Waking up the next day with a naked Rumi next to me was probably the best way I've woken up so far. Sitting up Rumi woke up shortly after I did and looked at me curiously, but then kissed me after remembering last night.
"Love you," Rumi says after kissing me, making me smile and my hidden emotions almost seem like they are going to come back.
"Love you too," I say back after giving her a small kiss. We then get into the shower together and head downstairs once we finish changing. We see that Cathy actually cooked some breakfast already and ate her fill as she was watching TV.
"In the future, you guys may want to consider soundproofing the room. As I didn't get any more sleep than you both did," Cathy says nonchalantly as she is watching TV, I just cough awkwardly while Rumi's face became red with embarrassment.
After a somewhat awkward breakfast, Rumi stayed with us as the three of us went to the gym that Gran Torino introduced me to, to train together. Then after we trained Rumi went home and I'm sure have some explaining to do with her parents. I didn't bring it up as I was unsure what to say about that. The next week went by fairly quickly with not much happening other than the usual training and hanging out with Rumi or my friends alongside Cathy. Then Cathy eventually went home at the end of this week since she was only staying for the month. She demanded I keep in touch this time, or she'd come back here to beat it into me.
As I took the train to Rumi's city I was contemplating how the dinner would go with her parents. As I've met them several times before, but never really sat down and talked with them at length. Nor do I believe Rumi told them anything that I already didn't tell them in my short interactions with them. Arriving outside Rumi's house I texted her I was there before walking up and knocking on the door. As usual, her dad answers the door and gives me a hard look, while silently judging me.
"Hello Mr.Usagiyama, how've you been?" I say as he gestures for me to enter.
"Same old, same old, and you?" Rumi's dad says to me with a neutral expression.
"Nothing new," I say with a shrug as the awkward atmosphere remains and we walk into the dining room. I sit at the table as Rumi's dad sits at one end of the table and silently pours himself a glass of wine.
"Hey Akihiko!" Rumi says smiling at me and taking a seat next to me at the table while giving me a quick kiss. I just nod my head and return the kiss while feeling her father's eyes boring into me.
"Welcome back and hi Akihiko," Rumi's mom says as she enters the dining room and places the last dish down on the table.
"Thanks for having me and hello Mrs.Usagiyama," I say as I still feel an awkward atmosphere and now Rumi's mom is smiling at me, but I can see behind that smile in her eyes it looks like she wants to kill me.
"Well let's eat and I hope you enjoy it!" Rumi's mom says as her dad finished pouring his wife some wine into her glass.
The meal on my end was super awkward as I felt both parents giving me differently, but slightly similar looks the whole time. Her dad stared at me with a judgmental look and some anger in his eyes, while her mom gave me a creepy smile and eyes that looked like they wanted to kill me. My fire wasn't reacting negatively to them, but I just felt a shiver down my back the whole meal. Rumi didn't seem to notice as she just kept the small talk going the whole meal.
"So Akihiko, now that your first year is over and the second year is going to begin soon. Do you feel ready for it and think you will remain on top of your class?" Rumi's dad asks me while sipping his second wine glass and after the meal was over.
"Yes I feel ready for the second year, not to sound overconfident, but I do not feel it will be any more of a challenge from the first year," I say trying not to sound like a smug asshole. Though I'm confident in all of my abilities.
"I see…..I was just curious as I hear the second and third years' difficulty raises drastically compared to each previous year," Rumi's dad says to me with the same judgmental look.
"What kind of hero do you think you will become?" Rumi's mom asks me.
"Hopefully the kind that doesn't fail to save anyone in need and makes sure those who deserve what is to come to them….does," I say with conviction and my voice gets a little cold at the end as I still want to hurt those who hurt me. Her parent's looks falter for a second as they hear me and give me curious looks. Rumi gives me a reassuring smile as she knows what happened to me.
"I see...Well now that you and Rumi have been dating for some time now. You two also seem much closer than before...We just were wondering if we could ever meet your parents," Rumi's dad says to me while giving Rumi and me a knowing look that makes me wide-eyed, though Rumi seems confused at what he means. Though asking about my parents makes me wince slightly at the bad memories.
"DAD! I asked you not to talk about his parents!" Rumi says before I could respond annoyed at her father, who gives her a confused look. Seems Rumi didn't explain to them everything.
"It's fine Rumi... My parents were killed over two years ago now by a villain who tried to use us against a hero…..I was unable to save them, so I want to be a hero who won't fail anyone else," I say to her parents while my anger naturally flairs at the thought of All For One and my deeply hidden emotions stir a bit.
"I'm so sorry Akihiko, we didn't know," Rumi's mom says having lost her look and now one of genuine sorrow, while her father also seems to lose his judgemental look and gives me a sorrowful look. Neither has too much pity in their eyes, but mostly everyone will always have pity after hearing my story which does annoy me slightly.
"It's fine, I've slowly learned to live with what happened," I say as time has numbed me slightly, but I will always have the burning feeling of vengeance and anger if I think about it or All For One.
The rest of the night we avoided talking about my past, as both seemed sorry they brought up the subject. They mostly asked other questions about me and tried to get to know me more. After leaving I felt that they no longer held me in too much negative light, but excepted Rumi and my relationship.
The last few weeks of summer ended rather quickly and slightly boring, except for the nights Rumi would spend at my house. Like me, she has a large libido and after our first time together it became much more frequent. Though not as frequent as we'd both like since her parents knew that they couldn't keep her from sneaking out if it came to that, so instead limited her time 'sleeping over at a friend's house' to twice a week. She also told me her mom had a very awkward talk with her about sex and protection. Our only solution to having that time together was just doing it during the day too.
Then our second year started and once I arrived in the classroom, everyone from our first year was there. Though this time several couples have formed in the class it seems either over the summer or at the end of our first year. Now Rumi and I weren't the only ones in the class who were dating a classmate. Keigo still seemed to hate me for my relationship with Rumi as they were once childhood friends but he obviously liked her more than that. Rumi stopped talking to him after he confronted her over the summer about stopping dating me and going out with him. I was very tempted to beat the shit out of him, but Rumi and my friends stopped me, though now things between the two of us are very tense.
"Ok you jackals, settle down!" Gran Torino says after entering the classroom and seeing everyone talking with one another catching up with the people they didn't see over the summer.
"I know we've discussed this many times before, but from now one thing are going to get much more difficult and you may just lose some classmates along the way. So I expect everyone to give it their all and if that's not enough then until you can't give anymore," Gran Torino says after everyone quiets down and stares at us all with a serious face.
"In two months we are going to test you all for your provisional licenses. That means me and your other teachers, especially Sensei Night, have a lot to drill into you, to prepare you for that test. If you fail the test the first time, you can retake it a month later. But should you fail it a second time, then you will be removed from the hero program," Gran Torino continues after a few seconds of silence. There were some murmurs of nervousness after hearing his statement, but he puts his hand up to silence us.
"After you receive your provisional license you will study under a hero again, your choices will be limited to the same ones from the sports festival last year. This time however you will spend two months with the hero agency. During that time you will act with the hero and do as they say, but you will most likely face trouble this time as you have a temporary license to act," Gran Torino says once all the murmurs go quiet.
"After your time with them, they will send us scoring from your time with them. This will determine whether or not you can continue in the hero program. Should you get negative feedback or a bad score, we will conduct a small test here to see the accuracy of the feedback. If found to be true you will be removed from the course, if found untrue you will study under a new hero of our choice for two weeks," Gran Torino continues as everyone listens silently for the information.
"Now, the first week back is going to be a refresher and seeing if you all remember everything from last year. Then the following weeks will be like hell as we push you to your limits to prepare you for this provisional license. Any questions?" Gran Torino says to us finishing his information dump and seeing if anyone has questions.
Once everyone asks all the questions they could think of, the day started and like Gran Torino said it was a heavy refresher about what we learned last year. After the day ended we all headed home and Ryuko joined our little group now that she is officially dating Hizashi.
"Well this year should be fun," Hizashi says sarcastically and with a heavy sigh.
"We should be fine, we've all been training and...well other than Hizashi we all remember what we learned from last year," I say trying to reduce the nervousness of everyone and I smirk at Hizashi at the end. Even Ryuko laughs at my jab since she knows how difficult it is for Hizashi to remember anything that doesn't involve training or women.
"Ha, ha, very funny Akihiko," Hizashi says giving me an annoyed glare, though I was successful in lifting up everyone's mood.