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Jirou woke up, slick with cold sweat and breathing with a racing heart.
It took a couple of minutes for reality to catch up with her after a nightmare. It took a couple more to accept that everything she'd seen or heard was nothing short of a byproduct of REM sleep.
One logical thought sprung after another in tandem, strong in reassurance.
Jirou pushed two fingers against the side of her neck.
The rapid beating of her pulse was calming gradually, returning to normal.
Jirou swallowed before recoiling at the taste of her own mouth.
The room was pitch dark. There was nothing to see but shadowed walls and a hint of moonlight filming through blinds that hadn't been closed all the way.
Her dorm room had always been a second home to her since its opening, a place for her to isolate herself from everyone else.
She'd been acclimated to this feeling of solitude all her life. She needed nothing but an empty bedroom and a stash of old CDs to listen to. It was enough for her as a kid, to plug in ear jacks and have the music lull her into peace. And it was enough for her year round as a hero in training.
Now though, the loneliness was staunching. It was uncomfortable, like sleep had left her subconscious to conjure terrible dreams.
She stretched a hand towards her desk, searching until dried fingertips landed on the cold screen of her phone.
She lifted it to her face, blinking blearily as she clicked it on.
3:06am was the time, shining in stiff numbers that Jirou could still see when she shut her phone off.
School was starting back up in a few hours, and with sleep deprivation plaguing her body she couldn't afford to stay awake.
But the bad dream was still at the forefront of her mind, instilling a chilling fear in her system. She didn't want to take a chance and get thrown back in there.
Gathering up willpower, she slid off her mattress and planted one foot after the next onto the small carpet.
Her legs carried her out the door and into narrow halls, towards the elevator that stayed hauntingly still until she remembered to punch the button to start its descent.
The grogginess of sleep was beginning to fade as soon as she found herself on the main floor, but her eyes hadn't adjusted to perpetual darkness cloaking the lobby and everything in it. It was strange to be here when it wasn't rife with the energy of students who draped themselves onto couches, or played party games with competitive streaks shining through.
The discomfort was creeping back in, keeping her on a straight path for the last set of doors in the building.
There was a slight dip in the temperature when she was outside. Goosebumps were sprinkling on bare shoulders, but it was nothing extreme. Nothing she couldn't handle.
It was lighter out here too, and she could breathe in all the night air, as opposed to when she lay in a tight, asphyxiating room.
In. . Out. .
Her diaphragm expanded in rhythm with the words.
At a certain point, her eyes had fluttered shut from concentration on a task that was supposed to come to her like second nature.
She wouldn't have been able to say how long she stayed that way, left hypersensitive to the chirps of crickets and the occasional breeze brushing over her.
She wouldn't have been able to decipher the presence of something else too, overlaying the rest of the background sound. It started off faint but it was slowly growing louder, harder for the rest of her senses to ignore.
It wasn't the kind of white noise that belonged in the night.
When she opened her eyes, Kaminari Denki was looking too baffled for his own good. A slew of emotions were flitting plain across his face, not much unlike Jirou's own.
He finally settled for showing an awkward smile. "What's up?"
. . .
Jirou thought she lost her voice momentarily, but it didn't fail her for long. "Nothing." She mumbled. "Nothing much-um-you?"
Kaminari's smile loosened up, though it was still more off-kilter than usual. "I thought it would be nice to take a walk. Or, uh, something like that."
"At three a.m." She felt guilty at how confrontational that sounded immediately afterward.
Kaminari shifted his weight, displaying that tendency to move though there was no reason to. He always had that antsy quality to him, probably even before they met. "Early riser?" He coughed out a laugh. "You wouldn't believe how nice it is out here. . at uh, three a.m."
"Yeah."
What else could she say? She'd seen it for herself, when she'd wheeled out of the residence hall to dispel the effects of something that hadn't even happened.
Kaminari sent a furtive glance at her before making a show of clearing his throat. "So, what brings you here?"
There was no point in lying about it. "Nightmare." She said numbly. "It's stupid, I know."
She waited for him to bark out another laugh. He was going to tease her like he always did when they were surrounded by all their friends in the classroom, and rightfully so. Jirou would do the same, if their roles were switched.
Kaminari studied her instead, his expression unreadable this time. "Are you okay? I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything about that nightmare if you don’t want to, but, uh, I'm here."
There was nothing graceful about it, but his words made Jirou smile, just a bit. "Thanks, Kaminari."
"Of course." He returned.
Jirou lowered her head, fixing her gaze on the toe of her shoe.
Before she got into UA, she trained herself with the mindset that she was capable and she could overcome the obstacles, if she was laser focused.
She worked relentlessly to meet her expectations along with her parents': listening intently to her teachers' lectures about previous examinations, making appropriate tweaks to her quirk to have it work in her favor, preparing enough so she wasn't ever at a disadvantage when the time came to prove herself.
Through all of that, she'd never stopped to think much about what being a hero entailed, aside from achievement and fame.
The media glorified heroism even before Jirou was born, stamping All Might as the very paragon of what it meant to save people and be good at it.
There was never enough talk about All Might outside of his active duties, or All Might withering in the face of. .
Failure.
"I have dreams about USJ and the summer trip a lot." She muttered, still looking down at her shoes. She could see her own ear jacks with her peripheral vision, spinning warily as she gave her thoughts a voice. "And I dream that I don't make it."
Those experiences in particular, and the fears involving them, were constantly combined to take shape in her dreams.
Even if she could wake up from those in the end, she couldn't shake the worry that she'd become incapacitated again, like before. She could get knocked out of commission, slip out of consciousness, not be saved by the hospital a second time.
All Might himself was forced into retirement by his worst nemesis after long grueling years of serving as the Symbol of Peace. That could happen to her too, anytime after she graduated. That could happen to anyone in UA.
"I'm scared." Jirou said, whispering it so she couldn't even hear herself.
This was all palpable. Real. Not fake. Not impossible by any stretch of the imagination.
"Hey," Kaminari said, sounding short of breath.
She was scared to look up too, to see what kind of look Kaminari was wearing.
"Jirou." He was resting a reluctant hand on her arm, near her bicep.
She raised her gaze, at that, and was startled to see him so close-up. His eyes were scattered with flecks of piercing gold, flickering gently as he looked at her. Even now, he was a bundle of nervous energy that quivered the night, a born distraction demanding her full attention.
"It’s okay." Kaminari's lips twisted into another smile, one that was somber but wholehearted. "I get those kinds of dreams too. It's not exactly the same. . but, I get stupid dreams about my quirk a lot. About frying my brain until I, like, can't recover." He shook his head, chuckling in disappointment. "I'm just too careless about it. I feel like I'm going to hurt someone, if I don't be careful."
Jirou's heart was caught in her throat, overwhelmed by the feeling of protectiveness swelling in her. "No, no, Kaminari you're not going to hurt anyone." It was futile to spout comfort, when she was just as frantic about the future, about the terrible what-ifs circling over and over again, but she seized Kaminari's hand in hers regardless, folding fingers into the gaps.
"I really, really don't want to." Kaminari breathed, curling his fingers to meet hers, and they were so frigid, perhaps from moving around outside for hours, trying to forget about the mares hurting him too. “That would really suck.”
"It won't happen." Jirou responded and, god, this was ridiculous, but she still believed it had to be said. She was never sure when she narrowed the scope, looking in the mirror to see only herself struggling. But what she wanted to say about Kaminari could spill out in less than a beat. "This year's been rough, but we’ll get better."
“Yeah?” Kaminari’s voice hitched.
"Yeah." Jirou nodded.
Because that was all they could do, and it was the best way to go forward. It wasn't a solution, but it was progress towards one.
A welcome silence nestled between them after that.
Jirou lost herself in the warmth of Kaminari's hand in hers, not thinking to let go.
Kaminari didn't let go either.