Five days.
Five days of pretending it hadn't happened.
The slap. The crying. The street corner at 10:45 PM.
His hand on her shoulder.
They were very good at pretending.
Professional. Efficient. Every interaction carefully calibrated to suggest that nothing unusual had occurred.
Morning briefings: Normal.
Case assignments: Normal.
The one time they'd been alone in the elevator: Excruciating but silent and therefore technically normal.
She'd apologized. Sort of. Via text the next morning.
I'm sorry about the other night. It won't happen again.
He'd responded four hours later.
Noted. See you at briefing.
And that was it.
They'd moved on.
Except they hadn't moved on because moving on would require actually addressing it and instead they were just—
Existing in the same space.
Carefully.
Like two people navigating around a piece of furniture neither of them wanted to acknowledge was there.
Tuesday afternoon.
She was at her desk. Incident reports. The boring kind. Minor property damage from a quirk accident. No injuries. Just paperwork.
Her phone buzzed.
Emi: drinks this weekend? you've been weird
She had been weird.
She typed: Maybe. I'll let you know.
The elevator opened.
She glanced up automatically.
Habit. She always looked when the elevator opened. Never knew who was—
Tanaka Yuki stepped out.
Amaya's hands tightened on her pen.
She looked back at her screen.
Professional. Calm. Not jealous. Not thinking about five days ago when she'd completely lost her mind over this woman's existence.
Yuki was talking to someone.
Amaya didn't look.
Kept typing.
Kept absolutely not paying attention to—
A child's laugh.
High-pitched. Delighted.
She looked up.
Yuki was holding a toddler.
A tiny human. Maybe two years old. Dark hair. Round face. Wearing a little shirt with a cartoon character on it.
The toddler was clutching something.
A stress ball from the reception desk probably.
Yuki was walking toward the elevator. Toward the top floor. The toddler was bouncing in her arms. Excited about something.
Amaya stared.
A toddler.
Yuki had a—
The elevator doors closed.
Amaya sat very still.
Processing.
A toddler meant—
Well. It meant a lot of things potentially. But mostly it meant—
She pulled out her phone.
Opened a browser.
Typed: Tanaka Yuki Hero Commission
Added: married
The results loaded.
First link was a commission staff directory.
Tanaka Yuki - Senior Hero Liaison
Spouse: Tanaka Hiroshi (Private Sector)
Children: 1
Oh.
Oh.
She stared at the screen.
Married.
Tanaka Yuki was married.
Had a whole husband.
And a child.
And had never been—
Had never—
She put her phone down.
Picked it up.
Put it down again.
All that jealousy.
All that irrational, period-fueled rage.
The slapping.
The crying.
All of it because—
Because she'd invented an entire relationship that didn't exist.
"Fuck," she said quietly.
Kamiko looked over. "You okay?"
"Fine. Just—fine."
She was not fine.
She was mortified.
Again.
Still.
Always.
Twenty minutes later her earpiece crackled.
"Tsukino. My office."
She closed her eyes.
Of course.
Of course.
She stood.
Walked to the elevator.
The doors opened.
She got in.
Wondered if it was too late to fake her own death.
Probably.
Top floor.
She walked to his office.
The door was open.
She looked inside.
And—
The toddler was there.
Sitting on Bakugo's desk.
Surrounded by files and coffee mugs and a keyboard that had been pushed aside.
The toddler had a pen in one hand. Bakugo's reading glasses in the other.
Was actively trying to eat the glasses.
Yuki was standing next to the desk. On her phone. Completely unbothered by the chaos.
Bakugo was staring at the toddler.
The toddler stared back.
Then threw the pen.
It hit Bakugo in the chest.
Bounced off.
The toddler laughed. Delighted.
Amaya knocked on the door frame.
All three of them looked at her.
The toddler immediately reached for Bakugo's coffee mug.
Bakugo moved it out of reach.
"Don't," he said.
The toddler's face scrunched up.
About to cry.
"Katsuki," Yuki said without looking up from her phone. "Give him the stress ball."
"He'll throw it."
"That's the point."
Bakugo grabbed a stress ball from his drawer. Handed it to the toddler.
The toddler took it.
Examined it.
Threw it directly at Bakugo's face.
Bakugo caught it without flinching.
Handed it back.
The toddler giggled.
Yuki finally looked up. Saw Amaya. Smiled.
"Tsukino-san. Sorry about this. Childcare emergency. My husband's stuck at work and the sitter cancelled." She looked at Bakugo. "And this one said I could bring Kenji here for an hour."
"I said half an hour," Bakugo muttered.
"You said an hour."
"I said—"
The toddler—Kenji apparently—threw the stress ball again.
Bakugo caught it again.
This was apparently a game now.
Yuki looked at Amaya. "You needed something?"
"I—" Amaya looked at Bakugo. "You called me up?"
"Right." Bakugo handed the stress ball back to Kenji. Grabbed a folder from under a stack of papers. "Lemillion coordination. They're moving the timeline up. Operation's this weekend instead of next week. I need you to run point on logistics."
He held out the folder.
She took it.
Her brain was still processing.
The toddler. The husband. The casual way Yuki had called him Katsuki like—
Like they were just friends.
Old friends.
The kind who could show up with a toddler and commandeer his office and call him by his first name.
Nothing more.
"Understood," Amaya said.
Kenji threw the stress ball.
It sailed past Bakugo's head. Hit the wall behind him.
Bakugo didn't react.
Just retrieved it. Handed it back.
Yuki was typing something. "I'm almost done with this email and then we'll be out of your hair."
"Take your time," Bakugo said.
But his tone suggested he absolutely wanted them gone immediately.
Yuki smiled. "You're so patient with children."
"I hate children."
"You're holding Kenji's bottle."
Bakugo looked down.
He was indeed holding a small bottle.
Blue. With a cartoon character.
He set it down quickly.
Yuki laughed.
Amaya stood there.
Watching this.
The casual intimacy of old friendship. The kind built over years. The kind where you could show up unannounced and take over someone's desk and they'd just—
Deal with it.
Complain about it but deal with it.
Because that's what friends did.
"Is there anything else?" she asked.
Bakugo looked at her. "Brief Sero. He's backup on this one. Coordinate with Hana for transport logistics."
"Copy."
She turned to leave.
"Tsukino."
She stopped.
"Good work on the last operation. Lemillion sent over their assessment. You were flagged for commendation."
Her chest did something.
"Thank you."
She left.
Walked to the elevator.
Got in.
The doors closed.
She leaned against the wall.
Married.
Tanaka Yuki was married with a whole child and had never been anything but a professional colleague and friend to Bakugo.
And Amaya had—
She'd slapped him.
Over this.
Over a complete fiction her brain had invented.
The elevator reached the operations floor.
The doors opened.
She walked to her desk.
Sat down.
Opened the folder.
Stared at it without reading.
She needed to apologize.
Actually apologize.
Not the vague text message apology.
A real one.
Face to face.
Acknowledging what she'd done and why and—
Her stomach hurt just thinking about it.
She waited until 7 PM.
Most people had gone home. Just the late shift. Night patrol prep.
She took the elevator.
Top floor.
His light was on.
Of course it was.
She knocked.
"Yeah."
She opened the door.
He was at his desk. Reading glasses on. Three coffee mugs in various states of empty.
He looked up.
"Tsukino."
"Can I—can I talk to you?"
Something shifted in his expression.
Wary.
"About the operation?"
"No. About—" She stepped inside. Closed the door. "About the other night."
He took off his glasses.
"We already—"
"I know. But I need to actually apologize. Not via text. Actually."
He waited.
She took a breath.
"I saw Yuki today. With her son."
"Yeah. Childcare thing."
"I know. She mentioned her husband."
Understanding crossed his face.
Oh.
Oh no.
He was putting it together.
"You thought—" He stopped. "When you saw her leaving that night. You thought we were—"
"Yes."
He stared at her.
"Tsukino."
"I know."
"She's married."
"I know that now."
"She's been married for three years."
"I didn't know that then."
"We're colleagues. That's it."
"I know."
"I don't—I'm not—" He seemed to be struggling with words. "I don't have time for that. For relationships. For—"
"I know. I get it. I just—" She looked at the floor. "I was hormonal and irrational and I let my brain invent something that wasn't there and I'm sorry. For the slapping. For the—for all of it."
Silence.
She risked looking up.
He was watching her with an expression she couldn't read.
"Why did you care?" he asked.
"What?"
"If I was—if Yuki and I were—why did you care?"
Oh.
Oh no.
Wrong question.
Dangerous question.
"I don't—I didn't—it's not—"
She was spiraling.
Her mouth was moving faster than her brain.
"It's just you're a good boss and I respect you and I didn't want you to be unprofessional and mixing work and personal is complicated and—"
"Tsukino."
"—and I just think you're really good at what you do and you deserve someone who understands that and—"
"Tsukino."
"—and it's not like I have any right to have an opinion anyway because you're you and I'm just—I'm rank sixty which is good but it's not top ten and you're top five and there's this gap and—"
"Amaya."
Her brain stopped.
He'd used her first name.
He'd never—
"Why did you care?" he asked again.
Quieter.
She looked at him.
Really looked at him.
The red eyes. The serious expression. The way he was holding very still like he was waiting for something specific.
Her mouth opened.
"Because I love you."
The words came out.
Just—
Out.
Into the air.
Between them.
She froze.
He froze.
"As a hero," she added quickly. "I love you as a hero. Your work. Your—the way you do the job. That's what I meant. Obviously. Because you're—you're incredible at this. At being a hero. The best really. Top five. Should be higher honestly. And I just—I admire that. A lot. Professionally."
She was still talking.
Why was she still talking.
"So when I thought you might be—with someone—it just seemed wrong. Because they should understand how hard you work. How dedicated you are. How you come in at six and leave at eight and you care about the team even though you pretend you don't and you—"
"Amaya."
"—notice when people are hurt and you leave painkillers on desks and you run through the city at night to make sure your employees are okay even when they slap you and—"
"Amaya."
She stopped.
Looked at him.
His expression was—
She didn't have a word for it.
Something between shocked and something else.
Something she didn't want to name because if she named it she'd have hope.
And hope was dangerous.
"I should go," she said.
"Wait—"
"I have a briefing with Sero early tomorrow and I need to prep and—"
"Amaya—"
She turned.
Walked to the door.
Fast.
"I'm rank sixty," she said without turning around. "And I'm going to keep climbing. And I'm going to be professional. And we're going to forget I said any of that. All of it. The love thing was about heroism. Obviously. Just—professional admiration. That's all."
She opened the door.
"Have a good night."
She left.
Closed the door behind her.
Walked to the elevator.
Got in.
Pressed the lobby button seventeen times.
The doors closed.
She slid down the wall.
Sat on the elevator floor.
Put her face in her hands.
"I want to die," she said out loud.
The elevator continued its descent.
Ground floor.
The doors opened.
She stood up.
Walked out.
Through the lobby.
Out into the night.
Kept walking.
All the way home.
Got inside.
Locked the door.
Went straight to the bedroom.
Grabbed the plushie.
Held it.
"I told him I love him," she said into the fabric.
The plushie waited.
"I actually said the words. Out loud. To his face."
Silence.
"And then I tried to take it back by saying I meant as a hero but I kept talking and talking and probably made it worse and—"
She lay down.
On top of the covers.
Still in her clothes.
"I need to move to Osaka."
The plushie disagreed.
"I need to move to Osaka and change my name and become a potato farmer and never see another human being again."
More disagreement.
"He used my first name."
She said it quietly.
To the ceiling.
"He said Amaya. Twice. He's never—he always says Tsukino. Always. And he said Amaya."
She closed her eyes.
Replayed it.
His voice. Low. Serious.
Amaya.
Her chest felt too full.
Too tight.
The good kind of tight and the terrible kind at the same time.
"I'm rank sixty," she said. "And I accidentally confessed to my boss. And tried to take it back. And made it worse. And now I have to see him tomorrow. And coordinate an operation. And pretend I didn't just—"
Her phone buzzed.
She looked at it.
Unknown number.
She was going to throw up.
She opened it.
Get some sleep. We'll talk tomorrow.
The same thing he'd said about the slap.
The same avoidance.
The same—
Wait.
She read it again.
We'll talk tomorrow.
Not forget it happened.
Not that was inappropriate.
Just—
We'll talk.
She stared at the message.
Typed: Okay.
Deleted it.
Typed: I'm sorry.
Deleted it.
Typed: Copy.
Sent it.
Put her phone down.
Lay there.
In the dark.
Holding the plushie.
Rank sixty.
Professional admiration.
Obviously.
Nothing else.
Just—
Amaya.
The way he'd said it.
She was so fucked.
So completely.
Irreversibly.
Fucked.
...
Tomorrow was going to be terrible.
Or it was going to be—
No.
It was going to be terrible.
She refused to hope.
Hope was dangerous.
Hope was—
We'll talk tomorrow.
...
Fuck.