To @kcguya concerning blood & warmth
“Iｔ'ｓ ａｌｌ ｒｉｇｈｔ, ｎｏｗ!
¡ʍou ‘ʇɥƃᴉɹ llɐ
★—The slender blond glanced to an angle, electric blues lifting from the handful of wellness reports on the various members of faculty for the year. His own file was shuffled in the mix, as well, along with Aizawa Shouta’s, and the updated limitations on his body and the latter’s quirk. Indeed, those recollections were the catalyst bidding his recent comment. After Kaguya perused their contents, he would be passing these off to Recovery Girl later, for her records. It was necessary to keep even the most confidential of details current and updated - regardless as to how few knew them. Against the seemingly limitless force and number of villains, the strength and capability of the heroes who challenged them was in every instance, no weakness was irrelevant.
The contest to his statement came with welcoming awareness, as his associate’s voice, soft and quiet, the most luxurious silk to his ears, countered his rueful words. She infused rationality and fact with sentiment and abstraction, and Toshinori appreciated the tender union of human truths. He’d hated it. He’d hated seeing blood, cooling and mercilessly seeping from comrades’ wounds. He’d hated seeing it splattered across the back of his hand, on the earth at his feet - like tangible drops of strength, separated and gone from him. In his mouth, the taste was little glimpses of the grave, assurances that his body was irrecoverable. His chest had been cold, first, ice-cold like an endless winter, when he had seen his junior’s injuries in the events at USJ. The fury in his heart, as a result, had been just as frigid; just as untouchable.
He had stopped thinking about blood as truth, as life, as warmth.
Kaguya’s mind was a clean purchase upon which he grounded his thoughts. He pulled her words around himself, and let his attention rest in the solace of the serenity that she effortlessly exuded. Her comment about finding others, in particular, arrested his gaze in her own crimson concentration until she attended to her paperwork, again. There was truth in that for him, as well. He’d already granted due gratitude to those determined individuals around him, who bid him to take another step forward, even when all he thought he knew seemed insubstantial against that which he confronted.
Toshinori allowed himself the smile that brimmed at his otherwise contemplative features. He hadn’t visited her for his sake, alone, but as always, she’d managed to walk him through a mire that he hadn’t even realized had entangled him. He mirrored her, and took another sip of the tea. It was refreshing, and indeed, it felt soothing against his throat. What a wonder. The tea, yes. And his heavenly hostess, as well.
❝Sweet, you say? Now there’s an odd thought. I’d be mosquito bait, then.
Hnn, I don’t know... Maybe. I’d be like rhubarb? Bittersweet, at best, if we’re being honest.
I’d remark that yours would be rich and robust, like dark mocha? But I recall we’re discussing the possible flavors of our blood, and that’s disconcerting. I think I’ll just concede the point to you.❞
