Deep Red

33

Waking up in a random bed and with Shouta next to me was a confusing experience. When I woke up and saw the rather unfamiliar surroundings I just bolted straight up, feeling panicked. It took my brain a while to sort out what had happened the night before and to figure out where I was.

Nightmare. Shouta. That conversation on the roof. Right. That's why I was in his bed. I sighed and rubbed my eyes, suddenly feeling tired again. I grabbed my phone from the night table and checked the time. It was 6 in the morning. There wasn't really that much point in going back to sleep.

As I got up I noticed how Cho and Mana were curled up on the foot end of the bed. I grinned at them sleepily and petted their heads for a little while. They started purring, but didn't bother getting up as early as me. I made my way into the living area and grabbed my clothes for work.

I had set myself a goal for today and that was to really get a headstart on the exams. I still had to make up most parts of it, since reading through the instructions yesterday had taken longer and was more tiring than I had thought it would be. I should have known from making exams any other day, but for some reason it came as a surprise to me again. It did every term I was teaching at any school.

Maybe today while the kids were writing a mock exam, I would be able to get something done. I had started on the first problem for them to solve, but that was all I had gotten done. And then, once I had finished everything I had to check whether there was enough time for them to actually finish the exam. That would be the hard part - tweaking the exam in a way it would fit the time frame I was given.

My first class today was with 1-C and I had prepped them so well for this exam that I honestly expected good things from them during the mock test. I would be really disappointed if they were getting bad results, even though I made the mock exam more difficult than I would make the actual exam.

With a difficult mock exam, they'd prepare much, much better for the real deal. And I wanted them to do exceptionally well. I had always been pretty ambitious with how my classes were doing in their exams. I felt like a bad grade from any student would just reflect really badly on my teaching.

Without even thinking much about what I was doing I had started up the coffee machine and wandered into the bathroom to get a quick shower. In the last few weeks I had gotten so used to this apartment, I knew it like the back of my hand by now. And to be fair, living with Shouta was much more laid back and relaxed than I would have imagined. He wasn't too different to his school self on the outside, but once you scratched past the surface, he was much more pleasant at home.

I quickly locked the bathroom door and stepped under the shower. I knew I'd feel much more awake once I had a shower and a cup of coffee. The whole night had been kind of surreal and I was surprised I didn't feel more tired, actually. With barely being able to sleep for ages and then having that whole episode on the roof, I would have thought I'd barely be able to keep my eyes open.

Once I was done with my shower and got dressed, I poured myself a cup of coffee, saving the rest for Shouta. He'd want one when he'd get up. We kind of arranged ourselves in a way that whoever was using the bathroom first in the morning had to make coffee for the other person.

I sat down at the table and got my papers out of my bag. Maybe I'd get a bit of time to have a look at them right now. Maybe I could even get another question or two done, before it was time to head to school. I took a sip from my coffee mug and had a look at my first question. It would be a pretty simple part where they should give some definitions. I was thinking of including a calculation next and then maybe moving on to some Chemistry and Biology, but we had been covering so much, it was difficult to decide what to include in the exam and what not.

I usually tried to make it relevant to my students' Quirks, but honestly, everyone this year had such wildly different Quirks that it was hard to focus on a lot of relevant stuff. There were students like Shinsou, who'd benefit from sociology and psychology more than anything, there were students like Komori who'd be best off with Botanics, students like Yaoyorozu and Ashido who could do with Chemistry to get a better understanding of what they could do with their Quirks and others like Tsuburaba and Uraraka who would get the most out of Physics.

And I had been wrecking my brains devising lesson plans for all of them, but in the end, I figured out that it was easiest to revert back to the lesson plan I had for General Studies and take it from there. If there was any free time, I had a bunch of extra topics I could go into with each class, but I somehow doubted that would happen. At least when it came to the hero courses.

"You're up early." I heard a sleepy voice say. I looked up from my papers and saw Shouta standing there in his pyjamas, still looking half-asleep.

"Yeah, woke up early and figured there was no point trying to fall asleep again. So I started working on the exam questions." I replied.

"How's that going for you?" he asked while pouring himself some coffee. He seemed a good bit more talkative so early in the morning, with his eyes much sleepier and his hair much messier than usual.

"It's doing my head in." I told him and sighed. He took a big gulp of coffee and suddenly his eyes widened and he looked like he was in pain.

"Ah shit, is it bad coffee?" I wanted to know. I had a high confidence in my coffee making skills, but you never knew. Shouta shook his head.

"Hot!" he exclaimed, once he had swallowed his coffee. Damn, and it was a big gulp, too. Poor guy.

"Oh yeah. I just made it. Sorry, should have warned you." I said and smiled apologetically. I was too tired to actually sound sorry, but I was. I felt really bad for being indirectly responsible for burning Shouta's tongue.

"Yeah, well, I guess we're both completely incompetent early in the morning. It's still more your fault than mine, because you've been awake longer than I have." he mumbled and gave me his tired grin.

"That's fair. I'm really sorry." I said again and watched him, still grimacing in pain. Burning your mouth on hot coffee really was the worst feeling in the world. I was genuinely sorry about this.

"Shit, my tongue really hurts." he commented. And then - I had no idea where it came from - I blurted out the worst thing I could have said in that situation. The most embarrassing and weirdest thing.

"Want me to kiss it better?"

"What?"

I looked up from my papers, suddenly starting to realize what I had just said and blushing furiously. Shouta looked like his brain completely shut down and he was just incapable of reacting to this at all.

Where the hell had that come from? Why would my tired brain think saying something like that out loud would ever be an appropriate response? What the actual fuck? While all those questions were slowly going through my head, I kept staring at Shouta in utter shock and embarrassment.

"I... uh... I have no idea where the hell that came from. I'm so sorry. Let's... let's pretend I never said that and this whole thing never happened. Deal?" I asked. Shouta was nodding slowly.

"Yes. Let's forget about this." he replied. I wanted to die. I truly, legitimately wanted to die at that moment. Why did I have to say that? I wasn't even thinking about it! It was just there, it wasn't even in my head before, I just blurted it out without having a chance to process it. Death really was welcome at this moment.

"I, uh... I'm gonna get a shower and... hope for that to cool down in the meantime." Shouta mumbled, sounding just as embarrassed as I did. He put his cup down on the counter and disappeared into the bathroom.

I groaned in desperation, because I could still not cope with how terribly embarrassing all this just had been. Well, Shouta was in the shower now, so I had some time to calm down and get ready to act as if nothing had ever happened and I hadn't just said this incredibly weird thing. I could do this...

I sighed. There was no way I'd be able to do this. I needed help. I got my phone out of my pocket and started texting Aiko. I needed some professional help from someone who had been babysitting my dumb ass for a while now.