Chapter Text
A young man sat upon a red seat in a creaky, rattling train car, eyes downcast and hands folded in his lap. Ren Amamiya, age 16, newly sentenced criminal. The frizzy haired boy leaned back in his seat and looked out the window to the passing buildings. Tokyo was in sight. He turned to stare up at the ceiling with his head leaned against the aluminum wall. His mind wandered back to home, to Inaba. Their hateful stares, the barbed words, the things hurled at him. Anger rose in his heart before it quickly died and Ren sighed, just waiting.
When the train finally lurched to a stop, Ren stood up and exited the station, weaving through tightly packed crowds proving a challenge before he finally broke free. He pushed up his false glasses and kept walking. His attention was drawn to a tv, the loudspeaker overhead chiming
“Yongen-Jaya. This is Yongen-Jaya.”
Ren squinted as he read the subtitles
“Another villain stopped by All Might! The Symbol of Peace is making headlines once again, stopping three attacks in one hour!”
Huh. More of the same, it seems. Ren turned away from the tv and kept walking, emerging from the station into Yongen-Jaya’s backstreets. The directions from his probation officer, a surly older man called Officer…Kuniza? Katana? Kagami! That’s the one. Regardless, Ren wandered the winding roads and found the Sakura residence, but when nobody was home, his brow furrowed and he consulted the directions once again. Leblanc…Alright. He stepped toward an older woman
“Excuse me, uh, ma’am? Apologies, but I just got here. Do you know where Leblanc is?”
Ren asked with tentative steps and a rather quiet voice, hands in his pockets. The older woman looks about 50, maybe 55 as she turned to him. She smiled softly
“Well, welcome to the neighborhood, young man! You’re looking for Boss, I imagine? His cafe is just down the street, you’ll see it when you take a left from here, then a right”
Ren nodded, “Thank you, ma’am.”
Armed with this knowledge, Ren walked down the way she pointed until at last, stopping as he heard voices and shuffling down the alley he passed. He stopped, turning his head to find a few larger students, probably middle schoolers, towering over a smaller kid. Ren couldn’t quite make out what they were saying but it didn’t look good. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. What happened last time he intervened, stuck his nose where it didn’t belong? It ruined his life. He stood there silently, fists clenching in his pockets, arms faintly glowing red as instinct commanded him to act. And then he walked away. He just can’t risk it.
He came upon the café, finding a small, quaint even, leaves from a nearby tree settling cozily on its red and white awning. Ren steeled his nerves and pushed open the door, stepping inside. Sojiro Sakura was an older man, dressed in a pink button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a black and white pinstripe apron. Ren found the small curve of his beard amusing.
“Excuse me, are you Sojiro Sakura? I was told to come here.”
His voice came out kinda quiet but the old man seemed to catch it, nodding. He had a cigarette between his fingers that he put out when Ren entered, setting his hand on his hip
“So, you’re the kid your parents dumped off. Son of Psyncer and Bayonette. Guess the apple falls far from the tree. You can put your stuff up in the attic, the rest of your stuff is up there too.”
“Thank you for taking me in, sir.” He replied with a nod.
Sojiro waved him off. Ren took the message and walked up the stairs, immediately sneezing. God, this place has more dust than a crypt! He groaned as he wiped his nose, stepping further inside. He put his box up in an empty space on the shelving, setting his bag beside it. Looking around, the dust filled attic was packed with junk. An old ladder, a ton of thick books, and various other pieces of junk. Well, better get to work.
Thankfully, with his Quirk, floating the junk out of the window and into a storage area just below wasn’t that hard, taking big bundles of the stuff and settling them down, though a bit roughly. He had to halfway climb out the window to get a good view of it, but he managed. The crimson energy of his Psychokinesis receded back to his hands when he finished, leaving only a few books that caught his interest. A history book on Pro Heroes and Quirk origins, a book on philosophy, and oddly, a book detailing the exploits of a master gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin. Once he got the junk cleared up, it was time to move on to dusting and mopping.
This took longer, surprisingly, as Ren had to float himself up to the rafters to dust them off, unintentionally bringing a few smaller items up with him. He didn’t notice until after he let go, when they came crashing down. How annoying. Aside from needing to clean up that desk full of junk, that was about it.
Ren later found himself lying in bed, a blanket covering him up, his glasses sitting on the desk full of junk, and his phone on charge. So…this is his life now. Living in an attic of a café, attending a school in a place he’s never been, and not a single person left by his side. When news of his arrest spread, the entire town he had called home for so long turned on a dime. He went from a nice, respectable young man to a reviled pariah overnight. He felt his eyes water. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve before rolling over and staring out the window, watching the velvet sky above as his eyes slowly closed.