Shinsou wasn't sure if he should be glad or frightened by how fast things fell into place, but the very same day once school had drawn to a close he traipsed with some reluctance out onto the field, dressed in his gym clothes. Two very cheerful and enthusiastic girls were waiting for him, and Kuba for whatever reason, who seemed to have sat himself down a short distance away with his head in a novel. Shinsou could only conclude he'd come to watch him suffer.
"Sleepyhead, this is my dance buddy," Haya introduced him, an arm slung around the pink skinned girl.
"Hitoshi Shinsou," he supplied.
"Mina Ashido, but you can just call me Mina," she told him brightly. "I remember you from the festival! You're the one who nearly got Midoriya to walk out of the arena by himself, right? That was so cool!"
"Yeah," Shinsou muttered lamely, rubbing his arm.
"Don't embarrass him!" Haya complained, nudging Mina. The other girl nudged her back, and it looked as if the whole thing was about to devolve into some kind of friendly scuffle until Shinsou cleared his throat.
Yep, he was absolutely having regrets.
"So," he said, when it seemed they'd managed to focus, "apparently you know hand-to-hand or something?"
"Sure do," Mina said. "You want me to show you how to beat people up?"
"I guess?"
"Hell yeah!"
As bubbly as she seemed to be, Mina wasn't that bad of an instructor once she fell into the role. She started by running them through a series of warm up exercised, which Shinsou took care to memorize, before starting with the basics – the proper stance to take, a simple block, a simple punch, and a simple dodge. She quickly had them sparring and repeating the same techniques again and again until Shinsou felt his limbs would drop off. Every time he messed up his footing she would correct his stance and set him back to it.
It was repetitive, and grueling, and absolutely not as fun as he'd hoped, but he reminded himself why he was doing this in the first place and that determination kept him upright.
Mina seemed resolved to drill it into them until the moves became instinctual.
His arms and legs burned and while he knew it had only been an hour at most it felt like longer. Time almost lost its meaning, it simply seemed to be a cycle of throwing or blocking punches and having himself corrected again and again as if nothing he ever did was quite perfect. He could only grit his teeth and continue.
Haya didn't seem tired but her attention often drifted. Shinsou, however, simply lacked the stamina. When it became obvious he was lagging behind, Mina called a break, and he staggered off with relief to collapse beside Kuba.
Wordlessly, the other boy passed him a drink.
Had be not been so completely spent he might have protested, but as it was Shinsou simply accepted the bottle, uncapped the lid and chugged it down. The water was cool and absolutely perfect, and he probably would have drained the thing in one go if common sense hadn't kicked in and forced him to stop. He set the bottle on the ground, taking a few hungry breaths instead.
"Better?" Kuba asked.
Shinsou nodded.
"Good." This seemed to be all he had to say, for he simply sat there in silence while Shinsou focused on breathing.
Both the girls were still mystically on their feet, sipping from their water bottles as they babbled happily about something he couldn't hear from this distance. Probably a TV show. Maybe gossip. He didn't care, his entire body felt like it wanted to turn into sludge.
Sweat clung to his skin, running rivets down his back, dampening his hair so it stuck to his head. He pulled a face. "How is it they make it look so easy?"
"They're fitter than you," Kuba said simply. "Ashido is in the hero course, and both of them dance, which takes physical stamina. As far as I know the most you used to do was bike to school."
"Still doesn't feel fair," he grumbled.
"If it makes you feel better, you might not have Haya's stamina but you seem to be better at observation, and you are a quick learner. That's more important if you ask me."
"How do you know that? I thought you were reading your book?"
"I can multi-task. Besides, I'm watching over some of it now."
Ah. Shinsou glanced across at the other boy, who was staring out at where they had been training. Whatever Kuba's strange eyes were seeing, he was pretty sure it wasn't the present. He reached out to wave a hand in front of his face just to be sure but got no reaction.
Shinsou sat back, settling for watching the girls instead, who appeared to be comparing biceps in a laughably bizarre display. He was confident the way Haya's cheeks coloured couldn't just be from the exercise they'd endured. It was harder to tell if Mina was having the same problem, since her skin was already so pink.
He wasn't sure this was a good thing - it would be another distraction, and if Haya really did intend to attempt a transfer to the hero course then she could do with as few as possible... then again, he still wasn't sure how committed she was to that goal...
And if it was a distraction for her then maybe that was good for him, since she would be acting as his competition... the idea of them both getting transferred seemed too optimistic to be true... was it fair for him to be hoping she lost sight of such a goal, so soon after fining it again? Did that make him a shitty person? Whatever the case it didn't matter. His own improvement was what he needed to focus on for now, there was no point in concerning himself with such details.
"Hey, Purple-hair!" Mina called, distracting him. "Break's over, enough slacking off!"
Shinsou sighed. He turned to look at Kuba. "Don't suppose you want to join me in this torment?"
"I'll pass," the smaller boy said, looking back to his book and idly flicking a page. "In case you've forgotten, I've absolutely no interest in ever becoming a hero. Violence and danger on a regular basis isn't something I aspire to."
"Your loss," Shinsou muttered, hauling himself back to his feet.
By the time they were done he could practically feel the bruises forming on his skin, and he had no doubts about how sore he would be feeling the next morning. Mina had shown them a couple of new techniques, but she still seemed determined to drill the basics into them before she gave them the opportunity to really expand their repertoire.
Honestly he just wanted to go home and collapse on the couch, but he knew even when he got home there would still be things to do. On top of his usual chores and study material he needed to do the shopping today, his mother had left him a note and some cash on the kitchen counter, as was customary.
"You want to make this a regular thing?" Mina asked, exposing her midriff for a moment as she wiped her face off on her shirt, dampening it with sweat.
"Yes, yes!" Haya cried, and the two high-fived, but Mina swiftly turned her attention to him.
"I guess so," Shinsou said when it became clear something was expected, scratching at the back of his neck. It wasn't like he had another instructor and it would be foolish to turn down the opportunity. In some ways... in some ways he hated it. The humiliation that she felt he even needed this... like he couldn't do it on his own, if he wanted... the frustration of finding his own body struggling to keep up... the bitter part of him detested the whole ordeal, but Shinsou was practical. He could research techniques and exercise routines, but actual combat training was something you couldn't do on your own. This would give him the leg up he needed to catch up to speed with the basics, and if he decided there was a better alternative later on he could drop it. For now this was all he had. "Yeah... if you're okay with it," he concluded.
Mina punched the air in apparent delight. "Alright! I'm gonna work you guys to the bone, it'll be so much fun..."
Shinsou winced, a little less convinced. The girl had a terrifying intensity sometimes.
Haya nudged him. "Don't look so worried," she whispered, grinning. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?"
"Not really what I was hoping to hear," he muttered.
"Coward."
"Anyway," Shinsou said, more loudly this time, "if we're done I'm going to head home."
"Wait, hold up!" Haya bounded up to his side. "Don't you want to try your quirk out?"
That drew him to a stop. He paused, looking at her cautiously. "Now?"
"Well why not? It's not like my quirk, you need people to try it out, and I said I'd be willing to let you... We're both here so might as well."
"Oooh, is Shinsou gonna use his quirk?" Mina asked, closing the distance in an instant and bouncing up and down excitedly. "I saw it at the tournament, it was so creepy, but so cool! You should try it on me too, I want to know what it's like!"
He stared at the two as if they'd grown an extra set of heads, struck by the peculiarity of the whole situation. He was so used to people fearing his quirk, even going as far as to refuse to speak to him out of concern that he might seize control of them, and now he had two people jumping up and down and actively vying for him to brainwash them. It made absolutely no sense. The pair of them were mad.
"Are you... sure about this?" he asked, reaching to scratch at the back of his neck, an anxious gesture he'd had for years.
Mina nodded enthusiastically, and Haya followed suit a little more hesitantly.
"Do me first!" Mina insisted. "Make me do a cartwheel!"
"Why a cartwheel?"
"Cos it will look cool!"
He still felt apprehensive about the whole thing, but he supposed it wasn't often he got an invitation to actively use his quirk so he might as well make use of it. Steeling himself, he nodded.
"Alright then. Can you answer a question for me?" he asked.
"Sure," Mina said without hesitation, and her face immediately went slack, loosing all expression as her eyes glazed over. She stood still on the spot, waiting with perfectly uncharacteristic patience.
"Do a cartwheel," Shinsou told her.
Mina turned, raised her arms up, and then proceeded to cartwheel. It lacked a little of the natural elegance of her normal movements but was better than anything Shinsou could have done himself, and it didn't seem to present her any difficulty.
When she landed back on her feel, she returned to simply standing on the spot.
"Make her do the chicken dance," Haya urged.
"No," Shinsou told her, ignoring her pout.
"Oi," Kuba called over from where he was still sitting with his book, "can you make her do something without speaking?"
He didn't exactly yell, Shinsou didn't think he'd ever heard Kuba yell, but anything above his usual soft monotone was enough to stand out by virtue of its unexpected nature.
"I'm... not sure," he admitted, a little surprised by his own ignorance. He knew he needed a response to a question for his quirk to work on someone, but once he had them in his grasp he'd never thought of trying commands without speaking.
Even when he was younger, when his quirk had first developed and he still didn't have proper control of it, he'd been too busy with all the stress and upset that caused around him to worry about the finer details. And when he did have control of it no one wanted him to use his quirk. Any time he did, he was inevitably punished.
Frowning, he considered the waiting Mina for a moment before he narrowed his eyes as he tried to focus. He tried thinking the command, willing it, tried to envision the words flowing from himself to her as if my some invisible force, tried to make her understand...
She jerked once, like a puppet pulled by its strings, but no cartwheels. After a few minutes Shinsou had to admit that the only other thing that was happening was that he was getting a headache.
"It's no good," he said with a sigh, relinquishing his control of Mina.
She staggered, blinking herself out of her stupor.
"You alright?" he asked once she appeared to have grounded herself.
"I'm fine. That was weird though! Haya, how was the cartwheel?"
Haya gave her the thumbs up.
"Awesome! You should try getting me to do one of my dance routines next!"
"Next?" Shinsou asked in confusion.
"It would be an interesting experiment," Kuba offered, apparently having wandered over. He'd put his book away and he was surveying the three of them with a thoughtful look. "You wouldn't know any of her routines themselves, so I suppose it would be a way of testing how your own control melds with whoever you're brainwashing. Are they only able to follow direct commands, or can you be more vague and allow the knowledge and experience of a person to fill in the blanks? It would also be interesting to see if either of them can follow through with a command you understand but they shouldn't have the knowledge to follow through with under normal circumstances."
That was the most he thought he'd ever heard Kuba say in one go. "Since when are you so interested in this stuff?" Shinsou asked suspicionsly.
Kuba shrugged. "I just like to know as much as I can about things. You don't normally talk about your quirk so now is an interesting opportunity to learn some stuff."
Mina snapped her fingers suddenly. "That's what it is! You sound just like Deku!" she said to Kuba.
The boy didn't bat an eyelid. "Who?"
"Midoriya! Green hair, freckles, gets super excited about quirks and mumbles about them?"
"Oh, him. Yes, I've seen his notebook, it's quite interesting. I've been considering starting something similar myself," he said, head tilted slightly to the side as if her were contemplating it at that very moment.
Shinsou eyed him doubtfully. "What happened to having no interest in heroics?"
"Nothing. I don't see what this has to do with this. I don't want to be a hero but that doesn't mean knowing about this kind of stuff won't come in useful."
"You can always change your mind and be my sidekick if you want," Haya said.
"You're not even in the hero course yet," Kuba reminded her.
"So what?" she demanded, puffing herself up defiantly.
"Anyway," Kuba said, brushing her off, "Shinsou, do you want to test that stuff out?"
Shinsou hesitated. This whole scenario felt surreal.
He used his quirk sometimes if he was angry and lost his temper, like he had with Haya, and he'd used it plenty during the sports festival because it was the best chance he had at winning... but it was always on someone unsuspecting, someone he caught when they tripped up and forgot they weren't supposed to respond...
People didn't like his quirk. They called it creepy, villainous, evil... they wanted nothing to do with it, acted as if it were something dirty. He'd had a teacher years ago who'd forbidden him from speaking simply because of their distrust of it. His mum had complained, of course, when she found out, but Shinsou was used to things like that over the years.
Anyone who showed an interest had the telltale glint of greed in their eyes, enough to warn him to stay away...
Yet here he was, with people crowding around him, actively asking him to use it, on themselves no less... actually showing an interest, a genuine curiosity, and he had no idea what to make of the whole thing...
It was overwhelming, and part of him was suddenly frightened... truly frightened... because the more he thought about it, surely this had to be a trick, right? There had to be something they wanted out of this?
He shouldn't have agreed to any of this... things that seemed too good to be true always were, because nothing was ever easy for him...
Round and round those thoughts began to spin and he found himself trapped.
It felt as if his throat were tightening up, choking him with invisible hands.
"Shinsou?" Haya prompted when he said nothing.
He snapped from his daze. Turning away, he glared at the ground.
"I can't today," he said, voice hollow, "I've got things to do and I don't want to be late."
Just let me go, he thought, I don't want to be here anymore...
What was wrong with him?
Kuba said nothing, but he could feel the other boy's eyes drilling into his back.
Mina, at least, didn't seem phased. "Oh, alright then. You did really well today though. We'll see you next time, okay? You better be ready for round two of my awesome training!"
Shinsou pursed his lips. Would he? He could refuse... now would be the best time, really, before they came to expect anything from him.
He had been right before though, he needed combat training and right now Mina was the best chance he had, only a fool would toss that away because of some strange and unforeseen anxiety he needed to get control of.
If it came down to it he could always refuse to use his quirk if their attention had this... effect on him again, but he would have to practice it at some point. Just not right now.
"Sure," Shinsou said flatly, leaving the group to pick up his bag.
"See you tomorrow!" Haya yelled after him, and his steps slowed for a second, but he kept walking, gaze set stubbornly to the ground.