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A twig snapped under Fuyumi's shoe as she walked deeper into the forest to a clearing she and Touya had found together in the past.
The sun shone down on her, but the heat didn't bother Fuyumi due to her ice Quirk. If Touya were with her, though, Fuyumi was sure he would be complaining nonstop. He had somehow come down with a fever that day and so couldn't go out with her. Fuyumi had a nagging feeling that he must have been training his Quirk on his own, especially since she had caught sight of bandages wrapped around his throat when she went to his room this morning. She hadn't said anything, afraid that Touya might give her the cold shoulder, but she stayed worried nonetheless.
She picked different flowers on her way to the hideout, as Touya and she had decided to call it, humming a song under her breath.
By the time Fuyumi reached the bushes at the hideout, she had a rather big pile of different flowers in her hand, excited to try out what had come to her mind.
When she pushed her way through the small way between the bushes, however, she was so surprised to see another figure there that she came to a sudden halt.
A man was sitting on a lone rock and if Fuyumi wanted to make a guess, he seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him if the way his eyes slightly went wide was anything to go by. It might have been her imagination, but Fuyumi thought she saw the man flinching after a few seconds.
Fuyumi gulped, unsure of what to say or do as they stared at each other in silence. She knew she should be feeling wary of him, if not for the fact that he was a total stranger, then for the fact that he was a weird stranger; he was wearing all black with his hood pulled up and a black face mask in the middle of summer. Fuyumi could only see the man's eyes and some strands of his black hair that fell to his forehead.
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them. The man didn't say or do anything and Fuyumi wondered if she should just leave. She wished Touya was there with her; he was braver than her and would probably chase the man out of their hideout.
"Um," the word left her mouth without her intending to talk. Her voice almost made her jump. She gripped the flowers harder and pointed to somewhere away from the man. "I'll just… sit there."
Fuyumi didn't mean to say those words, and she wondered if it would be strange of her to just turn around and run away when the man gave her a slight shrug and angled his body away from her in silence.
Hesitantly, Fuyumi walked to a spot away from the man and sat down on the grass. The leaves rustling in the light breeze was the only sound between them. Fuyumi slowly relaxed, tension bleeding away from her shoulders. She figured if the man suddenly attacked her, she could just freeze his feet in ice before escaping. She had done that before although it was an accident. Touya wasn't pleased at all to have his legs trapped in ice and Fuyumi couldn't figure out what to do until their mother came to the garden to see what all the fuss was about.
Fuyumi put the flowers she had picked on the ground in front of her, choosing the prettier ones and putting them aside.
She had decided to ignore the man, but a part of her was somewhat curious about him, so she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was holding his head in his hands and muttering something. The gesture made him seem lost and Fuyumi felt a little bad for him. He could be lost for all she knew; as far as she knew, not so many people came to this part of the forest and she hadn't come across anyone in this clearing until before today.
She busied herself with her flowers, but the man stayed in the same position as before, and, eventually, Fuyumi decided to break the silence between them.
"Are you lost?"
The man didn't react at first for several moments. Fuyumi was wondering if the man was ignoring her on purpose or if he hadn't heard her when he lifted his head and looked at her. "What."
"You don't seem to be from around here," Fuyumi explained before lifting her finger and pointing somewhere behind the man. "There's a road there. If you take it, it'll lead you out of the forest and down the hill."
Without seeing the rest of his face, Fuyumi couldn't confidently judge what he might be thinking, but the man's gaze seemed to turn slightly amused before he shook his head. "Didn't your parents tell you not to talk to strangers?"
"Well," Fuyumi said sheepishly. "My mom did, but she also says we should help people if they need it and I thought you might need some help," her voice turned quiet at the end and she felt very awkward. She wished she had stayed quiet.
"Huh," The man said. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he just shook his head again. "I'm not lost," he kicked at the ground. "I'm just where I'm not supposed to be."
"But doesn't that mean being lost?" Fuyumi tilted her head, puzzled.
"That means just bad luck in my case."
Fuyumi decided to not ask him more questions about it. The man was mysterious and his words were confusing. She would rather listen to Touya's ramblings about his favorite show instead of trying to decipher what the man said.
Fuyumi picked up the flowers again, holding them by their stems and trying to do what the woman on TV was doing with the flowers the other day. She tried to braid their stems together but one or two kept coming loose. By the fourth time that she failed, there were frustrated tears in her eyes. She sniffed, rubbing at her eyes and it must have caught the man's attention because he looked over at her and watched as she failed to braid the stems once again.
He spoke up after a while. "Are you trying to strangle those poor flowers?"
"No," Fuyumi said in a tired voice, finally giving up and throwing the flowers on the ground. "I want to make a flower crown, but I can't! It seemed easy enough on TV," she muttered the last part, glaring down at the flowers as if the whole thing was their fault.
Fuyumi didn't expect a reply from the man and thought he would go back to minding his own business, but his next words caught her by surprise.
"I can teach you if you want."
Lifting her head, Fuyumi met the man's gaze, skeptical. "Do you really know how to make a flower crown?"
"I haven't made one in a long time, but I know how it's done. It's like braiding hair."
That was what the woman on TV had also said, but Fuyumi still wasn't sure if the man was telling the truth. She glanced down at the flowers and then up at the man before nodding. She knew she shouldn't trust strangers, but there was something about the man that was starting to sound familiar to her in a way.
The man slowly rose to his feet before walking towards her with slow, short steps as if to not scare her. He sat down next to her and Fuyumi noticed the piercings and the strange skin beneath his eyes. She politely looked away before looking too closely at his face.
"Well," the man pointed to the flowers. "First step is to choose the flowers with the longest stems."
He picked three flowers, showing Fuyumi how she should hold and braid them before adding another one to the bunch and braiding its stem with them. He continued this until he made a chain then braided the ends together to turn it into a crown.
Despite her initial doubt, Fuyumi was impressed. She would have never guessed the man knew anything about flower crowns if he hadn't said anything himself. He dismantled the one he just made, then gestured at her to make a flower crown on her own.
Fuyumi beamed brightly a few minutes later when she was holding her flower crown. Carefully, she put it atop her head. "Thank you! How did you know how to make one of these?" She asked curiously.
The man replied after a moment too long. His voice was slow and confused as if he had just realized something. "My sister taught me."
Fuyumi perked up at the answer. "Oh! You have a sister?"
She instantly realized the question must be touchy for the man because his body tensed and he looked away from her, glaring at a spot. Fuyumi didn't want to upset him, so she hurried to speak. "I mean-- I have no sisters. Just two brothers. My older brother and I come here to play sometimes, but my younger brother is still too young. He's just learned to walk."
The man stayed silent and scooted over from her slightly, but Fuyumi didn't want to deal with the silence. She looked down at her hands in her lap. A question came to her mind.
"Do you dislike your sister?"
Fuyumi wasn't surprised when the man still said nothing. She let the silence stretch between them for a few moments, twirling a lone flower between her fingers before speaking up.
"Sometimes I think my brother doesn't like me," her voice came out quiet and more vulnerable than she wanted. Tears gathered in her eyes, but Fuyumi blinked them back, refusing to cry.
The man shifted in his place. "You just said you guys came here to play though."
"I did," Fuyumi quietly admitted. "But we used to come here more, or even spend more time together. Lately, he's mostly by himself and," Fuyumi hesitated for a moment. "And kinda mean," she whispered. "I know he feels bad, but when I try to talk to him about what bothers him, he just ignores me." Then, she added, "he's not like that all the time, but it still hurts."
Fuyumi didn't mean to pour her heart out to a total stranger. She hadn't even said those things to anyone else, just tucked them all away somewhere in her chest. Her mother, these days, was too busy taking care of Natsuo and her father... well. Fuyumi didn't want to make Touya go into a long sulk again, so she didn't bring it up with him either.
The man's voice interrupted her train of thought. "Sounds like your brother is an asshole."
At first, Fuyumi was shocked that the man just used a curse word before she remembered that he was an adult. Then, she felt offended on behalf of her brother. "Don't talk about him like that! You 're an asshole!" Fuyumi hadn't used a word like that until then. Her voice slightly wavered and she just felt annoyed when the man simply threw his head back and laughed.
She didn't say anything when the man stopped laughing. They both sat in silence once again and Fuyumi noticed it was starting to get dark. Before she could get up and leave, something caught the light from the corner of her eye and she glanced down. Fuyumi had noticed the strange skin and piercings on the back of the man's hand, just like those beneath his eyes, when he was teaching her how to make a flower crown, but Fuyumi didn't think much of it back then.
Looking at them closely now, she noticed the strange skin actually seemed to be scarred. Maybe it was because of his Quirk? Or an accident? Could it be burn scars? Worry settled deep in her at that thought.
The man must have noticed that she was staring because he suddenly shoved his hand in his jacket's pocket and spoke before Fuyumi could. "It's not as bad as it looks," he said.
"But --"
Fuyumi was cut off by a strange light appearing around the man's figure, slowly covering him. She jumped back as the man got up, watching in mild horror as the light around him grew stronger.
"About damn time," the man muttered.
Fuyumi couldn't understand what was going on and didn't know why the man wasn't scared. She scrambled to her feet but didn't dare go after him, so she just called out to the man. "Hey, you -- are you okay? What's going on?"
The man had started to go deeper into the forest, but he stopped and looked back at her.
It was only then that Fuyumi noticed the man's eyes were the same shade of blue as hers.
"I'll be fine," the man glanced up at the sky. "It's getting late. You should go back home, 'Yumi."
Then he walked away.
Fuyumi went after him a minute or two later to tell him he should've gone the other way, but the man was already gone.
On her way home, Fuyumi picked up more flowers. Some for her mother, and some for Touya. Her fingers brushed against the red petals of a flower and then something dawned on her: Fuyumi didn't say her name to the stranger, yet he called her by the same nickname that Touya did.
After she got home and gave her mother her flowers, Fuyumi grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and put the flowers in it before going to Touya's room.
Touya was sitting at his desk, his face was still slightly red, but he seemed better.
"I brought you flowers!" Fuyumi exclaimed, putting the glass on Touya's desk next to his book.
Touya stared at the flowers. "Why did you bother? They're going to wilt in a day or two."
Fuyumi's shoulders dropped and she crossed her arms over her chest, slightly upset. "You could've said nothing at all, you know."
Touya glanced over at her, but Fuyumi refused to meet his gaze. "Hey, I didn't mean it like that," he reached out a hand to ruffle her hair but stopped when he noticed the flower crown. "You finally learned to make one of those?"
Fuyumi couldn't stay upset at anyone for a long time, so she sighed and reached up to touch her flower crown lightly with a smile. "I did. A stranger taught me."
"A stranger?" Touya asked.
"There was a man at our hideout when I went there today," Fuyumi replied. "I haven't seen him before. I think he was lost."
Touya snorted. "What a loser."
Fuyumi rolled her eyes at Touya before remembering something. "By the way, he knew the nickname you've given me. He called me 'Yumi' before he left. Isn't that strange?"
Touya frowned. "That's creepy. How did he know that? Didn't he tell you his name?"
"He didn't talk much about himself… just said that he has a sister." Fuyumi didn't mention to Touya that the man called him an asshole. Touya was better off not knowing that.
"Whatever," Touya said, lifting his hand and letting red flames appear around his fingers. "I'll come with you tomorrow to kick his ass," he declared with a grin, puffing out his chest.
Fuyumi was hardly impressed. "He may not show up there though."
"We'll see!"
As Fuyumi had pointed out, the strange man wasn't at their hideout when she and Touya went there the next day. They waited for him all day, but the man didn't come.
"Maybe you saw a ghost," Touya said. He was sitting on the same rock as the man had the previous day, expression bored.
"He wasn't a ghost," Fuyumi insisted. She had picked some flowers earlier that day again and was currently braiding their stems together to make another flower crown. Then, she hesitated when she remembered the strange light that had appeared around the man and his sudden disappearance afterward. "Maybe you're right though."
Touya mumbled something under his breath that Fuyumi didn't bother to catch before standing up and walking over to her. He watched her in silence for a short time before speaking. "Are you trying to strangle those poor flowers?"
His question seemed a little familiar to her ears. Fuyumi shook her head. "I'm trying to make a flower crown." An idea came to her mind suddenly. She looked up at Touya and patted the spot next to her. "Come on, sit down! I'll teach you to make one too."
"Why would I want to make something stupid like that?" Touys wrinkled his nose.
"It wouldn't hurt to know that. Besides," Fuyumi pointed at Touya's hair. "You can use red and white flowers in your crown just like your hair. It'll be pretty."
Touya still wasn't convinced, but Fuyumi was secretly happy that he sat down quietly with a roll of his eyes.
Once, she was sure she had Touya's attention, she opened her mouth. "It's not hard at all. It's like braiding hair. You don't know how to braid hair, right? But it's okay. Look, you just need to choose three flowers that have the longest stems."
And that's how their afternoon went.
Fuyumi never came across the man again and soon forgot all about him as months passed.
It's only years later during Dabi's broadcast that a faded memory of a summer afternoon came back to her.