Chapter Twelve
Growing Closer
After contemplating my very existence for the rest of the week, basically just gliding through it, I spent that Saturday wanting to find something productive to do. Early in the morning before I thought anyone was awake, I left the dorms and caught a bus downtown to Nathan's martial arts gym. It was the first bus of the day, so it was empty and quiet, giving me time to decompress away from anyone at school.
The past few days at night after James had fallen asleep I'd sat with the quirk vial in one hand, my other hand clenched so tight my fingernails dug into my palm, drawing blood. Every night was the night I thought I would do it. Every night I ended up putting it back and going to bed. The idea that I could become just as strong or stronger than anyone in my class was alluring, but I still didn't know what the quirk even was. Voss was vague in his wording, though I guess that was on purpose. But that isn't even why I didn't do it. I'm not sure entirely why. It doesn't bother me that I don't know what the power is. The whole idea just unsettles me deep down.
Last night after I set it down, I contemplated throwing it away. I ultimately decided against it and just placed it as far back under my bed in my suitcase as possible, desperately trying to forget about it. Obviously, it didn't work. I spent the week restlessly tapping my feet, thinking about all I could do with a quirk, any one of them. But right now, I was dead set on what I needed to do. What I needed to do was hone my skills as a quirkless hero and become the best I can be. Not the best hero, not the best anything, the best me. It started with making myself useful and continuing my training.
When I reached the stop outside of Nathan's gym I hopped off the bus, noticing a light on the top floor, indicating Nathan was there. I used my spare key to enter, seeing that his office light was on, but the place was trashed. His computer was thrown across the gym, his monitor was in half, and papers were strewn across the floor. A chair had been thrown through his office's window, spreading glass across the floor that crunched under my feet.
My eyes widened as I looked across the gym, seeing all the destruction. Mirrors were busted, mats were ripped out of the floor. I heard loud grunting from upstairs, followed by glass breaking and a huge crash. My immediate thought was that there was a break-in, so I sprinted over the broken and glass up the stairs, bursting through the doors to the second floor.
"Nathan!" I yelled, expecting to see him fighting a burglar, but I saw him dragging a chair across the floor, then tossing it at another mirror, destroying it. I looked across the room, seeing destruction similar to downstairs. Nathan looked at me and turned around. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Get the hell… out of here, Charlie." Nathan growled. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. He was obviously drunk, evident by how he slurred his words and struggled to get them out.
"Nathan, I'm-" I began, only to be cut off.
"I know who you are, kid." Nathan turned around, tears falling down his face. "I don't know what I'm doing."
I walked forward as Nathan looked around at the gym.
"Hey, it's okay man." I reached forward to put my hand on his shoulder, but he swatted my hand away. I could tell he barely touched me, but it hurt because of his extremely dense and heavy bones.
"Look at… This shit, Emmet." He said between hiccups.
"What the hell is goin' on?" I asked. "I found you passed out drunk on my first day of school, then you wouldn't take me for lessons, and now this."
Nathan looked ashamed. Like he'd just kicked a puppy.
"When I look at you I see him and I see him dying and he died because of me and-and-and-" He started hyperventilating, and caught me off guard by throwing his arms around me. I stepped backward, crunching glass beneath my foot. I awkwardly patted his back.
"What do you mean…?" I asked Nathan. What did he mean he died because of him?
"... I feel so guilty." He whispered. "He's just gone."
"I know, man." I didn't press any further, instead just letting him stand and vent his emotions. I really didn't know what he meant about my dad's death. My mom never let me read the incident report.
"Emmet…" Nathan said between sobs. "I don't want you to die like he did."
I wanted so badly to ask how he died. But I didn't ask. I didn't want to make him relive it.
"I'm not going anywhere, man." I said, fearing I might be lying, but I didn't let him know that.
We stood like that for about ten minutes before he calmed down. He let go of me ten minutes after that.
"Do you need me to help clean up?" I asked. Nathan shook his head and smiled.
"No, you can go back home." He told me. "I'm sorry you saw that…"
"It's okay, man." I let him know. "And I'm actually staying at the school's dorms now."
Nathan smiled.
"Well, go back there then." He said. He waved his hand at the door, motioning for me to leave while he cleaned. "It was good seeing you."
"You too." I reciprocated as I reluctantly turned around, still feeling guilty for not helping to clean. I walked across the floor, careful to not step on any particularly large chunks of glass. I was taking my first step when Nathan said something to me again.
"Hey, Emmet…" He said. "Why don't you come by tomorrow?"
I smiled and turned around.
"Are you serious?" I asked. "For training?"
"Yeah, I should have this place cleaned up by then…" He said as he picked up the chair he threw and set it back up. "And you can come back any time you're free during the week."
"I thought you'd never ask, man." I told him. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Nathan smiled as I turned and continued down the stairs. I left the gym, locking the door behind me, and started walking to the bus station.
But I couldn't shake the thought of what happened to my dad.
Three weeks had passed by since I picked my training with Nathan back up. During that time, I still trained with Ri on my off days from Nathan, and I told her about everything he taught me. I also started becoming better at fighting much faster than previously, along with my muscle mass growing much faster, more like what it was when I first started training.
Nathan wasn't completely over his problems, however. Most of our training sessions ended pretty somberly as he left to go to what I assumed was a bar. The upstairs of the gym was completely cleaned when he said it would be, but downstairs was still entirely trashed. I'm not a hundred percent sure he even planned on cleaning it at all. But each time I visited, I would ignore it, hoping that it would be gone the next time.
"Hey!" Ri yelled as her foot came flying towards my face. I reacted just in time, raising my bo staff to block it. I blinked, not realizing what had just happened. "What's going on, space cadet? You've been standing there with this blank look on your face for like… A solid minute, maybe?"
I smiled and laughed.
"Yeah, I'm just out of it today." I admitted as I twisted my hands around my staff. "Just a lot of stuff going on."
"Yeah, well, you know what'd fix that?" Ri asked me.
"Gasoline. Matches. You know." I joked. Ri laughed but shook her head.
"Coffee." She said as she rocked back and forth on her heels. "We should get some sometime."
"Nah, I don't really drink coffee." I admitted. Ri laughed to herself.
"Oooookay." She half-smiled.
"Maybe we can get, like, juice or something." I shrugged. Ri's face lit up at the mention.
"It's a date!" She exclaimed. I furrowed my brows.
"I mean, you don't even know when we're going." I said. She waved her hand at me.
"Let's just go tomorrow." She proposed. I laughed.
"Nah, I'm doing training with Nathan tomorrow, I'll be gone all afternoon."
"Well, can I just come with?" She asked. "We can go somewhere after."
I blinked.
"Uhhh, I mean-"
"Great, I'll be waiting for you!" Ri laughed and hopped up and down.
"Okay…" I trailed off. I didn't have Nathan's number, so I guess I'd just have to surprise him. I also explained to Ri the situation on the first floor but said that he had recently gotten robbed and that's why it was trashed.
"Oh, that's totally okay." She told me. "In fact, I can help clean it up. It's no big deal, I'm really good at cleaning. I read these Good Housekeeping magazines and all of it's just… You know."
She tapped her temple. I nodded.
We stood for a while, kind of just looking at each other.
"Right!" Ri clapped her hands together. "We should probably go back inside before Brutus yells at us."
I laughed nervously and looked to the sky, seeing that it was getting darker much earlier than normal and the October weather was getting to me.
"I'll walk you inside." Ri smiled at me and took my hand as she started walking to the entrance.
"You're really nice." I blurted out as she opened the door for me. Ri's face turned beet red immediately. "I've never really had, like, good friends before… So this is a really nice change of pace, you know?"
Ri looked at the ground and smiled.
"I'm not sure how you didn't have friends." She admitted.
"Yeah… I was the only kid like me at my school for a while." I said. "Thanks for helping me learn to fight, and stuff…"
"We should hang out outside of training more often." She told me. "Like tomorrow when we go to get juice or whatever. We should do that more."
"I mean, I'm free all the time." I told her.
"Maybe you could come to my house on the weekend one of these days?" Ri raised an eyebrow at me. I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but I nodded my head. "Actually, Halloween falls on a weekend. Maybe I'll invite the whole class over?"
I nodded furiously.
"Like a party?" I asked. She nodded in return.
"Well, I should be getting back to my room, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" Ri winked at me as she stepped away from the front entrance, slowly walking back to her dorm while looking at me. I laughed at her as she went and eventually she dipped back into her room.
I walked back to my dorm, only to find Any outside the door.
"So are you and her like a thing now?" Amy asked, causing me to laugh.
"Nope." I told her. "We're just friends."
"Right." Amy tucked a piece of hair behind her ear as she glanced to the side. Her hair was different today, cut a bit shorter and styled differently, being down with waves instead of being tied back. She looked really cute. "Your roommate's a weirdo."
"Yeah, he does that." I chuckled. "What uh - what're you doin'?"
"Just wanted to let you know that I told Jason to stay away from you and he agreed. I took care of it." Amy said.
"Did you, like, break up with him?" I asked.
Amy sighed, sounding kind of annoyed.
"No I just - I can take care of him, I've got him under control."
"That doesn't sound-" Amy cut me off.
"I don't care what you think it sounds like." She snapped. I chuckled again.
"Right."
"Shit, dude, I'm sorry." Amy quickly apologized. I squeezed between her and the doorframe to enter my dorm. "I didn't mean it like that."
"It's fine, I'm used to it." I said coldly. Amy grabbed my hand before I could close the door, sending my heart rate rocketing through the roof.
"I mean it. Not like… One of those fake sorries, I really am." She explained. I looked back and saw James on his bed with extremely wide eyes as he watched. "He told me about what he did last month. He was supposed to be picking me up but he never did. Then he left after he did that to you. Trust me, you're safe from him now."
"Are you?" I asked without thinking. Amy looked me in the eyes but didn't answer. I looked down at her arms, noticing the bruises she showed me had faded by now, but that didn't guarantee that she was completely free of them. Her hand slipped away from mine as she stepped back and looked at James behind me. She looked back at me and sighed.
"We're okay now." Amy told me. "I'm fine now."
I stayed silent as she walked away to her dorm and I closed the door. My head bounced off the door with a heavy thud as I pressed my head against it.
"Are you guys okay?" James asked as he toyed with a replica Captain Impossible shield.
I sighed.
"Yeah…" I breathed. "Trouble in paradise, what can you do?"
I shrugged as I flopped onto my bed, my head landing near the crack between the mattress and the wall where I could see the suitcase containing the quirk vial. I flopped over onto my back and stared at the ceiling as James stood up with the shield strapped to his arm, miming hitting someone with it.
I briefly glanced back down at the suitcase, but I reached down and shoved it out of view. Try as I might, I still wasn't one hundred percent on what I was going to do with it. I only knew one thing for sure.
Not yet.
This chapter is much shorter than I originally intended it to be, but I realized it might work better as a more filler-y chapter. Hopefully, it was still entertaining enough to read and I should have the next chapter up in the next few days. Leave a review or follow and favorite if you want!
