Chapter Text
Thunder sounds and echoes around the room. "Nakamura, you've got to keep your emotions in check."
Aizawa-sensei is sitting behind his desk, I'm standing in front of it. Since I flooded Ground Gama he decided he wanted to talk with me. I guess this is the talk.
"Are you listening to me?" It's a very one-sided talk. I don't care to respond to him. He doesn't understand what I have to deal with and because of that, I don't care what he thinks or what he tells me to do.
I grumble incoherently and he does the same. "Alright, look, I don't have time for this. Get yourself together or get out of this school. Hero work is not meant for people who can't control themselves."
Lightning races around the room and a thunderclap joins it, louder than the last. I turn on my heel sharply and my ponytail swings behind my head as I wrench open the door. Right before I slam the obnoxiously tall door shut, a downpour begins in his room.
I run through the hallway as tears stream down my face and a cloud fills the hallway behind me, still raining as puddles instantly gather on the tile floor.
“Nakamura-san!” Iida-san yelps with surprise as I pass him, almost hitting him with my shoulder. I don’t stop or apologize.
I burst through the exit door and sprint away from the Yuuei as fast as I can. Two minutes later I make it to the forest and I don’t slow down. If anything, I speed up, dodging the trees as best as I can. The twigs and tall grass cut across my legs, arms, and face. I don’t care. I don’t stop.
I run. I run.
When I appear on the other side of the forest, it’s sudden. My shoes go from dirt to sidewalk and I run across the street.
The sky is cloudy.
I keep running.
I hate this. I hate this.
I keep running.
The clouds only follow, cold rain landing around me and spattering the pavement, wetting my hair.
I can’t get away.
I can’t keep running.
I can’t breathe.
When I stop it’s because I run headlong into someone, knocking me off my feet, and fall to the ground. Instinctively, I go into a roll to protect myself as I tumble off the sidewalk.
I stand back up shakily, my limbs shuddering from over-exertion, and I try to focus my eyes on the man I ran into. “I’m sor-”
All of a sudden I feel a hand on my arm and I’m yanked off the road so quickly that I’d swear it was a magic trick. One second: looking from the road to the storefronts. Next second: standing close to the brick buildings and looking toward the road where a car speeds recklessly across where I just was.
The hand lets go immediately while my brain processes what just happened. Once I do, I say, “Thank you.”
The man’s quiet for a moment. He has a tangled mess of brown hair and wide brown eyes. He’s quite tall and looks thoughtful, like he’s trying to remember something.
“Aren’t you a hero student?” He asks randomly instead of accepting the thanks.
“Oh. Um, yes I am.” I’m always forgetting that a lot of people know who I am. I’m just a first year student but my class has gotten a lot of media attention so we’re all well known. “Nakamura Enzeru.”
“Shouldn’t you have been watching where you were running, Nakamura?” His eyebrows are raised as if he’s making a joke, but I don’t see what’s particularly funny here.
I hum a bit angrily, agreeing with him but barely. “Yeah, well I was kind of preoccupied. You probably should have been watching for runners anyway.”
“Runners. Not lunatic girls sprinting down the road.”
I let out a puff of a laugh and roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
“Ah, the rain stopped.” He says quietly, looking upward. I look with him, even though I already knew that it had before he said anything. I wonder briefly whether or not he knows that it was raining because of me, but he answers that question quickly.
“Maybe you shouldn’t give away your emotions quite so easily.” I clench my jaw and look away from him, glaring at the building next to us. “Any villain might spot a weakness if you’re easy to read.”
“Well I haven’t found any classes on how to control my emotions,” I snap at him. “So unless you have an actual suggestion rather than a complaint, I don’t care to hear it.”
“Understandable. I don’t know what it’s like to have a quirk that gives it away, only a face with expressions and that’s difficult enough to master.” He says, nodding as if he agrees with me.
Wait. He does agree with me. Take that, Aizawa-sensei! I’m not incapable or naive, it’s just different for me. I smile a little and the sun seems to be shining brighter. “What’s your name, anyway?”
He gives a small smile back. “Atsuhiro Sako, it’s a pleasure.”
He talks so fancy, why? “I’m supposed to say that the pleasure’s all mine, right?”
His smile tilts to the side, like he finds this whole conversation funny. “Formally, yes.”
“Well, abandoning the politeness of it, the pleasure’s all mine, Atsuhiro-san.” I say. “I mean, I guess that’s pretty obvious.” I gesture to the sky, now clear.
“I never expected to meet a Yuuei student this way.” He tells me. “I’ll see you another time, Nakamura.”
“You think?” I ask, a little confused by the way he said that.
“I won’t be surprised.” He says. “Watch yourself, Nakamura.”
I shrug as I begin to leave. “It was good to meet you, Atsuhiro-san!” As I turn around I hear him mutter, “How ironic,” under his breath. He was a little strange to be honest, but I’m glad I met him. Otherwise it might still be raining.