"Wait!" Fuyuki called after the bun guy just when he was about to leave. The blond's lackeys had ran away before their leader could even hit the ground. She guessed that there were no loyalties when it came to those guys.
She could symphatize with them a bit though. The bun guy was really intimidating even more so now that she's standing in front of him with his hazel eyes looking down at her.
"I just want to say that you fight really great." Fuyuki gave him a thumbs up but quickly regretted her decision. Who gives a thumbs up at a situation like this? She might as well said, "hey I really love the way you beat that guy onto the ground, good job".Fuyuki had the sudden urge to stab those thumbs straight into her eye sockets with all the embarassment. "The fight was beautiful." She tried to save it but cringed at the word beautiful.
The guy raised a brow at her. "The fight was beautiful? What-- are you a psychopath or something? Enjoy seeing other people get hurt?"
"What?! No no no!" Fuyuki waved her hands frantically in the air, the tip of her ears burning as she did so.
"All I'm saying is that your fighting style is beautiful. It was graceful-- like you were walking on air," Fuyuki added.
He rolled his eyes at her. "That's because I am walking on air," he explained as he took one step higher on thin air and actually stayed there.
Fuyuki's eyes widened. It's the same as hers!
"My quirk is called light step. It makes my step very light, very much so that I could keep myself in the air if I tried stepping on it. But I don't get to stay in that position for too long," he said as his body slowly descended.
"So, where'd you learn how to fight?" Fuyuki made her very own invisible platform and stepped on it, levelling herself to his position in the air.
Fuyuki saw the bun guy's eyes widened when he found her right next to him. He must've been surprised that she could do it too.
He quickly recovered and went back to his stoic expression.
"The streets," he answered simply and let himself be put back onto the ground in the gentlest way possible.
"Uhm... You think you could teach me?" Fuyuki asked fast. There's no point in beating around the bush anymore.
"No."
"What?!" Fuyuki ran down from her invisible platforms and walked closer towards him.
"I said, no," the guy repeated.
"Yes, I heard you the first time," Fuyuki argued back.
"Then, don't make me repeat myself again," the guy said, putting emphasis on every words. He put his hands inside his pockets and started walking away from her.
"Please, I want to become a hero and I need you to do that," Fuyuki begged.
"None of my business. Good luck." He gave a small salute with his back still turned towards her.
"I'll find you and ask you again. Maybe you'll change your mind!" Fuyuki yelled after him.
"Good. 'Cause you'll never see me again," that's what he said but then, morning came and Fuyuki saw him again. He was in the same class as hers and you could only imagine how big his eyes got when their faces met.
--
Ren happened to enter their classroom door the same time as someone and holy shit, he knew that someone, he thought as he stared wide- eyed at the delighted girl that was smiling brightly before they could even cross the door frame.
"Hey, train me," the girl asked as if it was a replacement for the phrase good morning.
"No," he answered again.
And so, the most hellish week of his life begun.
The girl had always, always been with him. At his hideout--which he's pretty sure that's fairly hidden from everybody but now it's worrying that she managed to find it-- at the rooftop where he enjoys his lunch, even in situations that he expected that even she couldn't get to but here she was, hiding in the bush, watching him fight yet another gang with her eyes trained on the back of his head.
He could feel her glare from right behind him and that made him uncomfortable, causing his punches to slip up and made his moves awkward. Sue him, it was hard to fight when you know someone was scouting you.
His eyes moved towards that bush and she froze when she realized that he's looking. The idiot was stood there like a deer caught in headlights, limbs frozen in the air in a stance that closely resembled his.
"What in the hell--" that short moment of distraction was enough to earn him a punch in the face and he fell to the ground hard.
"Hey!" He heard a feminine voice called out and sure enough it was the girl. Her shoes moved towards him and parked itself in front of his face.
Seriously, does this girl think she could take these guys?
Ren was about to stand back up but had a brilliant idea and laid back down again. The girl wanted to be hero? Then, she could try to be a hero now. Just a few punches from these guys and she would be enough having second thoughts on that dream of hers. Heroes take punches right? Let's see if she could take some without running home crying.
He smirked at the thought and watched as a guy ran towards her with his fist raised, his enlargement quirk taking effect making his whole arm five times bigger. He took a swing and there was a sound of flesh hitting a thick glass, a scream of pain followed soon after but it was not from the girl, in fact, she was standing completely still watching as the guy who threw the punch at her rolled on the ground, crying as he held his swollen knuckles to his chest.
Ren's eyes looked up at the girl. Holy shit, this girl has some potential when it came to defending herself but when it came to offense...
Someone from the left came running towards her, but she was blind sided when another one emerged from the right and punched her right at her ribcage.
She made an oof sound at the impact and her body hit the ground like a puppet cut from its strings.
Just as he thought, this girl is no good.
Ren breathe out of his nose, taking that take down as his signal to interfere but before he could even stand up straight, the girl grabbed his wrist and smiled.
"You sure took your time getting up," she said, her voice raspy as her curved lips touched the earth. "How did I do? Did I pass your standards?" She added and before he could even answer that she stood up and yanked him up, stepping on some invisible staircase and taking him with her.
The gang from below yelled at them to go down but they paid them no attention, he just focused to his feet and stepped where she stepped because damn it, he couldn't see what the heck he's stepping on. He might take a misstep and start falling. He could take a fall from a certain height but with this height their currently taking on and slowly but surely still rising? He's not so sure-- even with his quirk, he highly doubt that.
They finally stopped when the school was nothing but a square plot of land. This is high, he thought as he firmly planted his feet on the invisible platform. If the wind had swayed him, he didn't let it show.
"They wouldn't reach us this far up," the girl said with a smile on her face, seemingly proud of the feat she just did.
"Geez, you think?" Ren deadpanned at her. Now's not the time to be be sarcastic, especially now that the only one holding him up there was this girl's quirk-- yeah, she could make a shooting star with his ass dropped down from the sky-- but surprisingly, he couldn't find himself to care at all.
"So how did I do? Did I pass?" she asked again.
Ren looked away. So she knew that he was faking it earlier. She was even able to piece things together and came into a conclusion that it was deliberate and that he was testing her. Her being observant was commendable but ut was not enough. Serously, he wasn't even making a consideration in taking in any students. He didn't know where these standards were popping out from.
"No. And I told you before no." Ren turned his back against her. "Now, put me down."
Ren waited and there was a moment of silence that it made him thought that she didn't hear him with all the headwind. "I thought..." she started, so she heard him. She was just pondering something. "You could go down on your own?"
There was a disappointment in her tine and it made his blood boil. He made a fast 360 turn to face the girl and towered over her to give her a piece of his mind.
"Listen, didn't I already told you that my step is light? Light as a feather," he reprimanded, his brows meeting in irritation.
"Yes?" The girl nodded.
"So, imagine dropping a feather from this ungodly height."
The girl's paused for a second, brows creased in deep thought and then her eyes brightened.
"The feather, would get blown by the wind!" she answered with too much enthuasiasm.
"Now, imagine that feather is me," he emphasized each words slowly.
"Oh." She blinked. "Oh."
"Yes, oh! I'd end up in the other side of Japan if I did that shit. I could try and shift between being light and having weight back but it would feel like being pulled by the gravity of the earth and if I didn't time my landing right, I'd end up being a red stain on the ground!"
"Okay, okay. I'll get you down," said her hands up in surrender. She grabbed the hem of his shirt this time and led him down. In the way down there, she started talking again.
"I like the way you tried to find a solution in using your quirk by the way. You know what you can and cannot do and I like that."
"If this is one of your tricks in getting me to teach you, it won't work."
"Nah. It's not." She waved a hand off. "It's just a friendly observation."
Ren's eyes left the girl's back.
Friendly, huh?
--
Fuyuki had to stay extra late at school today and it irritated her. "Can't go home early, gotta catch someone in the act," she mouthed the words she typed in the text she made for Detective Tsukauchi and sent it.
She really wanted to leave now and chase after the bun guy--apparently, his name was Ren. She was able to learn a few tricks just by watching him fight and it was a waste not being able to track him this time. Being a class representataive sucks because when it came to school problems, especially their homereom teacher problems, she was the first one they turn to. There had been a long time problem of someone stealing their teacher's test paper samples for incoming exams, what's more worse is that they even take the key to correction with them. So here she is now, with her body tucked underneath their teacher's desk inside the faculty. The teacher's were having a meeting today, so they thought that this was the best time to caught that theif once and for all. And honestly, if she was the theif she would also attempt to steal aroumd this time, with the teachers preoccupied. That was the one the reasons that she agreed to this. The other one is her competitive side side getting the best of her. She studies hard foe these exams and it pisses her off that someone in her classroom was just taking the easy route.
She really took on the criminal's mind today, and if she was that bastard he would make his appearance right about now.
Fuyuki squinted her eyes at the door waiting and waiting and just when leg cramps started to settle in her bent legs, the door opened, ever so slightly, its hinges creaking at the action. The scene looked like it came out of a horror movie with a sharp, elongated shadow slowly approaching.
The head of the owner of the shadow soon emerged and just by the top not on top of that unruly orange hair, she knew. She knew that it was him.
Her eyes widened in realization. It was Ren! She's willing to give him the benefit of a doubt if he leave and chose not to touch anything in the room, he could be lost and was in the wrong place at the wrong time for all she knows but he wasn't and he kept on rummaging and rummaging files on top of the desk she's hiding, sliding open file drawers, with the soumd of papers being turned loud against her bated breaths.
She still gave him a secomd chance but when she heard him said: "got it", with a smile on his voice she couldn't just let it go anymore.
She got out of her hiding place and faced him, a mixture of disappointment and surprise plastered on her face.
The move caught him off guard and it took a second and a double take before he realized that someone was standing there and that someone was her.
He froze on the spot, his back hunched on the paper he went to steal. His hazel eyes that was always half open now full blown. There was a surprise and fear in his eyes but it quickly got replaced with anger.
"What? So are you gonna report me now? Class representative?" he said with venom in his voice.
As much as she's disappointed and offended, she chose to look at the situation in a more positive prespective.
Wait a minute. The most perfect scenario had just arise in front of her. It was served in a silver platter and she could take it if she played her cards right.
She forced herself to act uninterested, nonchalant. "Yes. Yes, I could. And if I did that you'd be kicked out of this school."
"What--"
She didn't gave him any chance to argue his point. "I know you Ren Saito. You were already held back a year. You don't want to try again next year, do you?"
"What do you want?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"You know what I want," she hinted while crossing her arms on her chest.
The thing is, she tried doing it the nice way but that didn't seem to work. This may seem petty but she didn't care anymore. She's only got less than a year until UA and she's not wasting any more time. She could be petty sometimes too.
Ren scratched at his head, hissing as he frustratingly did so. "Not so friendly now, are we?" He looked uo from the bowed position of his head.
"Yeah." She agreed, raising her hand towards him. "So, I won't tell anyone that it was you but you have to promise not to do it again and also, train me. Deal?"
She heard him chuckled. She knew her terms weren't fair. It was easier to shut her mouth than train a whole human how to fight but she had to do this.
"Deal," he said, shaking her hand with his hand that held the sample test paper.
"And I'm gonna have to take that back." She pointed at it and he gave it up begrudgingly. As soon as she held the paper she had a thought. "Ren?"
"What?" he asked, irritated.
"Why do you do this? I understand taking the test paper could give you a head start on what to answer and what to review on but why take the key to corrections with it? Doesn't that seemed redundant?"
Ren blinked. "What are you talking about? I only take test papers prior to the exams, not the answers."
"What?" Fuyuki said.
"What?" Ren echoed back.
It wasn't him, then who...
Fuyuki's eyes zeroed in behind him and she saw someone's head took a peek by the door only to run after he made eye contact with her.
"That's our guy," Ren sprinted after him before her mind could take a leap of action. His sudden movement gave her whiplash and she found herself running after him.
"Hey!" she yelled after them and when she turned a corner, Ren already had the guy pinned in the floor.
"I got him," he struggled to say.
"You mean we got him," Fuyuki couldn't help but let out a little giggle.
She stared down at the red haired gyy on the floor struggling to break free from the weight that's on him. So this was the guy who takes the answer. She almost felt sorry that he's the only one who would get reported. Almost. But she wanted to be a hero and heroes are human too. They could still be selfish. Fuyuki made a promise to herself that this will the the last selfish act she'd do and ran towards the conference room where the teachers were probably already finishing up their meeting.
After the guy was apprehended and took away by the teachers, Fuyuki and Ren was allowed to leave the school. They were now walking side by side, the last crown of the sun had already hid itself in the horizon and it was already dark, the lamps were turning on as they walked past by each post that's lined lined the streets.
"Hey, we made a great team back there!" Fuyuki started the conversation. "If you want to be a hero we ciuld team up--"
"No," he answered like a bitter old man.
"Can I ask why you do that? Why do you steal those papers? You seem like a smart guy. You could've passed with ease if you tried."
Ren laughed bitterly.
"Smart? Me? Have you already forgotten that you're the one who said that I was held back a year earlier?"
Fuyuki's eyes left his face and looked straight ahead. "I'm sure that it was due to other reasons."
That seemed to surprise Ren and he went silent for a minute. Fuyuki got worried that she might've said something wrong but then, he started talking again.
"It was for someone," he blurted out of nowhere.
"What?"
"The papers. I was being paid to get it for them. It's not for me, I just needed some money that's all. Cold. Hard. Cash." He raised his arm and supported the back of his head with his hands, his eyes trailing the stars that's starting to appear now that the dark ink of the night was getting thicker.
Fuyuki smiled at that and stared at the same sky. "You know, if you need money, I have just a place for you."
