You want to be a respectful guest, but...

Your first impulse was to go and try knocking on your caretaker's door. You'd tell her it was an increasingly un-morning-like hour of the morning and encourage her to get up. You'd tell her she didn't need to worry about breakfast, then she'd do whatever it is she did in the mornings, while you asked her how to operate the microwave so you could make beans taste a little better going forward. However...

... What if that was a rude thing to do? What if she woke up and thought, "oh crap, he probably heard me snoring through the walls at frigging 1:30?!" It would be so much better if she woke up on her own power and joined you in the living room with a smile on her face.

Should you just turn up the TV really loud and pretend it was an accident?

Finally, you came to a decision. If you used the power of your quirk only for benign tasks like this-- and at low power, merely a mental suggestion rather than mind control-- it was a victimless crime. You'd make Emi think it was her own decision to get up and come to the living room, with just the faintest little push. Easy. Harmless.

Actually, there was another reason. You'd been thinking for a while now... did you still even have the power Benefactor had bestowed to you? As a matter of fact, you'd barely ever used it before, except when you'd tried to test it on him and found it worked only for a moment before failing. If you didn't have it any more, maybe you could tell the heroes and shorten this house arrest period. It would be quite a burden off of you, to know that you were fully free from the legacy of that terrible villain. You needed a way to test whether the power was still within you... and you had no target other than Ms. Joke.

Of course, without seeing her or speaking to her, it would be hard to influence her, but your powers were actually amplified on sleeping targets; after all, inducing sleep or relaxation for mental pliability was the first step for many hypnotists. Concentrating on the source of the snoring behind the door, you began to think subtle, harmless thoughts to push her to an awakened state...

"You want to wake up and get out of bed... It's a bright, beautiful morning... This is almost like a day off for you... The first thing you want to do is show Ren what you normally eat for breakfast..."

Perfect. If anything, you were using your hypnotist powers for good. Everything you'd read on the internet implied that waking up early was better than sleeping in late. They also implied that 1:30 was, by no means, early.

For a hushed moment, you thought that the time in confinement or perhaps the imprisonment of Benefactor had truly done it and your powers had finally lost their effectiveness. Part of you rejoiced at the possibility of returning to being a quirkless, unimportant civilian, while others bemoaned the loss of the one thing that really connected you to the loveable Ms. Joke at this point. You doubt she had a lot of eighteen year-old strangers squatting in her apartment when they weren't needy, abused quirkers.

Just as that thought occurred to you, you heard stirring. Finally! She was waking up! She was...

... Actually pretty indecent, as things turned out.

When you'd gone to bed in a tank-top and sweatpants, remembering that she'd disappeared into her room still wearing her hero outfit, you thought she'd emerged wearing something along the same lines. Instead, she was dressed in a rather light and airy yellow t-shirt, distractingly slipped away from the shoulder and arm so that one breast nearly spilled out, along with far-too-short pink pajama bottoms that covered more like booty shorts, looking cute and fuzzy but terminating right at the lower curvature of her plump butt-cheeks. Her green hair was frazzled and stuck up in an early morning way, while her face was sleepy and yawning. Without her hero outfit, you could see the line of her hips and thighs, as well as the odd, yellow-and-green painted nails on her hands and feet. She looked a bit goofy...

And yet, you became aware of something you'd never had a situation to become aware of before: a predisposition to experience morning wood. It didn't matter that her face was still wearing a dreaming, drooling smile, nor that she was unconsciously scratching at the hip of her pajama pants. She was still a sight you'd never seen before and one that you instinctively reacted to.

After feeling excitement, you soon sunk to shame. You'd already screwed up; by telling her she wanted to wake up, jump out of bed, and show you how to fix breakfast before she did anything else, you'd deprived her the opportunity to freshen up or change clothes. You weren't entirely sure you were supposed to be seeing this side of her...

... O-Or maybe she was really just that lax? Carefree? She probably didn't mind you staring as she walked by, unintentionally showing you more as she fixed a wedgie in the back of those teensie pajama bottoms, marked with the phrase "HA HA HA" across the broad surface of her butt. But were you supposed to content yourself, thinking that it was okay when she, disregarding your presence, reached into the side and adjusted the straps of what was clearly T-back, brightly colored underwear in a half orange, half yellow pattern?!

This wasn't a victimless crime any more!

"Say, have you had breakfast yet, Ren?" Emi finally broke the silence, staring over her shoulder at you while rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Sorry I got up so late, I was just wiped... I sleep in on days off. I don't get a lot of days off. I heard crime never sleeps, but heroes don't get a lot of it either! Ha ha... haaa... huwaaaaah!" she finished, raising both hands above her head and stretching as a yawn overpowered her. You tried hard to be a gentleman and avoid watching as the left breast struggled to free itself from that thin sleeping top of hers. "Anyway, I wanted to show you what I usually have for breakfast."

You hadn't even answered her question about breakfast yet; you'd been too distracted. You nodded dumbly. This was for the best; if she fulfilled the last mental instruction you'd given her while using your hypnosis power, it would presumably break and she'd be back to normal. Then you'd file this power away and re-institute your promise to avoid ever using it again.

The pro-hero reached up for where you'd seen fruit earlier... then reached past it and brought out a chocolate-covered cereal bar, decorated with a smiling cartoon rabbit on it. "I eat a bunny bar for breakfast every morning. I loved 'em as a kid and when I moved out, I thought I'd just eat them all the time, since Ma wasn't there to stop me! I tell my kids to eat healthy but then I... Hm... I..." She mumbled, still wearing that dopey grin as she looked between you and the breakfast bar. Slowly, her face reddened. "I... That was a joke! I-I don't eat one of these every morning, they're just for snacks! It's actually normal for me to make a healthy fruit smoothie!" she corrected herself, setting the bar back where she'd found it. Her recovery was not exactly smooth, but it did seem she'd fixed her thinking now... She was clearly embarrassed to show a young person, who she was supposed to be teaching the ways of the world, that she ate chocolate for breakfast every morning.

You thought your first joke ever had just occurred to you... something about how a handful of chocolates wasn't such a bad breakfast after all. Unwittingly, you said it out loud.

Ms. Joke raised an eyebrow quizzically, not understanding. "W-Well, I guess it's okay. Every now and then! I mean... I do love chocolate..." she began to smooth her morning-oily hair down with two hands, staring idly around the room as though she was aware she'd forgotten something... then finally noticed her state of dress. "Ah! Oh!" Her cheeks went from their usual cheerful pink to a rosy, embarrassed red as she desperately fixed the shoulder of her top up. "Ah ha ha... Well, that's a little embarrassing. I meant to change before I walked out of my room this morning. Th-This is how I dress when I don't have company over, so it's..."

You could think of a couple of words to finish filling out the statement, none of them appropriate for saying to a woman you respected and who was 10 years your senior. Instead, you told her it was okay. It just made sense that she wouldn't remember she had a guest over. Plus, you wanted her to feel comfortable, too.

The woman smiled sheepishly and nodded her head, while pulling up the pajama bottoms past the band of her panties as discretely as she could. "He he, thanks! But that really is no way for me to dress around you. Don't worry! it's a one-time mistake!"

You wouldn't mind if she made this particular mistake again, but still... she was right about one thing. This was a mistake. You'd gone out of your lane and immediately suffered the consequences, embarrassing the person who-- sappy as it may be-- you cared about most in the world. You thought to yourself that there was a lesson in here. Your own voice told it to you in your head:

"Never use your hypnosis. Ever. Call it Pendulum... It's like a pendulum! If it gets into motion, it stays in motion. The only way it's harmless is if it stays completely still. The only way forward is to never use Pendulum. It's a curse, not a tool..."

Another voice spoke up soon after:

"..the universal remote that controls any one of them..."

You shook that unwelcome voice out, physically. Returning to the situation at hand, you found Emi watching you with a worried expression. The guilt that face, so different from her usual smile, gave you was intense, almost like a stab of pain... It reminded you that, when given a small taste of freedom, you'd already abused your power. That was something a villain would do. Should you go ahead and admit that you'd done it? She really did deserve to know...

... On the other hand, what would she do once she learned? Would you be immediately reduced to a laughing wreck and then slapped back into restraints? Of course, you knew that she was an empathetic person and wouldn't want to resort to that, but sometimes, heroes had to do cruel things for the preservation of the greater good. She might not hesitate, given the awful reputation of Benefactor and the natural self-preservation that one might feel encountering a mind-altering hypnotist... Was it okay to think of this as a one-time, secret mistake for the sake of your newfound freedom?

Emi shifted where she stood, rubbing at one of her biceps with a confused smile. Oddly, looking at her arms and even her toned abdomen made you feel a little better... she was no weakling! Maybe you were the one underestimating her? "Hey, kiddo... If you keep staring, it really is embarrassing. I think I'm gonna go take a shower and get dressed. You can take one after I'm out. Eat something if you're still hungry!" she instructed you, grinning awkwardly as she stepped around you. Despite her being a teacher and a pro hero, this kind of relationship was one arena she didn't have a lot of experience in. Once again, you were powerless to take your eyes away from the pattern of laughter bouncing left and right upon the seat of her pajamas as her full, round ass moved past you.