Chapter 18 Why am I on Fire? by Yojimbra

Discovering Rei's ring size was a complicated quest that involved making a mold of one of her rings while she was in the bath and then going to the ring store and finding out that they were basically going to resize it later after I already gave Rei the ring, especially because it was a wedding ring, but I still wanted her to have something to wear.

Especially because she didn't actually have a wedding ring.

And, if there was something that Rei deserved, it was a goddamn wedding ring.

I checked the box one last time, wondering where exactly I could smuggle it so that Rei wouldn't suspect anything. I wanted to surprise her with this, which was normally a terrible idea for asking someone to marry you, but I think I was allowed to ask my own wife to marry me. Was that allowed? I mean, legally it wouldn't make any sense to marry someone twice, but like what about just like romantically or something like that?

I'd call it super marriage.

Except not.

But really, this was to make things official between me and Rei. Because technically I wasn't the one that married her.

The ring inside the box wasn't the most ornate thing in the world, instead it was rather simple: a gold and white band that held a shining diamond. It was simple and beautiful, just like Rei.

"Alright, well, Fuyumi's all packed and Touya is currently running around in his underwear for—"

Box closed, in pocket, secret safe.

I turned quickly and tried not to act completely suspicious. Which naturally meant that Rei was looking at me like I was smuggling a turkey in my shirt. Crap! What was I going to do if she found out now? Uhh, lie? A lot.

I could lie and say it was from All Might. But who was All Might going to marry? Did he have any female friends? Wait, she'd probably tease me about All Might being my lover. Again. I'd like to avoid that if at all possible.

"You know you're terrible at not acting suspicious, right?" Rei smirked as she walked around our bed and towards the dresser that contained most of my clothes. The suitcases for our trip to I-Island were in the process of being packed with a few clothes folded on the bed. She stepped in front of me, hands on her hips and a lovely smile on her face as she raised a single eyebrow up at me. "Well, what do you have there."

"Uhh, candy." I muttered, trying to make it sound like I had some in my mouth.

Rei gave a light laugh and opened another drawer of mine and pulled out the pack of gummy worms I kept next to my socks. "I know where you keep your stash, Enji, so what's going on? Not something I have to worry about, right?"

Well.

So much for wanting to surprise her. Still considering how I had been planning this for a few months now I'm surprised I made it this far.

Do I just show her the box? Do I just ask her to wait? Do I say it's a surprise?

I stared at her for a few seconds and then smiled. I pulled the box out from behind my back.

Rei gasped, both hands going over her mouth as she looked at the box for a few seconds. Her smile was so wide she could barely contain it. Tears welled in her eyes as her ears turned red. She looked so cute, so adorable; my heart was pounding in my chest as I slowly began to kneel down in front of her. A proposal in our bedroom, in our house, where our two children could come running in at any time wasn't ideal, but, then again, it felt somewhat fitting.

"Rei," I said slowly as I grabbed the box with both hands. "Will—"

"Wait," she blurted out, hands still covering her mouth as she spun in place, her feet tapping against the ground like an excited puppy eager to play. She stopped, still facing away from me, and shook her hands to ease her nerves. She took a deep breath and straightened her back. "You know we're already married right?"

"Yeah," I looked at the ring box. "But I wasn't the one to propose, not really, and besides, we didn't even have a ceremony, so, I figured we could renew our vows. For the first time, or, something."

Rei laughed and shook her head. "I'm going to say yes you know."

"I was hoping so."

"And, did you have some kind of a plan?"

I nodded again, even though her back was towards me. "Yeah, I had a good idea of—"

She folded her hands behind her back. "Then I'll wait. I want to see what you have planned."

"Okay." I put the box back into my pocket and stood to hug Rei from behind. "I love you, Rei."

She kissed my knuckle and let me embrace her for a moment. "I love you too Enji. With all my heart." We continued this small happy moment for what felt like an hour before Rei tapped on my arm to release her. "Alright big guy, we need to finish packing so we can get the kids to my parents."

"Right." I kissed her on the top of her head one last time before letting her go. "I'm even more excited about this now."

"A whole week without kids?" Rei smiled as she headed out of the room, her silver eyes twinkling at me. "Of course you'd look forward to it, Mr. Handsy."

"Like you're one to talk."

She stuck her tongue out and headed out into the wilderness of our home again.

XXXX

Kids deposited at the bank of Grandpa and Grandma.

Nap.

Rush to the airport ever so slightly late because we took a bit more time than we should have in the shower. Sharing a shower saved neither water nor time.

Meeting up with All Might.

Boarding our private charter plane.

Take off.

Being in a plane was normally quite stressful. At least, it was for me back in my old life, and that was mostly because of the amount of people I would be sitting so close to. However, my current fear came from the announcement that the cabin was pressurized. I knew enough science to know that pressure plus man known to set self on fire equals bad.

But I was fine. I was totally fine. I just needed to not set myself on fire.

But what if I did?

Dammit! Bad brain. Think about wholesome things.

Think about the fact that after the end of this trip Rei would officially be married to me. Well, we'd be engaged while married, which was probably the opposite of how things were supposed to go down. Wait, that was going to make me nervous. Dammit. She already said she'd say yes and—

I felt Rei's hand tap my shoulder followed by a light fizzle from our quirks interacting.

She looked up from her Switch and smiled at me. I might have gotten Rei ever so slightly very addicted to Animal Crossing. "Try not to make us explode, even if it is cute that you're afraid of flying."

"I'm not afraid of flying." I pouted, crossing my arms and glancing down at her. "I'm just nervous about being in a pressurized tube."

"Same thing." Rei shrugged and patted on my arm some more. Her smile seemed even brighter than normal. "Though, maybe you should be less nervous and more excited. I know I am."

Her wink could kill a man.

All Might's laughter reminded me that our private flight wasn't all that private. "You two are adorable."

"Oh?" Rei looked up from her switch once again, hand going on her cheek and I could all but hear the Ara Ara~ in her voice. "And when's it your turn to be adorable, All Might? I've seen how you act around children."

And just like that All Might went from number one hero to a blushing schoolboy being cowed by a woman a decade younger than him. All Might brought up his hand and tried to wave the notion away. "This and that are entirely different."

Rei just chuckled again. "Sure are Toshi, sure are."

I pointed towards her while looking at All Might. "I'm on her side. I get that you want to devote your life to being All Might, but, the times I see you smile the most are when you're not All Might."

All Might, number one hero, pouted like a child being told he had to eat his veggies. "I'll…" He paused and sighed. "I'm not looking for anyone right now."

That was shorthand for him being afraid to fall in love and have All for One use that love against him. In many ways I understood that, in others I couldn't. I guess if I wanted to make sure that All Might had a happy life, we'd need to take care of AfO. But finding the boogeyman required looking under a lot of beds.

Still, there was nothing to do for now.

I leaned back into my seat and glanced out the window. The sky over the pacific ocean was dotted with fluffy white clouds that looked like islands in the infinite blue that surrounded us.

Another hour or two and we'd be on I-Island.

When I saw the Island for the first time, I felt my mouth drop. For the most part, Japan was in line with the world I was used to. Sure, some gadgets were extra fancy and my phone was pretty advanced, but nothing could prepare me for the sight of an artificial island the size and scale of I-Island.

It was huge, grandiose, and made me question my depth perception. I had so many questions. How much did it cost to make? Why was it so large? How did they power it? Why not build something in space? For something that size it'd probably be easier to build a moon base than a floating island. But then they wouldn't be able to have the expo event and shipping goods might be more expensive. But, it was so big! Why? Why not just take an existing island and convert that into I-Island?

The amazement didn't even subside once Rei and I exited the plane and could see the full size of the massive walls that surrounded the island. The elevator to the city proper had both of us left in shock as we just kind of flailed our arms a bit at every sight.

But that wasn't all. Once we were past security and firmly inside the city, Rei and I just stared in awe at the spectacle of it all. The city was massive, clean, elegant, and just felt so futuristic and impressive that I felt like I was in Star Wars or some other high-tech game. It just felt like for the first time I was in the future.

"Yeah, that's most people's first reaction." A voice called over to our group and I saw a strangely familiar man, but it was the woman to his left that I recognized. Glasses, long blonde hair, pretty blue eyes. It was Melissa Shield, or rather, her mother. "Toshi! It's been far too long!"

"David!" All Might dropped his luggage and pulled the scrawny man into a great big power hug. "I've missed you my friend!" The hug was over in an instant and All Might looked towards the woman. "And I take it this woman must be Sarah! It's a pleasure to finally meet you!"

All Might went for a hug but the woman held up her hand. "Normally, I'd be all for a hug from All Might, but," she gestured towards the large lump on her stomach and smiled.

All Might paused.

So this was Melissa's mother? Sarah Shield. She had a kind aura about her. I wonder what happened to her? My usual explanation of the author being lazy wouldn't really apply here, but I hoped she would end up being okay. And hopefully David won't ever need to make his quirk enhancing device. What would happen if I used that? Could I set the atmosphere on fire?

Not that I'd want to.

"David!" All Might let out another cry and hug tackled his friend, swirling David around with enough force that his glasses went flying. My years as a glasses-wearing teen blended with my current heroic reflexes and I dove to catch them. "Why didn't you tell me you were expecting! Oh my congratulations my friend!"

I laughed and watched as Rei stepped towards Sarah. "Hello, I'm Rei Todoroki, Endeavour's wife."

"Oh, hello," Sarah gasped and then shook Rei's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, and welcome to I-Island." Sarah's smile vanished and she let out an exasperated sigh. "You have no idea how happy I am you're here, especially since you're a mother as well. Right?"

"That's right, me and Enji have two kids back home, Touya and Fuyumi."

"Oh my what lovely names!"

"Thank you, how far along are you?"

"Getting close to seven months! My due date is September 29th!"

I watched as my wife had girl talk with Sarah, and All Might had bro talk with David. And then I looked at the glasses in my hands.

Yeah, this felt right.