Chapter 109: Curiosity Killed the Bald Guy! Ren's Apartment and Nejire's Favorite Experiment

The goodbye in front of the restaurant was a mess of laughter and hugs. Toru hugged everyone twice, Tsuyu said her farewells with a calm "kero" and a promise to write, and Ochako repeated like three times that she couldn't wait to get started with Ryukyu. One by one, the streetlights swallowed them up until Ren was left standing on the sidewalk with just one person beside him.

Nejire didn't move an inch. She was staring at him with expectant eyes and a curious smile.

"Ren-kun," she said, rocking on her heels, "where do you live?"

"In an apartment, a few blocks from here. Why?"

"What's your room like? Is it big? Is it small? Do you have hero posters? Do you have lots of books? Do you sleep in pajamas or without pajamas? Is your bed soft? Do you live alone? Aren't you scared of living alone?" She finally took a breath. "I wanna see it!"

And here we go again. Nejire's curiosity has no bottom. But at least it's a cute kind of curiosity.

"You wanna see my apartment?" Ren asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "Right now?"

"I'm your girlfriend!" she declared, as if that settled any possible doubt. "Girlfriends have the right to know where their boyfriends live. It's part of the investigation."

"Investigation of what, exactly?"

"Of you!" Nejire grabbed his arm and started walking, dragging him in a direction that wasn't even the right one. "I've been discovering things about you all day and I'm not stopping now. Is it this way? Or that way? I don't know where you live, so you'll have to guide me."

Ren let himself be pulled along for a couple of steps before gently correcting the course.

"It's the other way, commander."

"I knew it!" she lied cheerfully, turning around without letting go of his arm.

The walk to the building was a stream of questions that didn't give him a break. Nejire wanted to know why he picked that neighborhood, whether he cooked or ordered food, whether he had pets, whether he liked winter more than summer, and why people called him "bald" when the answer was so obvious. Ren answered what he could and gave up on the rest, letting her jump from one topic to another as they climbed the stairs.

"It's here," he said at last, opening the door. "Fair warning, it's a mess."

Nejire walked in before he could finish the sentence.

The apartment was small, the kind where the living room, the kitchen, and the bedroom almost shook hands. A stack of textbooks leaned dangerously next to the couch, the fridge let out a tired hum in the corner, and for some reason Ren himself couldn't remember, there was a frying pan on the floor next to the window.

"Why do you have a frying pan on the floor?" Nejire asked, crouching down to inspect it.

"It's... a culinary experiment that went really bad. I've been telling myself for days that I'm gonna pick it up."

"What did you cook?"

"I'd rather not relive that night."

Nejire laughed and kept going with her tour, touching everything delicately. She picked up a book, flipped through it, left it crooked on top of the others. She opened the fridge, looked at the mostly empty interior, and closed it with a very serious nod. Then her eyes landed on the back wall, and she let out a little squeal.

"Oh! A cat plushie!" She ran over to grab it off the shelf and squeezed it against her chest. "It's adorable! Do you like cats, Ren-kun?"

"A girl gave it to me," Ren admitted. "She said I needed to practice feline cohabitation."

"It suits you perfectly!" Nejire made the plushie do little hops through the air. "Now you're gonna live surrounded by real cats! Do you think they'll let you have ears too? Are cat ears comfortable? How do you even put them on?"

"I'll ask Ragdoll those questions in person, I promise."

Nejire put the plushie back in its place and spun around to keep exploring. That was when she looked up at the wall above the desk, and her smile widened.

"Ren-kun."

"Yeah?"

"Why do you have a poster of Mt. Lady in a swimsuit?"

Ren felt his soul leave his body.

"That..." He bolted across the room to rip it off the wall. "That's been there since before I knew I was gonna have to see her in person and run away from her in the hallways. It's a historical error. Let's pretend it never existed."

"But she's really pretty!" Nejire tilted her head, without an ounce of malice. "Why are you hiding it? Are you embarrassed? Do you like her? Do you like her more than me? Should I be worried?"

"You shouldn't be worried about anything involving Mt. Lady, trust me. That woman scares me more than any villain."

Nejire laughed so hard she had to sit down on the edge of the bed. When she got over it, she stayed there looking at him, head resting on one hand.

"Hey, Ren-kun."

"Hmm?"

"Do you remember what you confessed today on the rooftop? About the haunted house." She swung her legs slowly. "I've been thinking about it all day."

Ren sat down beside her, leaving a careful distance between them.

"I thought you took it well."

"And I did take it well! I'm not mad, I swear." She glanced at him sideways, and for the first time all day, lowered her voice a little. "It's just... that night I felt everything with your power on top of it, right? Things were more intense because you were making them more intense. And I've been left with this question."

"What question?"

"I wanna know how it feels now! Last time everything was a mess... but this time I'm the one who's curious."

This is so Nejire. For anyone else this would be an awkward moment, and for her it's an experiment she's had pending for weeks.

"Nejire," Ren said carefully, "you don't have to prove anything. What happened that night was an accident, I already cleared that up."

"It's not about proving anything." She took his hand between hers, examining his fingers one by one, the same way she'd examined his books. "It's because I want to. You taught me something about myself that night, and I wanna know which part was actually mine. Does that make sense?"

"It makes all the sense in the world," he admitted quietly.

"Then there's nothing to think about." Nejire smiled, and started unbuttoning his shirt, slowly, watching every inch of skin that appeared with the same attention she gave to everything else. "I wanna do it my way. Looking, asking, discovering. Is that okay?"

"It's okay," Ren said, and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "At your pace."

She stopped halfway, frowning at a spot on his side.

"Oh. You have a scar here. How'd you get it?"

"When I fought Inko. A chunk of concrete decided my side was a good place to land."

"Did it hurt?"

"A ton. Recovery Girl scolded me for like half an hour."

Nejire ran a finger over the mark delicately, then leaned down and kissed it.

"There. All healed."

This is strangely sweet.

Ren pulled her in gently and kissed her. Nejire kissed back with a clumsy, enthusiastic kind of curiosity, and when they pulled apart she looked at him with flushed cheeks and a smile, as if she'd just confirmed a fascinating theory.

"Okay," she whispered. "It does feel different. Way better when I'm the one deciding."

Ren reached for the lamp on the nightstand and dimmed the light until the room was in shadows. Nejire laughed with nervous excitement, and the last thing clearly heard before the rest of the night belonged just to the two of them was her voice, soft and content.

"This is my best investigation, no question."

************

A good while later, the silence in the room was a comfortable one. Nejire was tucked against Ren's chest, her breathing still a little uneven and her hair sprawled everywhere, a sheet covering them halfway. Neither of them was in any hurry to move.

THUD.

The dull sound came from the neighbor's wall, followed by a muffled grunt. Nejire lifted her head, fully alert.

"What was that? An earthquake? A villain? Should we go help?"

"No, no." Ren ran a hand over his face, slightly embarrassed. "It's the guy next door. He pounds the wall when there's noise. He thinks we're... moving furniture."

Nejire blinked, then covered her mouth to keep from cracking up.

"Moving furniture?" she repeated in a whisper. "We seriously tell people that?"

"It's the socially acceptable version, yeah."

"But we didn't move a single piece of furniture!"

"Nejire, I'm begging you, please don't explain that to the neighbor."

She flopped back down onto his chest, laughing silently until it passed. They stayed like that, listening to the tired hum of the fridge and the little noises from the street, until Nejire spoke again, her voice sleepy and satisfied now.

"Scientific experiments are the best," she murmured, tracing lazy circles on his chest. "But I think this one's been my favorite."

"More than the roller coaster?"

"Way more. The roller coaster gave me nausea." She let out a small yawn, worn out by the night's activity. "Hey, Ren-kun."

"Hmm?"

"Why do guys' voices get deeper afterward? Is it a body thing? Does it happen to you? Do I sound different too? And why am I suddenly so sleepy, is that normal?"

"Nejire," Ren said, laughing into her hair, "I swear tomorrow I'll answer all those questions with a diagram if I have to. Right now the only thing my brain can do is breathe."

"Mmm. I accept the diagram offer." She curled in closer, leaning against his side. "You have to make it pretty. With colors."

"With colors. Promise."

She didn't answer. In a few minutes her breathing slowed, and her whole body went slack against him. Ren stared at the ceiling in the dimness, with the most curious girl in the world asleep on his arm, and for once his mind wasn't racing toward any plan or any memory from the anime.

Not so long ago I was a lonely pervert in a world that wasn't mine, hiding a poster on the wall and eating alone in this tiny apartment.

And somehow I ended up here. With Toru and her shamelessness, with Ochako determined to turn herself into a warrior, with Inko fighting her own body the same way I am. And with this curious girl who barges into my life with questions and falls asleep in my room like she's been doing it for years.

None of this happened because of my power. That's the weird part.

Outside, the guy next door had finally gone quiet. Ren turned the lamp all the way off with his free hand, adjusted the sheet over Nejire's shoulders so she wouldn't get cold, and closed his eyes.

Tomorrow internships started. Tomorrow they'd all go their separate ways to learn how to be real heroes.

But tonight, for the first time in a long time, he didn't have anywhere better to be than in the arms of a sweet blue haired girl.

*******

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