What sounds and sights come to mind when you think of a public playground? Do you think of the excited giggles of young children? The pitter-patter of little feet tapping against the asphalt? An adorable collage of unfocused, disorganized play?

Before the dawn of quirks, any one of those would have been common, acceptable answers. After the dawn of quirks, the playground grew to become an exciting, frightening, unpredictable maelstrom of chaos. You see, playgrounds are favored by children aged 4 to 7, which happens to be right about the age when their quirks start awakening. Thus, on any given day, you'll see crowds of unruly children trying out their new quirks, some of which are powerful and dangerous enough to make even supervising adults fear for their some days, the children's play will devolve into a battle for dominance, where only the strongest quirks survive.

Today was one such day. The playground was abuzz with excitement as a girl who could turn into a gorgon and a boy who could turn his arms into knives fought each other for the title of Ruler of the Playground. Nearby adults tried to contact the authorities while a crowd of rowdy children egged them on. One child - a spiky-haired blond boy with a pair of designer sunglasses resting atop his forehead - was yelling out impromptu commentary on the match, to anyone who'd listen.

And in the midst of it all, one pale, stringy-haired little boy sat alone, far away from the crowd.

His parents brought him to this playground every weekend in the hopes that he would get some fresh air and socialize. But while he got plenty of the former, the latter proved to be far more difficult. To his parents' frustration, he was mostly content to sit alone and read. The few times he did try to socialize, it tended to end rather poorly, in part because most children weren't interested in hanging out with someone so quiet and reserved.

Thus far, the day was progressing for him as it typically did. He sat in an empty spot next to the swings, with his nose stuck in a book about an intrepid hero who lost his leg in battle, but continued to fight on in spite of it. His reading session proceeded uninterrupted for a fair amount of time, when all of a sudden...

"Hi!"

The pale boy looked up from his book to see another boy standing over him: the spiky-haired blond, who caught sight of him in the midst of the chaos.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"What are you sittin' here all alone for?" The blond boy jabbed his finger towards the chaotic battle behind him. "There's a fight for control of the playground going on right now! Come and watch!"

The pale boy could only bring himself to watch the chaos for a fleeting moment before his eyes started drifting back to the pages of his book. "That's okay," he said. "Thanks, but no thanks."

The blond boy gave him a quizzical look; in his (admittedly short) life, he had never met another boy who would rather read than watch a fight. "Suit yourself, I guess," he said, shrugging. "It's just, why do you even come here if you don't want to play?"

"My mom and dad make me. They say it's bad for me to just stay inside all day."

This elicited a raised eyebrow from the blond. "So you're saying that that's what you want to do?"

"Pretty much."

"But that's boring," he said with a snort. "Wouldn't you rather be out here having fun with your friends?"

The pale boy looked back up from his book, bearing the same flat expression that he had on since the other boy approached him. "I don't have any friends."

That simple, five-word sentence stunned the blond boy into silence. The idea of another child walking around without even a single friend was alien to him; the pale boy might as well have told him that he didn't have lungs.

"N...no friends?" he asked, knitting his brow. "None at all?"

The pale boy shook his head, making the blond boy's heart ache with sorrow. Poor kid, he thought. Must be so sad, spending every day by himself with no one to play with.

It wasn't long, though, before his sorrow was overtaken by a different emotion - a steely resolve to set things right.

"Well, maybe it's about time you made one," he said, managing a warm smile. "My name's Hizashi Yamada. What's yours?"

He held his hand out for a shake, hovering it right in front of the pale boy's nose. After a moment of hesitation, the pale boy took it and shook.

"Shouta Aizawa."

Yamada released the handshake and plopped himself down, taking a seat right next to his newfound friend. "So why didn't you have any friends, anyway?" he asked. "Is it because you don't have a quirk? I know a couple kids without quirks and they're still pretty-"

"No, I have a quirk," said Aizawa. "But it's a bad quirk."

The blond's paper-thin eyebrows jumped in response to his remark. "A bad quirk? There's no such thing as a bad quirk! All quirks are cool! Come on, show me yours!"

Aizawa closed his book and shrunk away from Yamada, squirming in his seat. "Well...if you knew, then..."

"Here, I'll show you mine first. My quirk is yelling really loud. Like this!"

Before Aizawa could even ask him to reconsider, Yamada stood up and let out a deafening scream, loud enough to knock the other boy over and send him sprawling onto the ground. Meanwhile, in the background, the fight had to come to a screeching halt as both the participants and the bystanders had to drop to their knees and clutch their ears in pain.

"PRETTY COOL, HUH?" he bellowed as he continued his auditory assault. Meanwhile, Aizawa was struggling to get back to his feet while keeping his fingers plugged in his ears. His entire body was quaking from the impact of the infernal noise, and all he could do was grit his teeth, endure it and wait for Yamada to stop.

Or, rather, that would be the case, if not for Aizawa's own quirk. After a few excruciating seconds, he finally mustered up the resolve to open his eyes and give Yamada a sharp glare. As soon as he did, the cacophony coming from Yamada's lungs abruptly died down.

"AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa - hey, what just happened?"

He looked around, perplexed, while trying to activate his quirk again. Alas, all he could produce was a normal-sounding yell. As the confusion on Yamada's face began to morph into worry, Aizawa knew that he had no choice but to come forward.

"It was me."

Yamada spinned himself around to face Aizawa. "What do you mean, it was you?"

He sighed, averting the other boy's gaze. "I-I shut you down," he said. "That's my quirk. I can make other peoples' quirks stop working."

As soon as he spoke his words, he felt the sting of regret seeping into his heart, which only intensified once he saw the look of shock on Yamada's face. "B-but only for a little bit!" he said. "Not forever."

A tense, uncomfortable silence ensued as that shocked expression remained - eyes popped, jaw hanging half-open. He closed his eyes and braced himself for what he was sure would be the end of his first, painfully short friendship.

"That... is..."

All of a sudden, a massive grin broke out across Yamada's face. "...AWESOME!"

Aizawa's heart skipped a beat, as his eyes snapped back open. "Awesome?"

"Uh, yeah!" Yamada cried. "You could be face-to-face with a guy who can shoot fireballs out of his nose, or a guy who can zap people with his laser eyes and turn them into dust, and you can just be like, 'NOPE!' and boom, all their powers go away!"

He took a step back, did a couple of 360 degree turns and pointed both of his fingers at his shy new friend. "Now that is one cool quirk! It gets the Yamada seal of approval!"

This was, quite possibly, the nicest compliment Aizawa had ever received, and he wasn't quite sure how to process it. "I... thank you," he uttered, his tone hesitant and wavering.

"Something wrong?" asked Yamada, his smile shrinking a little.

"Well, it's just that most kids get mad when I use my quirk," he said, glancing to the side as he fiddled with one of the strands of his jet-black hair. "They say that all I can do is ruin other peoples' fun."

Yamada scoffed. "P'shaw. They're just jealous that their quirks are useless against yours!"

He grabbed Aizawa by the shirt, lifted him to his feet and threw his arm around his shoulder.

"Now, come on. I got a lot of other friends to introduce you to."

The sensation of Yamada's arm wrapped around him imbued him with a powerful feeling of warmth and security - one he was unaccustomed to receiving from anyone, aside from his mother and father. As he let Yamada walk him across the playground, book tucked under his arm, the feeling grew more and more potent. For the first time since he stepped foot on the playground that afternoon, Aizawa smiled.

"There's this one girl I really think you'll like. She's great at making people laugh..."