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Tamaki Amajiki grew up in a luxurious tower. It was filled with toys and beautiful art and delicious food, more than he could ever eat. Every day, his father visited him, emerging from a patch of shadows in the living room. The tower had no doors or stairs.
“How are you, little sunshine?” Father asked, picking him up and spinning him around. Tamaki had turned ten years old recently, but his father seemed able to pick him up as easily as ever. Father had always been strong.
“I’m fine,” Tamaki replied, as he always did. He lived in a state of dull inertia. Since that never changed, he assumed that meant he was fine.
“I brought you handmade donuts, fresh from a bakery in Paris.” His father held out the bag.
“Thank you,” Tamaki said. A delicious smell wafted off the paper bag. A strange burning sensation rose up inside Tamaki, and he blurted out, “Could I go to Paris someday?”
The abrupt silence from his father filled the room.
Tamaki cringed. “Or perhaps maybe just outside? Even for a short walk?” he whispered. Tamaki’s tower had a balcony where he could take in sunshine and fresh air. Sometimes he sat out there and looked at the treetops below. He wondered what it would be like to touch a tree. They looked rougher than the houseplants he tended in his room. He wanted to try walking on dirt instead of carpet. He wanted to feel the rain on his whole body, instead of just the hand he stuck out from under the roof.
Father sighed. “Little sunshine, we’ve talked about this.” He set Tamaki down and bent over, placing broad hands on his son’s scrawny shoulders.
“Yes, Father,” Tamaki mumbled, looking at the ground.
Father said, “I love you dearly, little sunshine. But you’re too weak to go outside. You only have one ability, and it’s what, having a big appetite?”
“It’s called Manifest,” Tamaki whispered. He thought of his father’s hundreds of different powers. Of course Tamaki looked weak and insignificant in comparison.
“Speak up. How can you expect to survive outside this tower if you can’t even talk properly?”
“M-my ability is Manifest. It can do a lot of things…” Tamaki had prepared a list to convince his father, but his mind was blanking. His voice faded away. He hung his head.
Father sighed. “Just look at you. You’re weak, you’re shy, you can barely even speak. You’re an absolute mess.” He tilted up Tamaki’s chin. “I don’t know how you’d survive without me.”
Shame rose up in Tamaki. He tried again. “I-I could manifest wings so I could fly away from danger.”
“Everyone else has dozens of abilities, if not a few hundred like me. If you went outside with your one power, you’d be treated as a freak. People would laugh and throw stones at you. They might even kill you.”
“They’d kill me just for only having one power?” Tears fell down Tamaki’s cheeks.
His father wiped them away. “People in the outside world are cruel. That’s why I keep you here, to protect you. Any other parent would have killed you at birth for being so weak, but I love you far too much.”
“Thank you, Father. I love you too,” Tamaki mumbled. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I forgive you.” Father patted his head. “I know you’re not very smart, so I’ll keep reminding you as many times as it takes.”
For some reason, the next day, Father brought roasted goose. Tamaki sprouted wings after eating it. An odd impulse led him to go outside to the balcony. Flapping his wings, he thought about how easy it would be to fly down and touch a tree. Surely Father would never know.
Tamaki climbed over the railing and jumped.
When he dropped from the sky, for a moment he feared he’d made a mistake. He flapped rapidly, slowing his descent. He finally stopped hovering few feet from the ground. Slowly, Tamaki set a foot down.
He was standing on green spiky stuff. The books called it grass. Tamaki reached down to touch it. It didn’t feel as sharp as it looked. Instead, it bent easily under his fingers. He smiled.
Something crawled on a blade of grass. A red bug with spots. A ladybug! Tamaki’s hands hovered. He wanted to touch it, but feared hurting something so small. The ladybug flew away.
A loud footstep made Tamaki jump.
Looking up, he saw a burly man approaching. Tamaki edged away. His back hit the tower.
The bearded man scowled. “Who are you? Some kind of freak? Your wings are ugly.”
Tamaki stammered, “Oh, uh, they’ll go away after I digest the goose.”
“What kind of freakish power is that?” The man laughed.
“I’ll go now,” Tamaki whispered.
“No, you won’t.” The man kicked Tamaki in the side.
He fell over, gasping. No one had ever hurt him before. His father always hugged him gently.
The giant man loomed over him. His fists turned into rocks. He said, “I’ll show you how we treat weaklings.” He pummeled Tamaki.
A rib cracked. Tamaki screamed and howled in pain. The blows kept coming, so fast he couldn’t even curl up and protect himself. He sobbed.
“Get away from my son!” Father charged forward, springs exploding from his hands and knocking the man backward. Then he scooped Tamaki up.
“Father…” Tamaki whispered, sobbing and clutching at his shirt.
“There, there, little sunshine. I’ll take you home.” Father teleported them back into the tower.
In his room, Father gently covered his bruises with ointment, bandaged his ribs, and tucked him into bed. He said, “Never do that again, little sunshine. You could have died. I was terrified for you.”
Tamaki sniffled. “I’m sorry, Father. You were right. The outside world is too scary.” He felt so ashamed of himself. He’d disobeyed his father. But instead of punishing him, Father was being nice to him.
Father ruffled his hair. “Have you learned your lesson?”
“Yes, Father. I’ll never disobey you again. I promise.”
After leaving the tower, All for One paid his servant for acting the part of the bully. Then he took back the stone fists quirk and gave the man the fire ability he’d always wanted.
All for One added a net over the balcony to prevent further flying attempts. His point had been made.
Five years later, Tamaki had grown taller and trained his ability even more, but according to Father, he was as weak as ever.
For his fifteenth birthday, Tamaki had begged his father to walk outside with him, since it was too dangerous for him to go alone. But Father had gotten very angry. He said that it was a huge burden to visit Tamaki every day. He had important business to take care of, business that paid for the luxuries of the tower. Tamaki was ungrateful for even asking.
Ever since then, for the last week, Father had left Tamaki alone in the tower. Tamaki seeped in misery, knowing he was being punished and feeling like he deserved it. If only he’d never made such a foolish request.
“Hello? Is anyone here? I saw the balcony window was open.”
Tamaki flinched. It was a stranger’s voice. Coming from outside! What if someone had come here to hurt Tamaki or rob the tower? Tamaki backed away from the balcony.
“I heard noise. Are you all right? I can’t help noticing that this tower has no doors. Frankly, that concerns me. At a minimum, it must be a fire hazard. I’m a hero. I can help you.”
Tamaki didn’t trust this claim for one minute. Father had always told him that people who claimed to be heroes and offered to help him were all a bunch of liars. They would murder him if he listened to them and left the safety of the tower. He wished his father was here. Father would know what to do.
“Since you aren’t replying, I’m afraid you might be injured or restrained. I’m coming up, okay? I don’t mean to intrude, but I need to check if you’re all right.”
But there was no way into the tower. Surely this lying stranger would soon leave. Tamaki grabbed a frying pan as a weapon just in case. Then he huddled in the corner, staring at the window.
A shape exploded out of the tower floor. It formed into a blond, muscular boy with a brilliant smile. He was completely nude. Tamaki screamed and covered his eyes.
“Sorry! I still haven’t gotten the hang of clothing. My name is Mirio Toogata, and I’d like to be your friend.”
Tamaki immediately hit him with the frying pan.
While the blond boy reeled, Tamaki grabbed his wrists and used the bedsheets to tie his hands to the bedpost. He draped a comforter over the naughty bits, careful not to look at them. Then Tamaki fled to the corner of the room and held his frying pan out in front of him with a tight grip. Who knew what other strange powers this Mirio might demonstrate? He looked fierce. He probably had hundreds of powers just like Father. Sweat dripped down Tamaki’s hand onto the plastic handle.
Father had always insisted that the pretend heroes would either kill Tamaki or try to get into his pants. Tamaki had never understood what this meant before. But now, looking at the nude boy, Tamaki realized that heroes would want to steal his pants because they didn’t have any of their own.
Mirio groaned and opened his eyes. It looked like Tamaki hadn’t hit him hard enough to knock him fully unconscious. (Tamaki hadn’t wanted to seriously hurt him. Just the thought of hurting anyone made his stomach sick.) Mirio looked around the room. His gaze fastened on Tamaki, huddled in the corner. He smiled in that same blindly brilliant way. “Hi! I’m sorry I scared you! The clothing thing was an accident.”
Tamaki swallowed. “You’re not angry that I hit you?” The frying pan wavered.
Mirio laughed. “I understand. I must have seemed like a pervert, popping out of nowhere in the nude. I’m sorry about that! I promise, I’m a hero, not a flasher.”
Tamaki did not see any reason why this strange boy couldn’t be both. He asked, “Aren’t you scared of me?” If Tamaki had been tied up by a stranger, he’d probably be in hysterics by now.
“No, because I can tell that you’re a good person.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, you should be scared.” Tamaki scowled with attempted ferociousness. (He suspected he probably looked constipated.) “I have no less than one hundred and twenty-one powers! All of them terrifying and ferocious!”
Mirio’s eyebrow quirked. “That seems unlikely.”
Tamaki’s shoulders slumped. The frying pan sagged to the floor. “How did you know?”
Mirio chuckled. “Because everyone only has one quirk.”
“That’s not true. My father has too many abilities to count them all.”
“Oh, really? So that’s who…” Mirio looked around the tower room with no doors. His face hardened. Anger glinted in his eyes like the first sign of a storm in a blue sky. Tamaki did not think the anger was directed at himself, but it still made him uneasy. Especially because he didn’t understand what was going on.
Trying to regain control of the situation, Tamaki demanded, “Why did you come here?” He waved the frying pan. “Are you a thief?” For the first time, it occurred to Tamaki that maybe this boy was naked because he was poor. His heart wavered. “I could let you have some of my clothes. And a few other items from the room.” He had more than enough to share. Father was always bringing useless presents that Tamaki didn’t particularly care about. “Do you want the cat statue on my end table? It’s solid gold.”
“No, no, I didn’t come here to rob you, I promise.” Mirio’s cheerful smile returned. “I’m a hero. I was chasing a story about a boy imprisoned in a tower. I thought it might be a legend, but you look very real. What’s your name?”
Tamaki avoided the question. “I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone like that. Not that I ever leave this tower.” As soon as he said this, he realized what the boy had meant. “I’m not a prisoner. Father keeps me here to protect me. I’m very weak and useless. I’ve only got one ability and everyone else has dozens of them.”
“I don’t think that you’re weak. You easily subdued an intruder to your tower.” Mirio jerked his chin at his tied-up hands. “I’m known as one of the top fighters at my school, but you still took me down. I think you’re very brave.”
Tamaki flushed. He mumbled, “Are you praising me for hitting you with a frying pan? You’re a weirdo.”
“It was a very skillful blow,” Mirio said brightly. “The outside world isn’t as scary as you think. It’s full of nice people, interesting quirks, and good food.”
“Food?” Tamaki perked up.
“U.A. is holding its Sports Festival tomorrow, and I’m taking part. My favorite takoyaki seller will be setting up a stand.”
“What’s takoyaki?”
“Bits of octopus rolled up in warm balls of dough.” Mirio sighed. “There are seaweed flakes and sauce on top. It’s best when it’s warm, fresh from the grill.”
Tamaki wiped a bit of drool off his mouth. His father had always refused to let him have street food, claiming it was too greasy and unhealthy. But Father considered everything to be dangerous.
Mirio smiled. “Would you like to come to the Sports Festival? I’ll give you a ticket and buy you all the takoyaki you can eat. It will be my apology for scaring you.”
Tamaki swallowed. He wanted the takoyaki so badly he could nearly taste it. But his father would be furious. He remembered last time. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ll protect you, I promise.”
“I’m weak and useless. I’ll be a burden on you.”
“I don’t think you’re weak, but I’ll definitely save you if you need me to. I give you my word as Lemillion, the hero who’s going to save a million people in the future.”
This sounded very impressive. Father didn’t like heroes. He thought they were all fake. But Father also thought that every single person outside the tower would want to kill his son, which even a shut-in like Tamaki thought seemed very paranoid. Father had ranted at great lengths about the perils of spiky-haired heroes in particular. But Mirio had straight hair, so maybe he’d be all right. Tamaki wet his dry lips. “Will you get me back home to the tower before Father notices that I’m gone?”
Mirio said, “I’ll take you back home after the Festival, if you want me to.”
A mad, rebellious impulse seized Tamaki. He remembered all his dreams to see the world outside the tower. It was risky and scary. But if he didn’t take this chance, who knew if he’d ever get another one? “Deal.”
Tamaki moved to release Mirio from his bonds, but Mirio was faster, slipping his wrists straight through them. (Tamaki flushed, because of course he could do that.) The comforter slipped. Mirio grabbed it and held it to his waist. “I think I’ll take you up on the offer of clothes. I’ll treat you to more festival food in exchange.”
“O-of course,” Tamaki said, going to his wardrobe to retrieve a T-shirt and pants.
“Thank you! You’re too kind.” Mirio beamed, teeth gleaming. He held out his hand. “I’d like to be friends. What’s your name?”
Slowly, Tamaki reached out. “I’m Tamaki.”
OMAKE TIME!
Omake: Incorrect Quotes, the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Edition
All for One: My little sunshine, if any pest ever appears claiming to be a hero who wants to rescue you, then you must call me at once. You’re in grave peril.
Tamaki: (Gazing at Mirio) Can’t I face a little of the peril?
All for One: No, it’s too perilous. Hey! Get back here!
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Omake: The Meme
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All for One: No fear.
Tamaki: Dad, this is Mirio. He’s my boyfriend now.
All for One: One fear.