A Chance for the Better: Chapter 2

## Chapter 2: August

It had been a few weeks or so since Katsuko had began her trial as a teacher and it was pretty much all that she though it was plus some. Of course not being lovey dovey with her honey bunny was one of her least favorite things to do when she worked so when summer arrived and she was given the chance to stay during the vacation gave her just the chance to be with her significant other.

The teacher's lounge wasn't her ideal spot for cuddling, but desperate times had unfortunately called for desperate measures. She figured he'd rather be cuddling somewhere else other than a couch in a place like this where students and teachers alike could just walk in and see them, but she needed the attention and craved it.

She leaned back into his arms, murmuring praises to him as he massaged her back and shoulders in a sweet attempt to comfort her aching bones. It had been a while since they could last relax like this and with a nice massage? *Ooh boy!*Katsuko was in Heaven! This was exactly what she needed to get her summer off to a great start.

Meanwhile, Atsuko was walking down UA's hallways, looking for any of the teachers. Unlike most of her fellow classmates – who she had finally gotten to know, in the few weeks they spent together, especially Asahina (a *godsent,* she believed) – she was staying in the school's dorms during summer break. Following the unfortunate events that had stricken the students of 1-A on multiple occasions, the dorms weren't the only mesure the school took to protect their students. Principal Nedzu had also offered families, on top of keeping their children during the week to limit the chances of kidnappings while coming or going to school, to keep them during vacations on certain conditions. Atsuko was one of them.

It's not out of a want to avoid her family that she had decided to stay but rather, she didn't really have any plans, nor did her family, and she'd rather spend her days chilling in the dorms while occasionnally training than waste away in her air-conditionless room. Plus, hanging out around home would guarantee her to meet former classmates and she knew exactly how it would unfold... But, more importantly... Staying at school meant that she could get to spend all of her summer with Asahina!

Since the Asahinas lived far away from UA and had a sort of strained relationship with their son, he had been renting an apartment near the school grounds since the beginning of his scolarity here. However, Atsuko had heard from him that the rent had been high and that he previously had to work part-time in a combini to pay it. This is why he decided to come live in the dorms when they were created, and why he was staying here for summer as well. He didn't really want to see his older brother's disapproving face each time he spent his time doing anything other than studying. Well, Atsuko didn't see anything wrong with that.

In fact, it overjoyed her to get to spend some time alone with him. In the few weeks that she had gotten to know him, the boy had showed nothing but sweetness and gentle manners. He would always laugh at her jokes (no matter how bad they were) and *boy,* what a laugh he had. It sounded like what she thought would be an angel's laugh: sweet, genuine and slightly mischevious. Well, he was sometimes a bit clingy, but simply looking into his eyes and contemplating the sheer *love* that emanated from him made her yearn for his affection and contact.

Barely noticing that she had reached the teacher's lounge, lost in thought as she was, she slid the door open and was greated with... uh, what were they doing? Feeling a blush spread on her cheeks faster than she could think, she backed down and – badly – closed the door, ready to flee the scene as she screamed:

"Uh, sorry for the interruption!"

Katsuko was pleasantly surprised to hear that and burst into a little fit of giggles before getting up to her feet. She didn't pay any mind to her partner, having known exactly what his reaction was. She opened the door almost as quickly as it was closed and looked down at Atsuko with a gentle smile.

"Sorry about that. I was in need of some relaxation. My back and shoulders have been hurting a lot lately..." She trailed off before sighing. "Was there something you needed, Atsuko? Chores, extra credit? I'm sure we can provide it depending on what it is!"

She was thankful for being able to put on a mask of how truly terrified she was. There was a reason she and Toshinori hadn't been very couple like and it was to protect both of them. She couldn't afford another slip up.

Atsuko blinked, taken aback. Theories and questions were running through her head, but most of them were more rhetorical than genuine ones. After all, she might not seem like it, but she was pretty smart! Just... in an odd way she guessed? "Umh, no, actually... I was simply looking for a teacher to help me with my homework for the summer, I just got started and there are some questions I don't understand," – she did ask Asahina about it, but he wasn't exactly clever or in the top students of the class... At least he had tried? Well, that's what she said to him when seeing him upset over the fact that he couldn't even get stuff that she had already found on her own right – "but I can always come back later if you're busy, Miss!"

Yup, she had definitely been busy. Atsuko didn't know *how* busy exactly, but she knew the *kind* of busy her teacher had been up to. What, did she thought that all the inconspicuous gestures she and All Might had exchanged went unnoticed? Hell, these two could barely stop fidgeting when close, did they *seriously* expect no one to spot that there was *a ton* of romantic tension between those two? *And did they earnestly, on a common accord, believe that no student in the Heroes Department would see the way Miss Sato's stomach had been growing a bump lately?*

Well, maybe it was just Atsuko being too discerning for her own good. Or all the others were just dumb.

"But before that," she blurted before she could think of what she was doing, *wait was she really going to do this **oh no stop talking you idiot***– "I'd like to ask you a question, Miss." Ah, fuck, she was too far in to back down. Before she was even given permission to ask what had been nagging her mind recently, she spoke again, and regretted the words that left her mouth with an undying hate before she even pronounced them, unaware that all of this would be the start of a path of such ironic misery and that she'd think back to it, months later, remembering how bad she fucked up that day and hating herself a little more each day for it.

Maybe it would be karma. Karma was a bitch.

"Are you pregnant with All Might's child?"

There was a choking sound and suddenly Katsuko was coughing, much like her counterpart who had heard the ordeal from where he was.

When Katsuko had recovered, she pulled Atsuko into the room, looking rather panicked. A string of unusual cursewords left her mouth before she calmed down and sighed.

"You can never speak a word of this to anyone, okay?" She glanced behind at her fiancé before letting out a groan. "Yes. The baby is All Mights. Are you happy?" The panicked look never left her face and she had to sit down with Toshinori rushing about to provide the things she needed to calm down, most ironic being a plushie of the No. 1 Hero that she squeezed to death.

She murmured things about chaos taking over the internet if anyone found out and so on, but that just came out a jumbled mess.

*Okay, that definitely was a mistake,* thought Atsuko as she watched pandemonium unfold before her, All Might-sensei spurting so much blood she'd had called an ambulance already if she didn't know it was a common occurence, only in a much bigger scale. There was something indescribably funny and pathetic at the same time in watching her teachers melt into panic as she stood still, anchored on the floor by her feet, that felt like they had grown heavier since she uttered her question. Oh, right, it was her guilt. Probably the only connection she had to the world at this point. She felt really out of it, for some reason. Not that it was unjustified.

When everyone had collectively collected themselves enough to engage in a discussion, the newly Hero student spoke in hushed tones, afraid to shake them again with the usual volume of her persona: "Oh, my... Please, Miss Sato, All Might-sensei, calm down... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you so badly! In fact, I'm very happy for you both... I won't say anything, I swear! Uhm, I'll leave you two alone now... Thank you for offering your help, Miss Sato and uh... rest well!" And she ran back to her dorms as fast as she came, buzzing with nervous and excited energy.

She still had her fingers crossed behind her back.

"This isn't good, Toshi." Katsuko shook her head, holding her head in her hands. "They can't know about this. We made too many mistakes..this is too much Toshi."

Toshinori took note of her frightened attitude and pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back. "Don't give up on this, okay? You never wanted me to give up, so now it's your time to shine." He kissed her forehead.

"But what if this gets out? I dunno, your entire fanbase will have my head!" She yelped.

"My what?"

"You know what? Never mind. Let's just go get food to eat."

"Miss Sato is *what*?!"

It had all begun a few days ago, as Tomoe and Atsuko had been working on their summer homework together, pressed against each other – and *man*, did the proximity set him on *edge*; he couldn't even concentrate on his work, absorbed as he was by the simple sensation of their shoulders touching each other – as they compared their results and filled out sheets full of questions about a subject or another. Not finding the answer to a math problem, Atsuko had started getting more and more annoyed at the fact, to then storm out of the room to get a teacher to help. Too surprised to react, Tomoe had simply sat there, unmoving, waiting for her to come back.

He certainly didn't expect her to arrive fifteen minutes later, panting and gasping for air like she had just ran for her life, hair a mess and sweating profusely. Immediately, he ran to her, holding her in his embrace in hope of providing support, asking her desperatly what was wrong and what had just happened to put her in such a state. She had refused to answer, shaking her head back and forth, a determined expression on her face as she bit her lips, to seemingly keep herself from saying something that she was burning to utter. Their homework laid forgotten on the table of Atsuko's room.

The silence lasted almost a week, during which the sweet girl – that he *totally* didn't have his eyes set on, he swore, he was just being worried as her friend! – had stubbornly clung to it, despite appearing like she'd die to say what was tearing her apart. At the end of this given time, he was so sick of looking at her struggles that he took her aside to have a conversation.

And that's how he learned what had been making her so upset.

"You heard me!" she shouted, then toned down a bit, remembering that even if they were the only kids in their class to have stayed for summer, they weren't exactly alone anyways. "It was just a wild theory that went through my head, and I thought that's all it was, for real! But hearing her confirm it... I could have never imagined! I mean, it was pretty obvious that the two of them were into a relationship, but to think that nobody noticed that..."

"Isn't it what couples do though ? Tomoe asked her, gazing into her eyes, feeling a blush cover his cheeks brightly as all sorts of thoughts about her when through his head. "Fall in love, have sex, make babies? They usually take forever to do that, but it happens. It's not unusual at all."

"Yeah, but it's our teachers we're speaking about... Don't you have trouble imagining *All Might* of all people being this... normal?" she muttered, glancing away in this cute way of hers, and Tomoe was assaulted by the image of her chubby cheeks slowly coloring of a pinkish shade. *Damn was she pretty.*

"Not that much, actually." he sighed. "I guess that's harder to see your idols this way, but I've never been that interested in becoming like him in the first place, so it doesn't affect me this much."

"What about us?"

The question sliced through his heart like razor blades, thin, fast and deadly, and he thought he might have fallen over if Atsuko's arms didn't surround and ground him in an instant. "What do you mean?"

"What about us? Do you imagine us being... normal? Living a normal life fighting crime, falling in love with another hero, a sidekick most likely, getting married and having children... Do you imagine yourself with someone like that, one day? Someone who would always support you and cherish you, someone to pick you up when you feel down, someone to cry and to laugh with? Do you have someone like that? Do you... Do you need someone like that?"

The world went to a sudden and brutal halt.

"Because, I've been thinking... The only one like that I want... is you. I love you, Asahina."

There was a pregnant pause between the two, the air having gone so thick and heavy that it felt as if they were trapped in a jello-like substance, a goo that wouldn't let go of them. He could hear his own ragged breathing and Atsuko's going in and out in his ears, the rapid throbbing of their hearts and the small rustling of their clothes. He couldn't think, let alone speak, overwhelmed by the revelation.

"Asahina?" she asked, unsure of herself. Oh, she must have been waiting for an answer.

Instead of speaking, gesturing to her or overall communicating in any form or manner, he pulled her closer than she was – which was something considering they were still embracing each other – and, leaning in, closed the distance between their lips in the most wonderful kiss of his life. He hoped it had conveyed the message well enough.

"Tomoe..." she breathed when he pulled away, face radiating a joy he'd never seen her emanate, and it just made him want to hold her forever in his arms, safe, secure from the world, to shield her light to prevent it from being stoln away from him.

"I guess you know what that means, then... Wanna go to the next step already?" he offered with a small smile, internally screaming about the sheer happiness that consumed him whole.

"I'd love to."