Chương 4: Saturday
The amount of sleep sticking my eyelashes together would either break or create a new Guinness world record, not just in the amount I'm having to wipe away but also the tackiness sealing my eyes closed could be used as a natural body-made, super glue. It's slowly coming away though, and the chunks I'm separating, I'm wiping them off on the collar of my shirt. The sun is gently filtering into the room between the slightly parted curtains over the window. I turn my head to look over at Mrs. Midoriya's bed and find it empty, bedding made and two pillows stacked at the headboard; no one in sight.
I groan and sit up, pawing at my phone to check the time. 12:17 pm; looks like I slept the morning away. Rolling up onto my knees, I crawl over to my duffel and pull out a set of clothes I had rolled up together for easy and thoughtless dressing. I glance to the door, see that it's shut, and strip quickly, pulling on a pair of black capris pants, and a three-quarters long sleeve that's horizontally striped blue and white; a small embroidered love bird on the upper left chest. I stuff my pajamas into the bag and pull a hairbrush from the side pocket and sweep it through my bangs first before the rest of my hair.
A yawn cracks my jaw as I pad down the short hallway to the living room in my house slippers. Passing the kitchen barrier wall, I spy Mrs. Midoriya on the love-seat, enraptured with something playing on the television. Izuku sits at the dining table, his back towards me, head down with notebooks and textbooks surrounding him.
"Good Morning," I say as I round the table, pulling out a chair and sitting across from Izuku.
"Afternoon, actually" Mrs. Midoriya chimes, pressing a button on the tv remote, pausing the characters on the screen in a way that one has their mouth wide open and in the middle of blinking. "Would you like some lunch?"
I wince, "Yes, please." She stands and walks into the kitchen. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sleep in so late. You could have woken me up for breakfast."
Mrs. Midoriya giggles and waves a hand dismissively as she pops open the fridge. "You were exhausted from your flight; would a sandwich be okay?"
"That would be nice-"
"Yes please!" Izuku interjects.
"-thank you. Um, do you guys have coffee or tea?"
"I believe we do," she pulls a few items from the fridge and sets them on the counter. "Black, or green tea?"
"Oh black tea, please. Would you like help making lunch?" I push myself up from my chair. She waves a hand at me again.
"Oh no dear, it's fine."
I push myself back in, hooking an ankle around the chair leg. "Alrighty."
Izuku is scribbling away in his note book, writing long sentences before quickly glancing back at the text book. He goes through about half a page in his notebook before I poke my finger at a word on the page he's reading. He glances at the word, then me and back down to the word again.
I poke the word again, "What's this word?"
"Um, aquaducts."
"Oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha."
He nods and goes back to writing again. He makes it through two rather run-on looking sentences before his head snaps up and he sits back in his chair.
"Wait, you do know how to read Japanese, right Charlotte?"
I stares at him for a few beats.
"I can, but I'm a little slower at it than if it was in English. I am looking at it upside down too" I snort.
"Oh okay. I got really concerned for a second there because I wasn't sure if you were using a translator for our conversations online - well maybe at the beginning you were, though you could still be using one- oh my god are you going to be okay in around the city, what if you get lost, you wont know what the signs say-"
"Izuku!" Both Mrs. Midoriya and I exclaim.
Instant face red. "Sorry!"
I shake my head with a laugh, leaning back in my chair. "Its okay, don't worry so much. If I can't read something, yes I can use my phone to look up what it says. I can also just… ask someone?"
"Oh, right"
"Who knows, maybe a dashing young hero will rescue me from being lost." I snicker behind my hand.
"I don't know, you're kind of small, they might mistake you for an elementary school student and escort you to the police station."
My jaw drops as Inko sets down a plate down in front of both of us, a sandwich cut diagonally in the center of each. She smothers a giggle behind a palm as she returns to the kitchen. Izuku is grinning wildly at me.
"We're the same height, you jerk!" and we both burst into giggles.
Mrs. Midoriya sets down a steaming mug in from of me and a cup of water in front of Izuku. We thank her and she goes and sits back down on the couch, resuming the show she was watching with a smile on her face and her own cup of tea.
I take a bite of the sandwich as Izuku goes back to scrawling down notes. My chewing pauses as I register the type of sandwich I've bitten into.
"Is this jam and cream cheese?" I ask hesitantly, turning towards the couch. Mrs. Midoriya's hair spills over the back as she turns to look at me, her brow furrowed.
"Yes, dear. Is that alright? You're not allergic are you?" She makes a move to stand.
"No, I'm not allergic," I wave a hand dismissively to get her to sit again. "I've just not had this type of sandwich since I was little. Its just…" I glance to Izuku. He's looking at me too, pencil poised in one hand, a triangle of his sandwich already half gone. "Nostalgic, I guess."
Izuku nods slightly and goes back to writing. I turn to Mrs. Midoriya and she gives me a nod as well. A small smile returns to her face, her eyes briefly closing. We all sit, absorbed in our own worlds for a few moments. The sound of the drama on screen plays out, with Izuku's quick lettering filling the dead space between the actors dramatics.
My sandwich is devoured quickly, as is Izuku's, and I'm finishing the last of my tea when he closes up his textbook and notes. He stuffs everything in his backpack and I gather our plates and cups and set them on the counter top next to the sink.
"Shall we go?" Izuku asks, stepping back into the living room from his bedroom.
"Yeah I'm good. Let me grab my bag." I dip back into Mrs. Midoriya's room and grab my purse - a sage green hip pack that I sling an arm through and over over my head - and join Izuku in the door well. He's already stuffed his feet into bright red sneakers and is tying up the laces when I sit down next to him on the wells edge. I tap my heels against the floor to slip out of my house slippers. My own shoes are on quickly, no need to tie since I've got them permanently loose enough to slip on. Our house shoes are placed in the rack by the door and we're calling a quick 'good-bye!' to Mrs. Midoriya who's still engrossed in her day time drama.
*****
Izuku's fingers tap on the screen to one of the terminals in the train station faster than I can read the prompts that pop up. We're standing at the entrance to the station we got off at when were traveling to his house. He pauses on a screen long enough that I can see a money sign before he turns to me with an eye brow raised.
"Did you manage to get the app downloaded?" He asks.
"Oh," I hold out my phone to him. "Yes, here."
He takes my phone from my outreached hand and swipes through a screen to pop open the in-app camera. He points it at the screen, where a QR code is at the bottom corner and my phones screen changes to a loading wheel.
"So what did you do?" I ask, crowding closer to the terminal.
His face flushes red as he glances at me, but turns my phone towards me so I can see what's happening. "Oh, um. I connected the app you just downloaded to the terminal, so that it can connect your new train pass to the card its printing out now. That way you can put funds on the train pass with your phone, and then you wont have to pull your phone out to get past the turn style, and if you loose the pass, you can freeze the account and get it deactivated, then a new one at a terminal."
"Oh wow," I blink. "Technology is here is so different."
My phone's screen changes to that of a smiling cartoon frog holding a sign with the words, card connected! Printing now. The terminal chimes a cute little tune, and the frog drops his sign, hops off the right side of my phones screen and enters the terminals screen from the left. He picks up another sign that reads Thank you. Have a nice day. A clear plastic dump tray flashes white LEDs right below the screen and my new, bright green, train card falls into it.
Izuku snags it and passes it to me, with two hands, face up. A cutesy bullet train engine with a few cars are lined up along the bottom edge. A frog, just like the one from the terminal screen, sits on top of the engine with a conductors hat like its driving the train. The brand of train card sits in big characters in the right corner, a couple for purple flowers in the upper left and a tap chip just below that in the center left.
"Cute! Thank you for doing that." I grin at Izuku as I pull out the clear pass sleeve we purchased from a convenience store on the way to the station. We make our way out of the station as I loop the short strap of the pass around the metal jump ring attached to my purse and slip the pass inside it, tucked into the zipper pocket with a folded up map we snagged off a stand when we arrived.
We chat as we walk the few blocks it takes to get to the key copier shop, wait a few minutes for the automatic grinder to whittle down a blank we picked out - no it doesn't match my train pass. Its a pale pink key with a rich pink cherry blossom on the handle. It drops the key into a catch cage once its done, and I attach the key to the train passes jump ring, stowing it back in my bag.
The sun begins to turn the sky liquid yellow with splashes of fluffy pink clouds as we turn to head back to Izuku's home. Before we got my train card and key, he showed me around his neighborhood a few blocks. He pointed out land marks for me to recognize if for some reason I don't have my phone with me. I'm leading the way back to test my memory, and we're walking in a comfortable silence when a thought occurs to me.
"So I get to meet All Might, right? Since he's training you?" Our eyes meet and he nods.
"Oh, yeah sure. I'll talk to him about it." He gives me a short nod.
"I wanna take a selfie with him, if he's fine with that. Everyone back home will be so jealous; he's still incredibly popular in the states, especially since all of his attack names are referencing cities there." I smile big while we round a corner, my palms cupping my cheeks briefly in my excitement.
"Hmm…" Izuku mumbles. We ascend the steps to his apartment. "I guess he does, now that I think about it…" He waves a hand at his front door. I pull out my key; it sticks as I press it into the lock but I twist slightly and the door cleanly unlocks with a nice click.
"We're back." I call out to the house, Mrs. Midoriya's voice greeting us, but is drowned out but cooking noises and us pulling our shoes off and stacking them neatly to the side. Our slip-ons scuff across the hardwood as we follow the sounds, and smells, of food being prepared.
She makes eye contact with us briefly before turning back to the frying pan shes attending.
"Go ahead and sit at the table. I just need to plate this, then we can all eat." She gives a small shooing motion with her spatula. Quickly, as both our stomachs make their mistreatment known, we back pedal to the table. We barely make it into our seats next to each other when Mrs. Midoriya joins us, sliding a serving dish into the center of the table and sitting down into her own chair gracefully.
Steam rises from the crispy grilled fish in the center. The personal miso soup and rice bowls accenting the steam with their own gentle wisps in compliment to the main dish. My mouth waters and it again hits me how ravenous I'm feeling. I didn't think we were gone that long on our errands, but the excitement must have caught up with us.
We dig in after a quick 'thank you' gets passed around. The TV in the background and the clinking of dish ware disrupt the otherwise silent room. The news anchor intensely calling out a hero's actions as they take on a villain outside a store front advertising electronics. The camera pans over the building front, showing a hole in the glass window right below the stores name before jerking to the hero gesturing to their opponent.
"Uh-oh." Izuku mumbles.
"Hm? Whats wrong?" I turn from the TV to take a sip the richly flavored miso.
"That's just the phone store I was going to take you to, to do the thing-" Izuku sets down one of his bowls and scratches at his nose with his index finger. "So you don't get lost."
"Oh dear." Mrs. Midoriya mutters. "You'll have to go to the one past Momi Street instead. Unless you want to take the train a station down a stop."
"Which ever is easiest to get to." I interject, stacking my empty rice bowl on top of my empty miso. My eyes feel heavy leaning back into my chair, the heat from the miso broth coiling up in my chest pleasantly.
"The first one then." Izuku stands and gathers up his bowls, placing them on the main serving dish. His mother passes him her empty ones. He taps a finger on the table twice next to my two bowls. "Done?"
"Oh, yes." I sit up straight and reach for my bowls, but Izuku snags then before me and sits them on the serving dish with the others, picking up the entire thing in one fluid motion.
Mrs. Midoriya giggles at my baffled look, and it takes a couple of blinks to look to her. Shes smiling gently, her hands clasping the cup in front of her. "Tomorrow you can help with the dishes, how about?"
I let out a breath, nodding and snuggling back into my chair again. My eyes barely blinking open. A yawn cracks my jaw.
"I'm sorry." I give myself a shake suck in a breath, hoping the extra oxygen helps wake me up. "I don't know why I'm so tired all of a sudden."
"It's alright, why don't you go ahead and call it a night. You've got time tomorrow to do things." Mrs. Midoriya's voice softly coaches me.
I nod and slowly heave my heavy limbs from my chair. A 'good night' tumbles gracelessly from my lips as my feet shuffle to Mrs. Midoriya's bed room. I stop into the bathroom to run my tooth brush over my teeth halfheartedly, Izuku passing by me in the door way. We nod at each other, mutter 'g'nights' as well.
The bedroom is mostly dark, a small bedside table lamp is turned on next to the main bed. Changing is a sluggish endeavor but well worth the comfort my pajamas bring when I roll backwards onto the mattress pad, sinking into the soft plush of it. With eyes closed, I feel around for my charging cable and dig it into the gap in my phone's case for a few seconds before the port catches the cable and clicks into place. Its drops out of my hands as I drop into the dark abyss.
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