you re—”

Saitama thrust her face forward, but instead of kissing Genos like she intended, her lips ended up inside of his mouth. Genos gasped and jumped, his hands releasing Saitama’s arms briefly. Saitama’s lips dislodged as she slumped into him. Genos held her up again, supporting her by wrapping his arms around her lower back. Genos’s eyes were wider than she had ever seen them.

“S-Sen…” Genos whispered.

“S’not my best,” Saitama said. “Try again?”

Genos hesitated. “You’re intoxicated,” he reminded her.

“Uh-huh,” Saitama mumbled. She wrapped one of her arms around Genos’s neck. The other lifted to pet his cheek. “You’re so soft…”

“You are not of sound mind to make these kinds of decisions,” Genos said.

“Yes I can.” She ran the tips of her fingers down his jaw, riding the seam between silicone and rubber. She tipped his head to the side. This time, when they kissed, it was her lips against his — warm, soft, and real. Genos’s arms wrapped more tightly around her, his hands opening to lay flat on her back, between her shoulder blades and the dimples at the bottom of her spine.

Static trickled down from Saitama’s head to her feet. She was heavy and empty and warm. Her heart echoed in her fingertips and ears and between her thighs. She pressed closer. The sharp edges of Genos’s chest cut into her. She opened her mouth, nudging Genos’s lips open with hers, and accepted a hot, slick tongue. Her stomach flipped.

And flipped.

And turned.

And suddenly ejected its contents upwards.

Saitama pushed Genos away from her. She slumped against the wall. She cupped a hand to her mouth with a vague idea of catching her vomit as it came out which, even as it overflowed and splashed against her pants and her shoes and the wall, she knew was not a good idea. After all, where was she going to put it?

“Oops…” Saitama muttered and slid to the floor.

“S-Sensei…” Genos knelt in front of her with his hands held out. “Let me help you to the bathroom.”

She stared at her vomit-covered hand. She reached out and firmly held onto his wrist with her clean hand. “’K-Kay…”

It felt like a sledgehammer was repeatedly hitting her on the back of her head. When she tried to listen for the sounds of Genos in their apartment, all she could hear was her heartbeat thumping in her ears. When she tried to open her eyes she saw a muddled pool of searing light and formless colors. So she didn’t listen. She shut her eyes as hard as she could and covered her head with her blanket.

What did she do last night? She buried her face in her pillow. Thinking made the migraine hurt more.

She went out, she remembered. To that…that party thing. And no one came, so she left.

And that’s where she met Mumen Rider. He was outside of headquarters on the street doing…something. But she was upset and he saw that and he offered to treat her to a drink.

And that’s why she went to the bar. They had a nice time talking and eating and drinking. She hadn’t gone drinking in so long, didn’t realize she could still get drunk.

And she did. And so did Mumen Rider. She took him back to his apartment because he couldn’t stand up or walk straight. She left him on his couch and threw a blanket on him. He was out cold by the time she left.

So she came home and she kissed Ge—.

Oh.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Genos had left her a note. Went to Dr. K for repairs. Leftovers from last night are in the fridge.

She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t want to be around herself either. Saitama tucked her chin into her sheets and stared out on her balcony. Her cactus was exactly where it had always been -- green, plump, and prickly -- carefully guarding the bundled recycling and boxes of fan mail with cheery purpose.

Why did she kiss him? Last night was a blur of lights and smells and people and a rare, raw emotion and thinking about it gave her a headache; she could half remember Mumen and the bar and coming home and how unbelievably soft and warm Genos was. Muscle memory recalled the segments of his fingers as he held her and the pressure of his tongue on hers. She groaned and buried her face in her pillow. She couldn’t even remember who started kissing whom. It might have been her? Sometimes she made really bad mistakes when she was drunk.

Saitama closed her eyes. The blood in her head had rushed to her forehead, concentrating the dull, rhythmic pounding to an inch of space between her eyes. If she focused on that spot and how it felt to crease her skin and the way the threadbare pillow rubbed against it, maybe she could ignore the way the void in her stomach churned and cannibalized itself. She couldn’t ignore the eerie silence pressing against her back, though, or the room’s wet chill. She hunched her shoulders and tightly wrapped her comforter around her until she was completely cocooned. Was the air conditioner on? When Genos moved in, Saitama had asked him to leave the thermostat alone. True to form, he never, ever adjusted the temperature. Not when it was a hundred degrees, not when it was two degrees, he sat and suffered with Saitama because he was her devoted disciple and he cared about everything she did and said and—

She opened her eyes. “Damn it,” she hissed. Without unwrapping herself from her blanket, Saitama reached out and felt for the remote control along the bottom shelf of her bookcase. When she had it in hand, she buried her face in the pillow once again and turned on the TV. Maybe the news’ drone will ease her headache.

—and reports are flying about the newest and most scandalous hero couple to come out in the last few days!

More scandalous than Demon Cyborg and Caped Baldy?

Yes!

How?!

Well, it involves a certain bald girl wonder.

No!

Yes! Her and everyone’s favorite bicycle-bound sweetheart, Mum—

She turned off the TV.

It was quiet again. She could feel it squeeze her lungs and heart this time, trying to crush her from the inside. She rolled on to her back, the blanket rolling with her so that her eyes poked through the little hole she had made for herself, and stared at the ceiling. She thought about the letter she had received, thick and heavy and full of false hope. She thought about Mumen Rider’s generosity, Genos’s loyalty. She thought about a night early in the summer when she called Genos out onto the balcony to look at the stars. The wind had been so fresh, so new and gentle that she closed her eyes and let it drift across her. When she opened her eyes Genos was next to her, his head tilted back as he gazed in awe at the sky. His hair ruffled in the wind, spiked fringe dancing across his forehead.

Saitama covered her face with her hands. She fucked up.

What could she do? What could she say? Sorry about that kiss last night. Totally doesn’t mean anything, right? Shit. Hey, Genos, we could never speak of this again if you wanted to? Just shake it off like nothing happened? But it did. Don’t read into it. Better you than Mumen Rider, right.

Shit.

Shit.

Did she try to kiss Mumen Rider?

Fuck.

She sat up suddenly, then bent forward and groaned, gripping the sides of her head as her headache rammed through the front of her skull. She didn’t remember kissing Mumen Rider. She also didn’t remember when she took her clothes off — oh God did she take them off in front of Genos?

She stumbled to her closet. She felt fuzzy all over. Her legs were shaking and her stomach definitely didn’t like her moving around this much, but she managed to get on some jeans and a shirt before bursting out of her apartment -- and her door was fucking broken, too -- at full speed.

One of the things she didn’t remember, she discovered about an hour after she ran out of her apartment, was where Mumen Rider lived. Originally she had thought she could retrace her steps from her apartment to his, but as she set off from the abandoned zone she discovered that everything looked completely different from when she was drunk at night and when she was hung over during the day. The world didn’t contort around like in a fish-eye lens, for one thing, which made the streets so much easier to walk down. It also meant that the circuitous sense of direction that brought her home last night did not apply when the streets moved forward in straight lines instead of veering off at sixty degree angles. Then she thought that she might be able to retrace her steps from the bar to Mumen Rider’s. As she sprinted up and down dozens upon dozens of nearly-identical side streets, she realized that she didn’t even know where the bar was. It was somewhere near Hero Association HQ, but far enough away from Mumen Rider’s house that it took them almost an hour to get to his.

At least she thought it had been an hour.

Saitama stopped outside of a squat concrete building for a rest. She turned her back on the nearly empty side street and leaned her forehead against the building. She knew she managed to get Mumen Rider home so she had to have known how to get to his house. Maybe. At least they had gotten near enough that he made it home on his own. Possibly. Anything, she had to admit, was possible at this point.

Saitama saw out of the corner of her eye a woman in a pink blouse stare at her. Saitama looked up to see what she wanted, but the woman jolted and turned away. Her bobbed hair fluttered as she refused to meet Saitama’s gaze. She sighed and rested her forehead against the wall again.

Maybe there was something she was missing? A landmark she couldn’t place or a clue of some sort. Mumen Rider said that he had a patrol schedule, didn’t he? Maybe he was on patrol? But there had also been robberies or something in the business district or something? So maybe he was there. That wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Or she could go to HQ and ask for his address. They had it on file; how else were they going to send him fanmail? Would the Hero Association just give her his address though? That seemed really dangerous and stupid, but it was worth a shot.

She tensed her shoulders, ready to push herself off of the wall, when a timid, tired, familiar voice called out to her, “Saitama, are you okay?”

Saitama turned around to see...someone. A guy with glasses and mussed brown hair who sounded a little like Mumen Rider. She squinted. He looked like Mumen Rider too, but instead of his body armor and helmet he wore a pale blue polo shirt and a pair of shorts. He had a grocery bag in each hand that, while they didn’t look heavy, had his back curving from the effort to hold them. The voice, the thick glasses, the aura of sheepishness — this had to be Mumen Rider. A few feet behind him was the pink-bloused woman she saw earlier, shaking and darting her eyes between Saitama and Mumen Rider.

“Do you know this, uh, woman, Mr. Mumen Rider?” the woman asked.

Mumen Rider smiled sheepishly before turning around. “Yes, ma’am,” he said kindly. “There’s no need to worry, she’s another hero.”

“Oh!” The pink-bloused woman blushed and covered her face. “I’m sorry for interrupting your day,” she apologized, “I didn’t realize…” She bowed deeply and quickly walked away, muttering apologies under her breath.

When the woman was out of earshot, Mumen Rider turned to Saitama. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I think she misread a look you gave her?”

Saitama shrugged. “I was looking for you, actually, so this works out.” She looked him up and down. “Why are you dressed down? Aren’t you working today?”

Mumen Rider shook his head a little. “Last night was…um…it, it took a bit out of me,” he said. “Why were you looking for me?”

“I had some questions about last night,” she said, eyes drifting down. She kicked the ground with the toe of her shoe.

“I hope I can answer them,” he said. “Actually, I think I have some stuff you left behind last night.” He pointed behind her, in the direction of the main street. “My apartment is just around the corner if you want to ask along the way.”

Saitama blinked rapidly. She slowly looked over her shoulder. Peeking out from behind a building was a bent street light, cracked in half around the same height as Saitama’s shoulder. She turned back around, half-smiling and half-grimacing. “Okay,” she said with an odd, strained voice. Saitama held a hand out. “I can take one of those bags if you’d like,” she offered.

Mumen Rider handed her the lighter-looking bag and led her around the corner. Saitama glanced around. The street was relatively empty. There were some businessmen going to lunch and a pair of housewives doing their shopping together. Cars passed by them, smoothly driving away from the congested city center. She could hear revving engines and slamming doors. She forgot what day it was. Wednesday, right? Kids must be in school. As they passed the broken lamp, he asked, “So what did you want to talk about?”

She turned her attention away from the young salaryman across the street, running with his arms full with a half dozen coffee cups. “Did we make out last night?”

Mumen Rider sputtered and stopped. Saitama took a few more steps before stopping as well. “Or did I ask you to make out or something else?” she continued. She waited as she watched Mumen Rider rub his mouth with his free hand. “It’s okay if you don’t remember,” she added. “I barely remember anything that happened after we got to the bar.” The feeling of Genos’s mouth moving against hers resurfaced, unbidden. “I wanted to know in case I should apologize.”

Mumen Rider looked down, face twisting inward from concern. “I don’t think you did. Do you feel like I may have encouraged or…or pressured you for that?”

Saitama waved a hand. “N-No.”

“Because that was not my intention,” Mumen Rider said, voice raising in pitch as he became more and more upset. “I-I wanted to invite you out because you looked upset and…and I really value our friendship!”

Saitama looked around. They weren’t drawing any attention yet, but there were a few people, some guys in suits with take-out containers and phones, walking towards them. She waved at Mumen Rider. “Let’s have this conversation at your apartment,” she said quietly.

Mumen Rider looked up. He saw the approaching pedestrians and nodded.

They silently made their way up the four stories to Mumen Rider’s apartment, he took the grocery bag from Saitama and offered her something to drink. Tea? Water? He had some soda and energy drinks, too, if she drank either of those.

“Tea is fine,” Saitama said. She kicked off her shoes and nudged them next to Mumen Rider’s against the entry wall. Beyond the entryway was a tidy living space and kitchen that, combined, were almost twice the size of her apartment. There was a couch pushed up against a wall, underneath a window, with a blanket strewn across the back. On the opposite side of the room was a closed door and a big, flat-screen television on an empty entertainment stand. The notebook and volume of manga she bought were on a low coffee table in the center of the room. Dozens of pictures of Mumen Rider’s family were hung everywhere on the walls — she could see his mom’s hair fade from a lustrous auburn to a dusky gray, could track the development of the wrinkles and dark shadows on his dad’s face.

She wrung her hands.

“You can take a seat if you want,” Mumen Rider said. Saitama looked at the couch. The fabric was frayed and thin, unspooling on the arms and where you would lay your head. She heard the first hint of a whistle as she took a seat.

“So,” she said slowly, “last night…”

“Y-Yeah,” Mumen Rider stuttered.

She stared at a nearby photo of Mumen Rider and his family. He was young, maybe eight years old in front of his parents, all of them dressed formally. Even back then he had those thick glasses. “So I didn’t kiss you?”

“No,” Mumen Rider said. “I don’t remember, at least, and I think I remember everything? At least up until the point when you dropped me off on the couch, which seemed like the end of the night.”

So it had just been Genos last night. Her shoulders tensed and curled into her chest. Mumen Rider approached her with two steaming cups, offering her one as he sat next to her.

“Is there a reason why you want to know?” he asked.

Saitama stood up. “I just wanted to know. I’ll head out—”

“Does it have something to do with Genos?” Mumen Rider asked.

Saitama flinched. A bead of hot sweat rolled down the side of her head. “H-Huh? Wh-What makes you say that?”

Mumen Rider was as placid and biting as a frozen lake when he said, “You were yelling about how you were in love with him last night.”

She took one of the offered mugs and sat down on the frayed edge of a cushion. She could see her blurry reflection in the dark liquid. Her mouth was screwed into a shocked smile and her eyebrows twitched as she thought about herself. Her drunk, dumb self running amok through Z-City, breaking street lights and screaming about how she was in love with her roommate.

“I…I said that?” she asked herself.

“Yes,” Mumen Rider responded.

She turned to him. “Out loud?” she clarified.

He nodded, deadly serious. “Something happened between you two last night, didn’t it?” he asked, voice low and accusatory.

“It’s nothing bad,” Saitama said quickly, waving a hand at him.

Mumen Rider put his tea cup on the table and turned to Saitama. His hands were politely placed on his knees and his full attention was on her. She turned away and pouted, hunkering down over her lap and taking her time to sip her tea. After a few seconds of silence, she sighed. “It really isn’t,” she said. “We didn’t do anything. We just kissed and I threw up and then I went to bed.”

Mumen Rider was leaning close with his hands clasped in his lap and a serious, somber face. There was another family picture just over his shoulder with his mom and dad posed happily in front of a house. She focused on that rather than the accusations hidden just below Mumen Rider’s pinched face.

“We didn’t do anything,” she said. “He wasn’t even around this morning.”

She saw, from the corner of her eye, the way Mumen Rider leaned away. His shoulder settled down and she found her own back relaxing deeper into its hunch.

“So, yeah, nothing to get worked up about,” Saitama grumbled.

Mumen Rider still had that concentrated crease to his expression. Saitama

“Did it bother you,” he asked, “waking up and finding that he wasn’t around?”

Yes, she thought while she shrugged. It wasn’t the first time he had gone off and done his own thing while she was asleep. Sometimes she even liked having him out of the house, if only for that respite from his constant attention. He needed repairs done. He needed to go to S-Class meetings. He had his own life. There was no reason to assume that there was something different about this morning’s disappearance.

She was overthinking this. There was nothing wrong. There was nothing happening. Genos had his face smashed in earlier this week -- it’s possible that an issue with his eyes manifested overnight. His eyes are really delicate, too, so he totally could’ve wanted to wait until Dr. Kuseno had enough time to focus on his eye rather than try and fix it himself. The lab is also decently far away. Sometimes it takes Genos a while to get to the lab and depending on the damage it could take days or weeks for him to come back and then there’s also the chance that he has upgrades waiting for him which could double the return time and it is wholly, completely possible that she won’t see him for days. Just because that exact series of events hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it’s not impossible.

“Saitama?” Mumen Rider whispered. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “I think I fucked up,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She wasn’t sure, but a distressing roil in her chest -- as fuzzy and chaotic as her hangover, but sourced from deeper, more primal water -- was leading her to believe that maybe, just maybe, she had irreversibly broken something. So she shrugged and sipped her tea and recalled the feeling of silicone hands roaming her back.

“I don’t know anything about what I was saying last night,” Saitama said, “but I like what Genos and I have. I don’t want that to stop.”

Mumen Rider was quiet while Saitama turned the mug around in her hand, watching the way the tea rippled and sloshed. She heard the couch creak as he shifted his weight from one hip to another.

“Sometimes you have to take chances,” Mumen Rider said carefully. “If you don’t, then nothing has the opportunity to get better.”

Saitama focused her attention on Mumen Rider’s stiff face. “Huh?” she grunted.

“Well…” he said. “Last night, do you think you did something you may have wanted to do for a very long time? If it’s something that Genos has wanted for a long time, too, but neither of you want to risk your friendship, neither of you are really helping the other person.”

“I guess,” she said. “What if it’s not something that Genos wants?”

Mumen Rider shrugged. “Then it’s an honest mistake. But the only way to find out any of that is to talk to him.”

“He’d need to be home to talk to him,” she mumbled.

“Do you think there’s a chance he won’t?” he asked.

No, she thought, but there also hadn’t been a good chance that she would get trashed and make out with her roommate. Or for that big letter to get to her when it did. Or for those teenaged girls to come along and recognize her. Or for Genos to run into her and insist on being her disciple. She shrugged. Chances were never in her favor, and yet things seemed to go with the least likely option.

Saitama finished her tea and left Mumen Rider’s apartment. Crowds of middle schoolers were sauntering down the sidewalks, chirping and giggling, pointing and typing away on their phones. Saitama put her hood up and stuck her hands in her pockets and followed her trail of wreckage, walking against the flow of students.

Genos was going to come home. When he was ready, he was going to come home and they could talking about it. All of it. She just has to wait.

Chapter Text

Genos wasn’t home when Saitama returned to the apartment. He wasn’t home when she got out of the bath. He wasn’t home when she reheated last night’s leftovers or when she threw them out after they got cold. When he wasn’t home after the painfully slow news report, Saitama put away the table, unrolled her futon, and went to bed.

When he did get home, it was pitch-black. Saitama had been lying in bed for hours, dozing off for only a handful of minutes at a time before stirring awake to check that she was still alone. She was ready to doze off again when she heard his heavy footsteps and the sound of a door shutting closed. She tracked his progress into the kitchen, stopping to open the refrigerator, turning on the sink, and then waiting patiently to fill something with water.

Saitama sat up slowly, eyes unfocused and heavy as she zeroed in on Genos. His irises were glowing -- two golden headlights frozen in a stare.

“Hey,” she mumbled.

Genos placed something on the counter and turned off the sink. “Sensei,” he whispered. “You should go back to sleep.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t sleepin’,” she said quietly. “I was waiting for you.”

Lights flickered out for a moment as Genos blinked. “That is exceptionally kind of you, Sensei,” he said. “I have returned home, now, so you can go back to bed.”

Saitama bent her legs, pulling her knees up to her chest and propping her arms on them. “I wanted to talk to you,” she said. She squinted. She hoped to see more of his face in the darkness, but the headlights were obscuring everything else. “Can you turn on the light?”

Genos hesitated, gaze still pinned to her. She watched those consuming lights move back through the flat’s hallway. The ceiling lights came on with a pop. Saitama rubbed her cheek on her shoulder and blinked Genos into full resolution.

She recognized his expression. It was one of his well-practiced poker faces, one of the ones he modelled after her own blank expression. She had caught him making this one -- and several other subtly different ones like it -- at himself in the bathroom mirror. When he explained what he was doing she had responded with a sniff and asked him to hurry it up. The bathroom had the only mirror and she doubted he wanted to be in the same room as her when she took her morning shit.

She pulled her knees togther. “You were gone for a while,” she said lamely.

“My apologies, Sensei,” Genos said with a quick bow. “I left a note for you explaining my situation. Did you get it?”

“Yeah, I did,” she said. “You’re feeling better?”

“I am,” Genos said with a nod.

Saitama mumbled how that was good. The conviction Mumen Rider had given her earlier had long diminished into flaky, ashen coal. The speech she had planned for Genos was forgotten. She had started to write it down instead of eating dinner, but that paper had been discarded when she ran out of space to cross out. She held her left wrist with her right hand and tipped her forehead toward Genos.

Honesty was the best place to start, she guessed.

“I’m sorry I barfed on you yesterday,” she said.

Genos’s mouth flinched. “Do not worry about it,” he said. “Your vomit did not hinder any of my functions or damage any of my parts.”

“But--”

“And,” he continued fervently, “I am completely understanding of your state of being last night. I am happy to know that you were able to enjoy yourself with Mumen Rider, though if I may have your permission to request something of you--”

“Sure,” Saitama mumbled. Her interruption wasn’t acknowledge, as Genos’s speech tumbled out of him like flood waters escaping a broken dam.

“--I ask that you refrain from becoming so intoxicated that you have difficulty with your motor functions. I found it personally distressing that you would make the dangerous decision to make your way back to our apartment alone. Your strength is incredible, Sensei, and doubtless you would disarm any aggressor who should come your way, but it would calm my nerves if you called for assistance or stayed with Mumen Rider should you two go out again.”

“Okay,” Saitama said. “Sounds good.”

Genos stood silently in the door frame, looking bulky and imposing but also awkward and small. He nodded, hair flouncing around his forehead.

“So, uh,” she said, feeling a tad bolder than she had before. “About the kiss?”

Genos’s poker face was dashed, cracking and falling away like it had been little more than painted glass.

“You, uh, remember that, right?” she coaxed.

She thought she can hear his metal plating rattle. Genos closed his eyes and balled his fists at his sides and Saitama’s courage was discarded as easily as the cross-hatched paper she had tried to write on earlier. She turned her head away. She’s broached the subject. She’s getting it over with. She’ll deal with the disappointment later; right now, she’ll be the good friend and hear Genos out.

“I must be honest with you,” Genos said, pained and uncertain. “My admiration has long since evolved into adoration. I hoped that I could work past these feelings or ignore them altogether, but the more time I spend with you, Sensei, the stronger and more fervent those feelings become.”

Saitama sat a little straighter. She looked up and saw the taut way Genos was holding himself and the shame that was making him tremble. “Genos,” she muttered.

“I do not risk to ask any more from you than what I already have. I treasure my tutelage under you and the friendship we have built together. I do not wish to see that shattered because of a selfish act.”

Saitama rubbed the blades of her thumbs together. Her face was hot as she started to say, “I feel--”

“I wish I could offer you more,” Genos said shakily.

“Huh,” she grunted.

The rattling stopped for a moment and she heard an imitation of a deep breath of courage. “I am lacking in certain abilities. Ones that I willingly threw away when I was younger because I thought that they would only interfere in my search for the Mad Cyborg. I never imagined that there would be a day that I would regret that decision, or that you would ever humble yourself to consider me...in that way.”

“G--”

“So that is why,” Genos said, “I fully support your exploration of others!”

Saitama blinked. “Wha--”

“I recommend you date Mumen Rider,” Genos said.

“Rec--”

“He is a good person with a supportive fanbase that likes to organize charitable events and causes for him,” he continued. “He also fails at being an imposing figure. I have no doubt that, if worst comes to worst, you shall have no issue in defending yourself against him.”

Saitama’s eyebrow twitched. Why did everyone need to worry about her defending herself from something? She shook her head and stood up. She crossed her arms over her chest before saying, “Genos, I feel the same way.”

Genos nodded. “I am happy to hear that we both agree that Mumen Rider is a good match for you.”

Saitama scowled. “No,” she said, “I feel the same way about you.”

Genos recoiled. In the full light she could see his pupils dilate in imitation shock. Could they do that before? She couldn’t remember if they did that automatically or if it was something Genos had to think about doing. These were some fancy new eyes if they were responding to his emotional state. What else were they capable of doing? Saitama approached him, arms still crossed over her chest, and stood in front of him. This close she could see the pained crease of his eyebrows and the way his lips parted. She recalled their warmth and softness with a shiver of memory.

Saitama shifted her arms. Genos’ attention was drawn down to them. “So,” she said, “we both like each other.”

He flinched and looked back up at her face. “We do,” he said, though it lacked the assuredness of his earlier proclamation.

“Should we do something about that?” Saitama asked.

They held a breathless moment together. The air between them was lush and golden and she wanted to live there forever. “Would you like to kiss?” Genos asked with little more than a soft breath.

Saitama nodded.

Their first kiss was small -- chaste and warm with just their lips touching -- but it lit Saitama’s chest with a flickering fire, stoking her courage. She wrapped her arms around Genos’s waist and kissed him again, this time with the hope to pass her heat on to him. To have him feel the joy and the love and the light that could only come from the sun. Genos wrapped an arm around her waist and cupped the back of her head and, yeah, this was worth it.

Saitama woke up to find her cheek pressed against Genos’s shoulder. He was lying beside her under her blanket, one arm drawing her close to him while the other stroked the back of her neck. His eyes were open and his hair was lying messily across his forehead.

“Good morning, Sensei,” he whispered.

Saitama yawned. “Good morning,” she said. She snuggled in closer to Genos, breasts pressing up against his bare metal chest. “How did you sleep last night?”

“Very well,” he said. “What about you?”

“Great,” she said. She felt renewed and calm, like last night had been the best night of sleep she ever had. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt like this. It was nice. God, why was everything so nice with Genos? She closed her eyes and tipped her head to fit in the crook of Genos’s neck. That was something she could worry about later. There were more important things to worry about right now. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Whatever you want, Sensei,” Genos responded.

Saitama sighed. “That’s very sweet. I’m actually hungry, though.”

Genos sat up suddenly. Saitama rolled on to her back and watched Genos stand. “I believe we have some eggs still. Would you like fried eggs over rice?”

Saitama nodded. She scratched her stomach, noting how Genos’s eyes flickered to a brief flash of skin. “Sounds good,” she said.

Genos hung around, standing stiffly and looking on the edge of saying something to her. Saitama sat up. Her sleep shirt slipped down her shoulder, exposing her collarbone and the upper part of her chest. His eyes flashed up to her neck. They glowed briefly before Genos jolted back and turned his head away. Saitama pulled at her collar and tried to look down her top. Did something look off?

Genos’s phone rang. She watched him walk over to the socket where it was charging and answer. She pouted. Guess she had to make her own breakfast this morning.

She got up and went to the kitchen, overhearing bits and snips of Genos’s conversation. It was the Hero Association -- swear to God no one else knew that phone existed -- and it sounded like they were trying to call him in for a meeting. Saitama hoped it wouldn’t last that long. She had hoped a bit that they would have breakfast together and if Genos left now than she would have to wait. Which would suck because she was hungry now, dammit.

She was plugging in the rice cooker when Genos hung up and stood on the other side of pass-through. “That was the Hero Association,” he explained. “They want both of us to come down to headquarters immediately.”

She blinked at him. “Did they say why?”

“They did not,” he said. A smile started to break through on his face. “Perhaps they are finally going to recognize your strength and accomplishments?”

Saitama rubbed her head, feeling herself blush all of a sudden. She rubbed the back of her head and shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “Or they could be calling us in for something stupid.”

Saitama didn’t know if she should be impressed or disappointed.

The Hero Association called them in, made them go all the way to A-City, rushed them to the top of the Hero Association tower as soon as they got there, and now all they wanted to do was talk about a press release clarifying Genos and Saitama’s relationship status once and for all. Saitama decided that she wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t really impressed or disappointed either. Really, at this point, she was more concerned for Genos.

“This is an insult!” he shouted.

“We mean no offense,” a skinny girl in a nice pant suit said, raising her hands defensively in front of her.

“Sensei’s and my privacies have been thoroughly and deeply violated over these last few days,” he continued. “You wish for us to lay down and offer more of ourselves?”

“Not at all! It’s supposed to make the reporters stop and go away,” the girl said. She clutched her hands together and bowed her head. “Please, it’s already written. We just need a statement from you or Ms. Caped Baldy.”

“Sensei and I will not bow to your demands!” Genos shouted. “The public does not need to know that Sensei and I have been living together platonically for an extended period of time before we confessed our feelings to each other. The fact that we are in love with each other is unnecessary trivia, extraneous to our work as heroes. You should be reporting on how, in addition to her beauty and grace, Sensei is a brave and strong woman who I would lay down my life for without question or hesitation.”

Saitama laid a hand on Genos’s shoulder. She glanced between Genos’s blazing eyes to the poor, tired, trembling woman in front of them. She asked, “Is that going to be enough?”

The woman nodded. “Yeah, I’ll get the press release out for the news tonight,” she said with a quiet, rough voice.

“Wait!” Genos snapped.

Saitama’s stomach grumbled. She laid her other hand on it and frowned. “C’mon,” she said to Genos, “we need some breakfast.”

Genos frowned and hesitated. He looked at the nervous woman and then at Saitama. He nodded and followed alongside Saitama as she lead him from the room. She looked over her shoulder at the woman, now staring at Saitama’s midsection with exasperated horror, and gave her a quick wave before stepping onto the elevator.

She and Genos were mostly quiet on their way down. He felt tense next to her, throwing off extra little puffs of hot air from his shoulder vents. She fit her fingers between his and rubbing the silicon “skin” with her thumb and. Genos inhaled deeply. He closed his fingers around hers and squeezed. Saitama smiled, feeling pleasant and light as she curled her fingers around his and pressed her fingertips between his knuckles. Genos exhaled and his shoulders relaxed. They left HQ like that, hand-in-hand and deeply pleased.