Work Text:
“Psst!”
Eri turns her pencil over, scraping the worn eraser over the page. It doesn’t do much aside from depositing dark pink smudges on the paper which barely cover her mistake. Aizawa probably won’t care much, but he might make her rewrite it and she really doesn’t want to miss what looks like the perfect afternoon over a single mistake.
“Eri-chan!”
Of course, Aizawa isn’t cruel, just strict sometimes. He says that she has to work a little harder than most kids her age because she didn’t get as much practice as they did with reading and writing and math. She’s struggling, but Aizawa promised that once she catches up, she’ll have a little more free time.
“Eriiiiii!”
She glances up; the only ones in the room are her and Aizawa, and he’s focused solely on grading papers. Well, not solely — he glances up and gives her a stern look, pointing once at her papers before returning his gaze to his own.
“Eri-chan, over here. By the window!”
She tilts her head down so it looks like she’s focused, but she looks up out of the corner of her eye toward the window. Lemillion is peering in at her through the glass — literally, his face is sticking into the classroom.
He sticks a hand through the wall and waves, grinning.
“I’m busy,” she whispers, pointing at her papers. “I have homework.”
“Didn’t you finish your work for this week already?”
She shakes her head. “I have to keep practicing my katakana. It’s too wobbly.”
Lemillion glances at Aizawa, who’s angled just slightly away from him. If Aizawa looks up, Lemillion will be seen for sure, and then he’ll have to go away so Eri can focus. She’s already having a hard enough time catching up; she doubts Aizawa will permit any further distractions.
“Come take a break,” he whispers back. “Deku and his friends are playing outside. I can distract Eraserhead for you.”
“I’ll get in trouble!”
Lemillion raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t argue. “Okay,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. “I guess these freezer pops will just have to melt in the hot summer sun, then…”
Eri grips her pencil tighter. She only has one more worksheet left; maybe if she finishes really fast Aizawa will let her go play outside. She just has to stay focused and work diligently.
“What flavors?” she asks, glancing at Aizawa to make sure he’s not listening. He’s still staring at his pile of essays, smiling fondly at whatever it is his students have written.
“Oh, all kinds. Strawberry, watermelon, orange, blue raspberry, mango…”
Eri shifts in her seat. One more worksheet. One. It can’t possibly be that difficult.
“I have to finish my work,” she whines, tilting her head at Lemillion. “How would you distract him, though…?”
“Oh, easy!” he says, pushing through the wall. “Like this. Hey, Eraserhead! Great to see you again; I just happened to be on campus to visit Cementoss, and wouldn’t you know it, he sent me to come talk to you!”
Eri slowly sets her pencil down. Aizawa is watching Lemillion with one brow raised. “Oh? About what?”
“Oh, something very important. Aw, man, I’m trying so hard to remember what it was…”
“Do take your time. It’s not like you have a day job to get back to.”
Lemillion is standing right in front of Aizawa’s desk now, trying to block Eri from his view. She hops out of her seat and tiptoes across the room, watching Lemillion to make sure that he’s still between her and Aizawa.
“It had to do with the festival planning, I think. Tell me, what is your class preparing this year?”
“You’ll have to get an invitation and come see yourself.”
“Oh, great! You wouldn’t happen to have the paperwork for that, do you? And, uh, how long would it take to fill out? Probably a nice chunk of the afternoon, right?”
The door clicks loudly as Eri gets close, but Aizawa keeps talking, completely oblivious to her crimes. A hand pokes through the door, fingers curling twice to beckon her onwards. She slides through the gap and then pushes the door gently shut, hoping Aizawa doesn’t hear it click into the frame.
“Deku!”
“This is for you,” says Uraraka, holding out a freezer pop. “And there’s plenty more where that came from.”
She takes it and a moment later it’s dripping down her chin as Deku carries her through the hallway on his shoulders. She laughs, and Uraraka and Todoroki join in, growing louder as they transition from indoors to outdoors.
Uraraka taps Eri’s leg and she gently lifts away from Deku’s shoulders, spinning slightly in the afternoon breeze. She grabs at her freezer pop, and Uraraka tosses up two more, each floating in the wind. She juggles them, then launches them at Eri.
“I can’t reach!” she giggles, just barely batting one away with her fingertips. Deku jumps up and grabs it, taking a big bite of it through the wrapper. “No, Deku, you don’t eat it like that!”
“Are you sure?” he asks, trying again to bite at it. “Hey, why isn’t it working?”
“You’re doing it wrong!”
“Here,” says Lemillion, bursting from the grass, “let me show you!”
He shoots into the air, grabbing the last freezer pop between his teeth. He chews through the wrapper, then loudly slurps at the half-melted slush.
“Gross,” laughs Uraraka.
Eventually Uraraka releases her and she drops onto the grass, sprawling out next to Todoroki while the other three have some kind of mid-air spinning contest.
“How’s your work going?” he asks, and laughs when Eri sticks her tongue out. “Ah, yes, I understand.”
“It’s really boring sometimes,” she says, staring up at the passing clouds. “But I’m doing fine with it.”
“You might be doing better if you were actually doing it,” Aizawa says, peering down at her. She yelps and sits straight up, wiping the juice from her mouth with her sleeve.
“I, um, I…!”
“Relax. I’m not going to make you go back yet.”
“I’m really sorry, I…”
“It’s fine,” he says, “really. Just ask for a break next time you need it, okay?”
“You’re sure?”
A crinkle forms at the edges of his eyes. “I’m sure.”
She nods, flopping back down in the grass. “Okay. Thank you.”
“That’s no fun,” Lemillion protests, still spinning even after Uraraka and Deku seem to have given up. “Why let us stage a prison break if you’re just going to let her ask for a break whenever she wants?”
“She can ask for a break whenever she wants and I can let you stage a prison break if the time is right.”
“You knew he was distracting you?” Eri asks, eyes widening. “And you still let him?”
“Of course I knew,” says Aizawa, glancing down at her. “He’s not exactly subtle, this one.”
“I can be subtle!”
“No, Mirio-senpai, you really can’t.”
“Absolutely I can!”
“Hey,” says Aizawa, before the two become too distracted, “I didn’t agree to do this for free, if you recall. Where’s my ice pop?”
Lemillion and Eri share a look, and then in tandem everyone eyes the empty freezer pop box sitting on the grass. Aizawa crosses his arms, burying the lower half of his face in the bulk of his capture weapon.
“Uh…”
“Well,” says Deku, then swallows loudly.
“Hmm,” says Todoroki.
“New game,” Lemillion shouts, scooping Eri into his arms, “last one away from the very hangry Erasure Hero is a rotten egg!”