Chapter Text
The man smiled, it was an ugly thing. With his bushy, tangled hair framing his face, and an unruly excuse for a beard that looked like it had been trimmed by a jagged blade that couldn't make it even.
“Thanks for the yen kid.” He said, tone hollow, yet not unkind.
Shinsou nodded, bored, and uncaring of finding the correct response for this situation.
He turned to leave, he shouldn't have been in this part of town in the first place.
“You wanna be a hero, kid?”
Shinsou stopped. A whirlwind of buried emotions swilling within. Ones he had long decided to forget. It was a foolish thought, a foolish hope to have let fester so long to begin with.
He wanted to do many things at that moment. Run, scream, deny- deny- deny.
But at that moment he simply turned back. Unbothered expression firmly planted on his face. A mask of indifference, a mask of boredom.
One he wouldn't let slip.
“Hn?” He asked instead.
The question wasn't an odd one, most kids his age strived for heroism. But something felt strange, he couldn't place why.
He let his eyes wander, past the man's shaggy hair, and odd- paper-like scarf, his poorly trimmed beard, and let them land on his eyes.
They were bloodshot, and dry. Almost like white and red apricots that had been left to dry in the sun. With little beads for too dark iris' that sit slightly askewed from the center. Like the shriveled corpse of a small spider, lying within the confines of a cracking void.
He was a sight to behold.
“Whats your quirk?” He asked, his eyes locking with Shinsou's own, wobbly gaze. A challenge, an assertion.
“Why do you ask?” He responded a little slower than he would've liked. It was a sore spot for a lot of people. He often let that fact comfort him when the unavoidable subject was brought up. As it was always brought up, and always asked too soon.
He didn't like his quirk.
If the man was bothered he didn't show it. The same, unbothered mask falling in place like a perfect reflection to the one he often see passing by the open elevator doors, or when he'd lean against the bus windows.
Yet the man's mask wasn't as practiced as his own. The slight tilt of his eyebrows clued shinso in on that little fact.
“No particular reason.” The man sighed.
Shinsou felt the kettle simmer within his blood, a small slip in his perfected mask was all it took for him to unleash a response that would change his life forever.
“Then why ask?” he bit out, a little more aggressive than he intended.
The man seemed to contemplate.
They both faced opposite each other, one sitting in a pathetic heap on the ground. Dirt and grime clinging to every visible patch of skin and cloth.
The other standing, a slightly hunched posture. Wild, wavy hair extending in all directions. Eyebags darker than obsidian, and deeper than a chasm. With jagged amethysts carved in the center of the sclera that sit right on top.
The man searched, an invisible rope connecting them, making it seem impossible to look away.
The man was first to break eye contact. He seemed to have found what he was searching for, for he let his head hang, and a response soon followed.
“I can help, if you want.”
The simmering turned into a hard boil.
“With my quirk?” He hissed.
The man blinked, it seemed to take great effort. Like he'd forgotten he had the ability.
He then hummed, it was a strangled thing, like his voice was unused for a good while. Shinsou wondered if it was a habit. He then decided he probably forgets how to breath just as much.
“Not quite.” the man breathed, shinsou decided that his hypothesis was correct.
He then said, “I can see you have potential.” like it was a normal thing to say.
“I can train you, if you want.” and Shinsou thought he might've believed him, if it weren't for his crumpled, disheveled appearence.
“To be a hero.” The man was crazy. Batshit insane. Probably on drugs, why else would he be homeless?
Shinsou turns away again, realizing how much time he must've wasted here. He quels his rising temper, no use getting mad at the hopeless.
But something stops him, perhaps it was the strange pull he felt earlier. A distant part of him wondered if it was the mans quirk.
“And what do you think you could offer me?” He asks, against his better judgement.
He looks back, one last time and their eyes meet again. But this time, the most notable thing about him is his unsettling smile. All his teeth on display, dead, dhrivvled eyes onlg serving to make it seem all the more creepy.
Then- within an instant he stands. And suddenly the man looks capable, and for a brief moment shinsou thinks the homeless thing might've been an act.
“Watch and see.” The man walkes right past him. Shinsou hesitates, and the man stops.
“If you wanna be a hero, dont hesitate. In the field it could mean the difference between life and death.”
Shinsou blinked, the disheveled man before him continued forward.
The logical side of Shinsous brain told him to turn around, maybe call the police. The man clearly needed help.
But. The other, more hopeful side, told him to go. Follow the stange man.
And he did.