Entropy increases

by ussradon

I'm literally standing on the street at night, lighting a cigarette off some creepy guy's hand while someone's barn is burning in the background. What the hell is going on?

A/n: Entropy is a measure of chaos that only increase in one direction.

for the begining, i would say, that english is not my native language, i'm so sorry. in general, this is a translation of my work into English. I did it to practice my English skills, and I think they are still not enough to make a quality literary translation, but I really wanted to try. in fact, I am a scientific physicist, and my b3-c1 (I don't know exactly) level of English is technical English, not general. I have experience in translating articles FROM english, not INTO english. so my academic adviser asked me to practice before sending my own article to English-language publications. I DON'T THINK OF COURSE THAT HE MEANS TRANSLATING MY BNHA FANFIC BUT STILL.

I have serious problems with literary language, it seems to me, so I would be grateful if you tell me what would be better. let me remind you, I work with articles, and narrative text for me is a new horizon :(

Actually, the idea came to me while my friends and I were playing Valorant and thinking about which character's abilities are the most useful (I was voting for Fade until the very end). As a result, I don't remember how, but we switched to the topic of BNHA. And we were like: "fuck, what would the agents of Valorant do in this verse? Well, Reyna would be a villain ofc." Actually, that's how it went, I jokingly described Fade's quirk in the realities of BNHA, and I liked it so much that I decided to write one shot. One, two, five, and in the end I already had a completely new character ready with her own personality and history, BUT DAMN with Fade-inspired quirk. That's how Yume Mirai was created.

Initially, it was one 5-page one shot. Afterwards, I involuntarily thought up the details, either while sitting at a test on higher mathematics (ah, then i was still in school. AND NOW I AM A FUCKING SCIENTIST), or on the way home, or while watching webinars. And, ultimately, I got a story, using which as an example I want to tell what excessive pride can lead to in a person and, perhaps, even find a way to fight it for myself. Some fragments are just torn from my heart. I will be glad if the work finds a response somewhere inside you.

/

I know all the things around your head

and what they do to you.

A cigarette smolders between two fingers. My gaze is blurred and unfocused, and my attention cannot focus on anything specific, which is why I continue to stare quietly into the indefinite space in front of me. My ears are ringing and my head is splitting at the seams. It seems like I have a migraine.

With a light movement, I'm shaking the ashes onto the asphalt, and the blue smoking sparks are continuing to glow brightly at the soles of my shoes. My gaze catches on the puddles on the road: they reflect blue flames, which in such a short period already manages to cover a rather large territory. Winter drizzle continues to fall from the sky, falling to the ground and spreading evenly over the wet surface. It was bound to fucking rain that day when I was wearing a jacket without a hood. Thanks. It's very nice, I appreciated it.

Although the drizzle is not strong, my hair manages to get wet because of it, which is why the stray front short strands now hang over my face and climb into my eyes. And there is nothing to remove them with: one hand is busy with a cigarette, and the other is too comfortably arranged in a warm pocket. Awesome. I frown with displeasure, continuing to drill the asphalt with an empty gaze.

"Ease up, it's sickening to look at," a voice comes from somewhere to the side. I'm slowly turning my head towards the source of the noise. The same guy is still standing opposite me. Oh, I'm sorry, it's obviously logical, where would he go? He leans his back against the concrete facade of the building, his hunched shoulders are now relaxed, and his face takes on such a serene look that I even want to punch him. It seems like absolutely everything irritates me today. Indeed, why is that? The guy doesn't take his turquoise eyes off me, continuing to look at me without much interest.

"So don't look at me?" I don't understand the complaint. I'm frowning even more and raising an eyebrow questioningly, tilting my head to the side. I'm taking another long pull off the cigarette, involuntarily running my thumb over the bruise on my index finger.
What the hell am I doing here? What specific action of mine led me to the fact that I'm now standing next to some kind of a parody on Frankenstein, smoking a cigarette lit on strange hand, and watching as the column of blue fire of his quirk rises into the sky?

The guy mirrors my actions, bringing the cigarette to his two-toned lips. He exhales nicotine smoke, lazily closes his eyes and leans the top of his head back against the wall. His face looks slightly irritated, some kind of braces on his cheeks and under his eyes gleam in the blue light. Because of the stitches, it always seems like he's smiling, but if you look a little closer, you can see how his lips are twisted in displeasure. Most of his black hair is hidden under the hood, and the bangs peeked out from under it get wet under the raindrops and fall into his eyes. However, the dark strands cannot hide the shine of his turquoise irises. He frowns his thin eyebrows and looks at me with narrowed eyes as if trying to catch me in something. The gaze of the owner of a fire quirk is incredibly cold, like ice. What an oxymoron.

"So fuck off and don't be in my sight," the guy responds languidly, not putting a bit of emotion into his words.

And I forgot his name. Completely.

"You need it, so turn away," indifference quickly replaces irritation, so I just shrug and continue to smoke in silence. Only a short low laugh is heard from the interlocutor. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice how he finally turns his head away from me. And that's good.

The already charred wood continues to burn, crackling in the blue fire. Colored sparks rise up to the dark impenetrable sky, cutting through gray columns of smoke with their glow. The blue flame, I must admit, looks quite mesmerizing: the raging of elements resembles a dance, although due to its destructive power it looks more like a macabre. What a truly wonderful ability.

"It burns well," comes out of my mouth before I have time to process what I have said. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it's even better this way. The finished cigarette falls to my feet and disappears under the sole. My freed hand, already reddened from the cold, disappears in the second pocket of the jacket.

"Yeah," the guy opposite me responds hollowly.

A winter evening. A silent drizzle. A blue pillar of fire lit up the black sky. Ash settling in puddles on the asphalt. And absolute silence, broken only by the crackle of flames.

"Are you two fucking idiots? Did you just burn down a house?"

Or not quite absolute silence.

/

For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to live in peace, not get involved in anything, not regret anything, and not rush anywhere. But as luck would have it, I've got a shitty quirk that attracts, well, not the desired attention, and then all sorts of dubious personalities hang around me. Although why dubious? Fucking crazy, that's more accurate. That's why at some point in my life I realized that I wouldn't be able to live a quiet life in this world, although I still haven't been able to come to terms with it.

"Mirai-chan, come here, please!"

" 'kay."

As a child, I showed off my quirk a lot. And I showed it off too much. So now no one wants to come up to me once again. Not that it's a big loss, of course, but still. After finishing middle school, I thought, well, that's it, I won't try to stand out any more - I've had enough; so no heroics or something, I'd rather physics and mathematics as my future direction. You know, I found such a mundane occupation. You sit there, calmly solve problems in a notebook, listen to music, and let the rest of them save the world outside the window. Well, or they destroy it. Let them do what they want, as long as it doesn't concern me. My former classmates, of course, gave me shit for this career choice, saying, you kinda weak, Mirai, but somehow I don't care. At least I won't die at work. But my family was very happy: they won't have to pay crazy money for studying at the hero academy.

"Take the order from the chefs, take it to the fourth table."

But I have to go to university in a year, and I still don't have enough money. That's why I'm here right now.

"Mirai-chan, can you hear me?" a short pink-haired girl with frozen anxiety on her insincere face clumsily waves her hand in front of my eyes, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll take everything now," I'm turning around on my low heels and walking towards the kitchen.

Actually, why am I telling you all this? I'm just being overwhelmed by a stream of viscous thoughts again, which, in fact, don't carry any great meaning. They just make me think for a moment or two about the kind of routine I'm drowning in now. The "home-study-work-home" routine. But I don't mind if I can eventually earn at least a little for my future education. I don't mind if in the future my salary will pay for the time spent in this... what is this? A cafe? A snack bar? A canteen? I'm still not sure what kind of place this is. The main thing is that they pay in cash and on time.

"Your order, sir," I go up to the table where an unattractive middle-aged man is sitting and I smile charmingly.

And in order to earn even more money in this place, you need to take the initiative into your own hands.

"Put it on the table," he snaps and, glancing at me, turns back to the window.

It seems as if he is about to break loose and run away right now. His eyes are nervously darting around the room, his pupils are dilated. His hands are shaking, causing him to clench them. He taps his foot under the table. I know for sure that he has meth. And today his meth will be in my possession.

I smile, pressing the empty tray to my chest and politely ask if he wants anything else. The man, of course, answers negatively and again casts a quick glance at me, as if to say, go away already, what are you standing here for. That's what I want, damn it. I bow politely and go back to the kitchen. With a slight movement of my hand, I unbutton the top button of my shirt and put the bag of white crystals in my bra. That's all.

Soon the man leaves, leaving neither tips nor good manners. What a pity. By the way, he never touched the food. He paid for the set lunch, but didn't even drink tea. What a fool. What did he come for, what did he want...?

... Although what he wanted was clear - either to palm off his dope on someone, or to buy even more. But the dude was probably dumped. And robbed, too. I wish I felt sorry for him.

There are almost no visitors at this time: usually only schoolchildren from disadvantaged families living in this area come, and all sorts of drug addicts or dealers. Heroes from patrols come in even less often. I met them literally twice in six months.

I rarely had to stay for the night shift - which, by the way, is surprising, because, as far as I know, the schedule in such places is a complete mess - but I would love to go out at night too. Because there are so many possibilities... oh, my.

My plan is pretty simple: I use a quirk, steal substances from clients' pockets, and then resell them. About sixty-five percent of the entire plan is my ability to master a quirk. The principle itself is unsightly, but here's how to use it correctly – it should have been thought of before. But, fortunately, I had my whole life to do that. The remaining percent of the successful component of my plan is effective communication skills, as well as the ability to make quick situational decisions.

Lost in thought, I stand at the counter at the checkout, lazily examining the manicure. The establishment is relatively empty now - only a small group of schoolchildren are sitting in the corner, actively talking about something. Unconsciously, I turn my gaze to the teenagers. Judging by their uniforms, they study at some ordinary state middle school. Of course, someone from a wealthy family wouldn't hang around these places. And I'm not exaggerating: this is a really poor area, I wouldn't say that it's really criminal, but still, it's sometimes quite dangerous to walk here at night. Yeah, and I could only get a job here.

I find myself thinking that I have been watching the students for a whole minute and involuntarily wonder: do I envy them? Do I regret that instead of spending time with friends, I'm stuck at work after school?

No, I don't regret it. I have nothing to regret.

Life hasn't wronged me in any way, hasn't shortchanged me, so why should I? And I do not work according to someone else's will, but according to my own. So what should I regret?

I stretch into a smile from my own thoughts and lean my elbows on the table, resting my chin on my palms. For some reason, at this moment it seems that life is going exactly the way I need it. What is happening is part of my one big plan, which is being realized more and more successfully every day. Everything is going according to plan. Everything is going exactly according to plan.

A pink-haired girl passes by - I don't remember her name, I have a terrible memory for names - and looks questioningly in my direction. Is she so surprised that I am in a good mood? Well, let her enjoy herself and not bother me, because she has been annoying me a lot lately.

My positive thoughts are interrupted by the sharp ringing of the bells on the entrance door to the establishment. That guy is back. He looks around absentmindedly, jerks his head back and forth, and then approaches the cash register on trembling legs. I immediately straighten up behind the counter. The man comes up to me, bends over, quickly glances at another waitress standing in the passage to the kitchen, and then opens his mouth and for some reason remains silent. Apparently, he is collecting his thoughts. Well, or he is just being stupid.

"Uh, have you seen if I left anything here?" he says in a quiet voice, almost in a whisper, looking into my eyes. His pupils are still dilated, and one, it seems, has now become even a little larger than the other.

I smile guiltily: "Excuse me, have you lost something?" I pull my eyebrows to the bridge of my nose, and leave my mouth slightly open. It's surprise expression. Not my own, but it is.

"Yes, I... uh, nevermind, just give me a second," the man abruptly rushes to the place where he was sitting a little earlier. He examines the worn leather sofas, runs his hand along the fold between the seat and the back, looks under the table. As expected, he finds nothing. It's the same thing every time, I can't help but smile again. It's so funny, actually. They are like little children, confused, shocked when they lose something they need. And most importantly, they always expect someone to find it for them.

"Have you seen... well... what I left here?" he mumbles helplessly. And this is the funniest thing: they can't say directly what exactly they lost, so they get very cagey. I swear, I've heard all sorts of variations. Starting from the simple 'I forgot the medicine,' and ending with the most urgent at the moment, 'I carried a bag of rice flour for my grandmother, she asked for it for mochi, otherwise she ran out.' Yeah, dude, your grandma doesn't have one gram of rice flour to make mochi, we get it. Really, there's a circus like this every time.

"What exactly are you looking for?" the man hesitates, as expected, in response to my question. "We didn't find anything while cleaning, maybe then we'll look at the cameras?" I point my finger at the device hanging in the corner. The guy follows my hand with a frightened look and, noticing the piece of equipment, his eyes widen.

"No-no-no-no, I… I guess I probably didn't leave anything here," the man stands in the middle of the hall, picturesquely putting his hands in his pockets, and begins to look around serenely. Like, I'm standing here, looking at your curtains, don't bother me. "I'll... go then... - he babbles and storms out of the place. I just laugh briefly: they are all afraid of cameras."

By the way, these cameras have never worked.

"Well," my partner drawls, coming closer to the counter. "Someone often loses something here, don't you think?" I shrug and glance out the window at the nervous, scared man rummaging through the trash can by the parking lot. I grin again. "I wonder why," the girl says thoughtfully and leans her elbows on the table.

"Yeah, I wonder why too."

My shift ends pretty soon: I work part-time, and that's why I leave early. I tried to somehow get more working hours, but, as expected, they didn't give them to me. They don't even let me work on weekends: the boss says that otherwise I'll die at this rate, without finishing this school year. In principle, it's pretty fair on his part: who would make a schoolgirl work overtime? But I'm more inclined to think that there's something fishy about this cafe, it's not for nothing that there are so many dealers hanging around here. It's okay with drug addicts, no one is surprised by them now, but drug dealers are not such a common phenomenon, especially in the reality of this small catering establishment. Is it a coincidence that all the dealers in this city suddenly, independently of each other, decided to gather to trade here? I don't think so.

So it's logical that if suddenly my academic performance at school falls below the expected level, or suddenly I die from overwork, then my boss will be visited with a subpoena, like, ahaaa, you're forcing underage schoolchildren to work until they lose their pulses. And they'll conduct inspections. And then it's not just the non-working cameras that will surface, for sure. And who the hell needs that? No one, that's right.

That's why I work and don't complain. That is, I mean, they didn't hire me in other places anyway.

At the end of the shift, I recalculate the salary for today. Of course, it's not much, I'll get almost four times more from the sale of that one-gram bag, but damn, what can I do. But it's cash, not a check: which, by the way, again suggests some kind of illegal machinations of my boss. He launders money through this cafe, I swear I don't think there's any huge drug business built right here, otherwise I would have been killed a long time ago for taking away their profits. And my boss is not Gustavo Fring. Although the devil knows… they might come here one day with a raid and tie everyone up. However, they won't do anything to me, by the end, I'm just a simple schoolgirl, working wherever she can for nothing. I've already got it all figured out in advance. I've already thought through all possible options for the further outcome of events.

I'm too lazy to change back into my school uniform, I don't have any other clothes with me, so I just slam the iron door of my locker, lock it and, nodding goodbye to my pink-haired colleague and a couple of chefs, go out through the service entrance. It's already dark. Although it's about eight o'clock, the sky outside is by this moment covered with an impenetrable black canvas of stars. It gets dark earlier in winter. The parking lot in front of the building is not empty: it's rush hour at the establishment. It's a shame that I'm not working now, but I'll get over it.

The Milky Way is spread out like a whitish strip of stars against the dark sky. It's quite unusual to see it at this time of year: in most cases, the view of the galaxy, and the stars in general, are obscured by dense clouds. The moon sits almost completely in the middle of the sky, dispelling the darkness of the night with its light. Apparently, there will be a full moon tomorrow. I wonder if people with werewolf-type quirks howl at the moon at this time? You know, give in to natural instincts and all that… Or is there something more human than natural in them? Or does it depend on the specific quirk of such an individual?

Yes, it's quite bright without streetlights tonight. Moon shadows from the surroundings dance on the shiny asphalt. Steam comes out of my mouth with every breath. The temperature must be slightly below zero - I'm wearing only a thin jacket for outerwear, but I'm not cold at all. A cool wind envelops my face and trembles the strands of hair that have escaped from my everyday hairstyle. I squint a little when my hair gets into my eyes.

It could be a beautiful, serene winter evening. If it weren't for one thing.

"What are you doing up there?"

Children's fear is darkness. It makes me mentally shudder every time I see the slightest movement in the darkn. And now, in the moonlight, when the shadows become most distinct, I notice with my peripheral vision how someone's silhouette grows behind me.

The person stops hiding his presence, and therefore his quiet footsteps become audible. When an unfamiliar alien shadow threatens to catch up with mine, I'm turning around. A tall man is standing in front of me, just a couple of steps away. Although, judging by his physique, I would rather say a young guy. The moonlight does not reach him, and therefore I cannot make out someone else's silhouette at all. But on the contrary, he sees me in all my glory. Although in what glory, I'm fucking tired now. I can feel the guy's eyes sliding over me.

"Seriously? A girl?" he says mockingly in a low, slightly hoarse voice.

"And so what do you want, a man?" I frown and look at him wearily. Well, what else is he attached to here, huh?

The guy takes a step and comes out of the shadows, and I instinctively step back. A dark-haired young man, unknown to me until now, towers in front of me. He is slouched, which makes him look shorter than he really is. Although even if he straightens up, he still won't be much taller than me. His hair sticks out in different directions, and his tangled bangs fall on his narrowed blue eyes.

And- oh, fuck. Honestly, at first it seemed to me that he had huge bags under his eyes. Well, or maybe he got black eyes, who knows. But now I see it clearly: he doesn't have bags or black eyes at all. These were areas of damaged skin, fastened to the healthy part of his face with staples. His entire lower jaw and neck are some kind of unnatural purple color. Is it burns, or something? And what, without staples, it's like he's going to fall apart at the seams?

Honestly, I try not to look at him, because, well... I don't want to embarrass the person, you know. But the gaze itself is riveted on him. Some kind of heavy aura emanates from the guy. The feeling of danger is right there in the depths of my chest. At the same time, if you think rationally, he doesn't pose any danger. For me. One quick wave of my hand is enough to get rid of him once and for all.

"Are you at least twenty?" he tilts his head to the side questioningly, waiting for an answer. I still continue to stand there silently. That's it, I won't even move a muscle on my face. Noticing my detachment, the guy rolls his eyes and curls his lips in displeasure, and then looks piercingly into my face, "Well, it gets harder. Let's get down to business. Do you have something?"

Tell me he's joking, please. I'm definitely not going to sell anything to him, I'm not stupid, and he should understand that perfectly well. Another question is: why did he come then?

Outwardly, I don't hesitate, I just blink a couple of times and stupidly look into his eyes. My fingertips in my pocket start to tingle, causing me to slowly move them. Anxiety is simmering inside, but it's still under control. Despite the fact that this isn't my first time in a similar situation, I'm still shaking: after all, every time there's a tiny, but still very real chance of getting caught in some little thing, a chance to raise my hand with a quirk a microsecond later, a chance to shift my gaze to the side at the wrong time, and so on similar. Even if these chances tend to zero, they will never be equal to it, so, from a mathematically speaking, yes, I can fuck up at any moment.

I'm not going to attack right away: in principle, I never attack first, because I realize that my fighting skills leave much to be desired. Come on, let's be honest: I will be beaten up before I even have time to move a finger. I can easily defend myself; but there is no way that I can continue a full-fledged fight on equal terms. Until now, my own quirk helped me get away with, but without it, I'm just nothing. That's why I have to get very cagey every time, talking absolute nonsense, like a fool.

"Sure, what do you want: dorayaki, dango or daifuku? You can go inside the establishment and choose whatever your heart desires," I smile idiotically, straining my lips, and after a moment I return my face to its imperturbable look. He still realizes that I'm fooling around and will continue to fool around until the very end.

"I would get one gram of meth," the guy grins, leaning his shoulder against the wall of the building. He looks at me mockingly, his blue eyes sparkling merrily in the silence of the night. Like, go ahead, get out of this, and I'll stand here and laugh.

Am I kind of fucked up?

"Oh my," I scratch my head theatrically and look at my feet. "Should I call the cops already, or are you going to walk to the police station by yourself?"

He laughs briefly, and at such moments they usually say: 'I got goosebumps from fear down my spine.' But, alas and ah, to his great regret, I won't say that: if he even twitches, he'll get hit right away. I'm not bluffing, I'll just use my quirk at the slightest thing. But if he can avoid its effects, then that's another question, there's nothing you can do about it, it doesn't depend on me. So it's pointless to panic and be afraid here - it's better to immediately accept the fate of being killed in the middle of a parking lot.

There are two options here - either me or me. Either my quirk will work on him, or it won't. There's no need to be wary of an unclear outcome in advance.

The guy continues to calmly drill me with his gaze, leisurely leaning back against the wall, keeping his lips in the same crooked smile. He is silent, waiting to see what I'll do next. I can't help but draw an analogy with the victim and the hunter, but in our case we are both the victim and the hunter, here the chances are fifty-fifty. That's just because of our own pride, no one wants to admit it. Well, I think he will end by beaten up. And he thinks that I will.

All I care about is this: why hasn't he attacked yet or at least started to act? If someone somehow snitched on me, then the guy came here for my life, that's understandable. But what is he waiting for? Is he not sure that I am the one he needs? Is he waiting for confirmation that he is not mistaken? No, if he was waiting for me here, it means that he was already sure that the person he needed would show up right here and now. Although, judging by his first remark, he did not know who exactly he was waiting for. Did you give a simple tip without any other information? Probably. Maybe he tipped me off himself? No, I'd never seen him before - I would definitely remember him. And it's impossible to tipped me off in action, well... due, again, to the principles of my quirk. And if there was a tip off, then from whom?

He couldn't know (because of my quirk again) that I was stealing someone else's meth and selling it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have mentioned it at the very beginning, just to check his guesses about me. Because then he would risk being turned in to the police for possession if I did sell it to him - they already charge people for a gram of meth, apparently. And doing business with unfamiliar dealers means risking being turned in to the police station every time. Anyone can understand that.

So, now he's just laughing at me. In that case, there's no point in pretending that I'm not involved. I should find out how the guy got in touch with me in the first place, and then deal with this problem.

Do I need to play along with him?

"Okay, then what will you give me for the meth?"

"I'll kick your ass."

"Uh-oh."

Short and sweet.

Okay, he's about to beat me up. Can I somehow influence this? Unlikely, but it's still possible, I guess. Anyway, is it better for me to ask something myself, or try to reach him? I think it's better to wait until the guy starts talking himself - that way there's less chance of asking the wrong question, which will cause the whole conversation to go in the wrong direction. And if he speaks, then maybe he'll reveal who he came from and why. In any case, we'll see how the situation plays out.

The internal tension is still at the same level, neither disappearing nor growing – I have not learned anything new that would shock me, and what was said only justified my guesses. I continue to stand there in silence, looking at the guy with an indifferent gaze.

I control the desire to start tapping my foot on the spot – it will give away my insignificant internal tension. I control the interval between blinking my eyes. I'm fighting the urge to bite the inside of my cheek.

Apparently, it works – the guy curls his lips in displeasure and rolls his eyes. Annoyed by my external indifference, he expects a different reaction from me. He moves away from the wall, pulls his hands out of his pockets and folds them on his chest. He looks irritably into my eyes, trying to catch at least a drop of excitement or tension in them. And I can't say whether he succeeds or not, but right after that the guy says: "What's wrong? Cat got your tongue, hmm?"

"Should I have a heart-to-heart talk with you?" I shrug. Even if I stop pretending, I still don't understand what the guy really wants from me. Well, except to kill me, of course.

He only gives a short, low laugh in response. With a sharp step, he shortens the distance between us. I don't lag behind - at the same moment I quickly move back, increasing the distance several times more than before. Pretending to be indifferent is cool, of course, but I still can't lose my mind.

The guy is surprised by such a sudden move on my part. He arches his right eyebrow in surprise: "So, you're afraid of me after all, huh," he says louder than before, slightly lifting the corners of his lips. He still mocks me.

"Of course, please don't scare me like that again, or I'll die of fear," I say calmly, raising my eyebrows and pressing my lips into a thin line. I know that by being ironic I'm only pissing him off–that's exactly what I'm trying to do. When people give in to emotions, they tend to talk more. And getting this darned guy to talk is my goal. Until I find out where does he got wind of me, I won't back down. Even though I'm walking on thin ice. If he kills me, then I don't think that I will care if someone reveal me as a thief-dealer or not, I'll lick my wounds and start over again.

"Maybe will you favor me with your name at least?"

I know that he doesn't need this information at all, he asks this in order to gain my trust, to create the illusion that, like, he's so fucking friendly. And to stall for time.

But now it's not worth indulging in sarcasm and irony any longer, it's better to give him the answer he wants to hear, without any antics or anything else. The main thing in such conversations is to find a fine line beyond which you absolutely must not go.

"Ishikawa Nana," I simply say. I blink my eyelashes a couple of times and look at the guy questioningly - I almost don't have to feign indignation: more than half of it is natural.

The Darned stares at my face, his blue eyes sliding over my silhouette once again. As if having received confirmation of some of his own thoughts, he nods to himself.

"It suits you," the guy responds dully and chuckles mockingly.

Oh, so he didn't even know my name. That means I'm doing great, his potential tipster knows absolutely nothing about me. I can bail now, the rest isn't that important, given the current tension. But for now I can try to find out the details, if possible.

If this jerk didn't know my real name, then he most likely didn't know that I work here: my name is written on my badge in very large letters. He couldn't see whether I came out of the service entrance of the establishment or the main one - they both don't lead to the parking lot, where I noticed this guy. And the only thing that at the moment can indicate that I belong to this eatery – a work uniform – is now hidden under my jacket.

So my initial theory was correct – he had been given a tip. Apparently, It was said that I would show up at such and such a time in such and such a place, without any details. But who was the informant?

"Are you even listening to me?" a low, irritated voice thunders in front of me. It seems I was too lost in my thoughts again.

"No," I admit honestly. It's my only honest remark in our entire conversation.

The guy clicks his tongue in displeasure. Well, of course, he was expected to finish everything quickly, but here I am, either showing off or floating in my own clouds.

"Why couldn't you just sit still? A meth? Seriously? Couldn't you sell weed or something? For a snot like you, that's just the thing, since you decided to get into this shit. You could have set up your own production on the balcony under ultraviolet light, instead of stealing from all kinds of freaks," he frowns dismissively, as if the scum of society was standing in front of him. Although, in his eyes, that's probably how it was. Oh, let him think what he wants, I don't give a damn.

"You're, like, pitying me?"

"I'm, like, making fun of you. Did you seriously think that truth won't out?" he raises his thin eyebrows. It was obvious that the question is rhetorical. This guy is not stupid, he understands that I am not stupid either and I aware of the risk. He is also trying to test the waters in the dialogue , like me. He is also waiting for me to do something. "In short, someone is fed up with your antics. One asked me to bring you for, let's say, an educational talk," yeah, of course, I know. He (or his people, I guess) will bring me to some kind of basement for some cool drug dealer and say: 'Please don't steal our dope.' And I will answer: 'Yeah, of course, I won't do it again, please forgive me, for God's sake.' And we'll be like ships that pass in the night.

I need to think about how best to use my quirk. Get his fear under my control? But am I ready to see what he fears most? Something tells me that I don't want to know where his scars came from. Most likely, I'll just be dead from phantom pain, experiencing the horrors of his life on myself, and die right here in the open-air parking lot. Not a death, but a fairy tale.

"So what, are you really just going to bring me in for a talk?" It's my turn to smirk and raise my eyebrows mockingly. Damn it, either I got carried away playing along with him, or I got too lost in my thoughts, but I completely lost the train of thought of the darned boy. Why these silly rants about nothing? Has he taken over my role as an ironic interlocutor? What a bastard, huh.

"No, of course."

"Then go ahead, kill me already or something like that," I try to smile relaxedly, but, in my opinion, it comes out somehow sullen. I just want to go home, sleep, and not endure all this crap.

The guy lets out a high-pitched laugh, and then, still grinning, rolls his eyes up: "Stop doing this shit, just come with me and stay silent," he grabs me by the elbow and pulls me towards him with a sharp movement. His grip is almost steel, his fingers dig into my hand tightly, not giving me a chance to escape. Miraculously managing to stay in place, I just exhale doomedly. I'm so fucking sick of all this shit, huh.

"Maybe we can come to an agreement, can we? You know I'm not going anywhere."

The Darned, having remained silent in response, only symbolically holds out his free right hand, igniting a clot of blue flame on his palm. The blue light of his whim illuminates the surroundings, dispersing the night shadows to the corners. They are afraid of fire.

Explained quite clearly, but it doesn't work on me.

It would be safer now to take his fear under control - it works in a hundred percent of previous cases. But, as I mentioned earlier, I am not ready to feel his burns on me. Most likely, he was burning alive, his quirk confirms this theory. So no, no, no, let him suffer from his nightmares in proud solitude. I will simply turn his fears against himself, and I don't care if it's not as effective.

A black substance, like a viper, wraps around my forearm, spreading in a thin circulating stream to my palm. Red inclusions flicker in the gleams of smoke, an ink sphere imperceptibly forms in my hand. The quirk reaches for the darned guy's face, straight to his turquoise eyes - to the reflection of his soul. I can feel the threads of his fear on the tips of my fingers. A second later he would fall victim to his own torments. A second later I'll calmly turn around, going home. A second later I'll have one less problem.

Just a second later the guy jerks sharply to the side, scorching my hand with the raised quirk with his blue flame. The heat tears my skin, incinerating its upper cells. Two rings on my hand, heated by the fire, continue to burn my fingers even after the guy removes his flame. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I take a step back, grabbing my palm with my other hand, and hiss in pain. Yes, it was predictable, I know, I expected this, but if I had already managed to get used to attempts at attack, then not to the pain. I examine the burn as much as the moonlight in the parking lot allows me to. It seems everything is not so bad. Only my rings continue to burn like hell, and I can't even touch them to take them off - they are too hot. I shake my palm, wrinkling my face.

"Are you going to keep showing off?" a guy's deep voice is heard. I reflexively turn around, observing the lips of my interlocutor twisted in displeasure and his eyebrows furrowed even more than before.

Well, no, now I'm just going to get the fuck away from you. If someone needs to see me "for a conversation" so much, then, in any case, in the future they'll send more "operatives" to me. That's when we'll have a normal conversation with them, but now I won't be able to think clearly when my hand is trembling with pain. There will be more time to think about everything once again.

He didn't know about my quirk - it's not for nothing that he waited until the last moment for my move. Therefore, he dodged my attack on pure reflexes. He already has an advantage over me. Excellent, damn it.

With my undamaged hand, I invoke the quirk again. A black haze from the crook of my elbow flows into my palm, forming another ink sphere on it. Since using his fears didn't work out, I'll use my own. A clot of black matter grows in my hand, pulsating from the inside with a scarlet color. Red threads, like the arteries of a nightmarish entity, envelop its metamorphic body. With a wave of my hand, I direct the entity towards the guy. He won't escape from its attack – no one has ever escaped. The creature opens its fanged, disgusting mouth and plunges the darned one (or I should call him a burner?) into darkness: fears blind. Now I have seven seconds to disappear from his sight. Yeah, tomorrow he (or someone else) will most likely wait for me again in this place, but that will be tomorrow, and today I am no longer able to have any conversations with anyone. Yes, because of a small burn on my hand. No, I'm not ashamed, because I'm tactfully leaving, not running away, you know?

In a matter of moments I cross a small parking lot and run around the corner. Seven seconds are already ticking away when I climb over the fence of someone's private home. I don't feel sorry, I'm not going to break anything here. Now the guy won't be able to find me - he's unlikely to think that I left through the courtyards. Well, that's his problem.

Surprisingly, I get to the train station faster than usual.

/

Yellow streetlights. High painted fences. The measured clatter of footsteps. The distant hum of the highway. It's amazing how poor houses with shabby plaster change to more expensive and modern ones in an two miserable miles of walking . It's like teleportation from the ghetto to a residential area. The roads have become cleaner, without any strange dark stains on the asphalt, and somehow it became easier to breathe, or something. There's definitely calmer. But the streets here are also empty at this time. Although it's not late, I would say. It's just that if in poor areas people are simply afraid to go out on the streets after dark, then in prestigious areas everyone has like two cars in the garage, so no one will just walk around here.

In the light of the street lamps, I'm the only one walking along the sidewalk. There's no one in the shadows in front of me or behind me. No one followed me, as expected - I've already checked several times for sure. That's good.

But the bad thing is that I didn't fully use the quirk on the stranger, which definitely left the guy with memories of my appearance and of that meeting in general.

Yes, this is not the first time somebody have tried to track me down and catch me stealing drags, and yes, it is not the first time people have succeeded. This is a very likely outcome, even with my quirk. I am not a ninja. But before this, I have encountered all sorts of idiots who could only talk. And when I used my ability, they did not even have time to dodge, they stood there with their eyes wide open and their mouths open. There is no threat from such people – inspire them with a quirk that you were a dream, and they will not even bother to figure out whether it was true or not. They will shrug their shoulders and go back to their other business with nothing. And it's good for me – there's nothing more to care about.

Still, it's annoying. Very annoying. The guy is no slouch, he doesn't even disdain to use his quirks. The worst thing about all this is that I didn't find out anything about his tipster, except that he exists. Okay, and then what? How do I deal with this problem?

Before that, if anyone contacted me, they were ordinary drug addicts who had lost their fix and blamed everyone for it. They are out of their minds, of course, and can attack even a passerby, for some reason deciding that he robbed them. That's why I never attached any significance to such attacks on myself. It was scary at first, to be sure, but over time, working in the ghetto, you get used to such things.

But here everything is different. Someone more sesnior is digging under me. And I wish it was someone other than the Yakuza or a well-organized villainous group. Then it's all over for me and my life. And for my relatives' life… Although if someone really wanted to kill me, they would have acted for sure. You know, just a shot to the head, and that's it, the end of the story. But here something is... fishy. They weren't so much trying to kill me as to intimidate me.

I have a bad feeling, a very bad one.

In any case, this is my first and last fuck-up, I won't hesitate or be afraid to use my quirk to its full potential anymore, no matter what it costs me.

The best solution now would be to avoid meeting that guy, because he clearly has an advantage over me in strength. But I can't run away forever, right? I had to think about what to do next, but it would be later.

How annoying, damn. I hate failing. I grimace and frown. I have no idea what my face looks like right now, but I'm sure it sucks: I slept for three and a half hours, studied at school for seven ones, worked in an eatery for four ones, and as a result, I won't go to bed until three o'clock today.

I carefully walk up to the fence with the metal number seven, barely holding back from slamming the gate in my emotions. Anger is anger, but the things surrounding me are not to blame for my misfires. . After greeting my parents in a routine manner and dodging intrusive questions about the past day I go up to my room and lock the door. And at this moment, the irritation that has accumulated over the evening finally spills out in the form of aggression - I throw my backpack at the wall, and then, biting my lip in displeasure, I collapse into a chair and drop my head onto the desk.

"What a shame, I don't want to do anything right now," I catch myself thinking while my hands, as if in some kind of affect, flick through the physics textbook. Out of habit, I run my eyes over the bookmark on which important dates and the work schedule are written. Mid-February: a science fair at the Museum of Modern Technologies.

The last thing I care about now is some kind of science fair, organized not so much for average students, but for applicants to the support departments of hero academies. And I don't need it at all - I only have a year left in high school, where would I fit in?

But, nevertheless, I was forced to participate in this crap, under the pretext of "well, no one else will do a scientific project in two weeks." So now I had to decide what type of alternative energy I would use in my work. And how am I supposed to decide this now, when my thoughts are occupied with tomorrow's drug sales and the darned guy from the alley?

With a heavy sigh, I finally put the textbook away.

/

"A pack of Codeine for... a hundred pills, I guess? Although wait, no, there are significantly fewer. You can count it yourself. Three whole strips with ten tablets each, the rest are already opened. In principle, you can squeeze out them all out and put them in an orange jar so that it looks presentable," I shrug my shoulders vaguely. "A pack of ecstasy, about ten grams of grass, a couple of ampoules of morphine and a gram of methamphetamine. Everything I managed to collect in two weeks."

My interlocutor tilts his head to the side and looks at me with an empty gaze, raising his eyebrows. "Where do you find all this? It seems to me that in addition to your eatery, you also raid dens in your free time," he chuckles and crosses his arms over his chest. "I don't have the money to pay for all this anyway.

I reapeat his movements, copy his gaze, ostensibly endearing the interlocutor to myself. "No, you have them. You're lying to me."

A boy exhales loudly, not taking his eyes off me. He stares at my face stubbornly and intently, trying to force me to break eye contact first. I squirm my fist slightly, and Imperceptibly fight the urge to wince.

"Okay, I'll give you the money," a stranger's voice is heard after some time. The guy thrusts bills into my hands, and after counting them, I give him the sports uniform bag with the school's emblem. Of course, there is no any kind of uniform.

"You'll give the bag back," I say casually, turning around one hundred and eighty degrees. I feel how he gives my back dirty looks, as if he does not dare to add anything or somehow object to me.

As soon as I step out from behind the wall, I can still hear his hesitant question: "Mind reading?"

I pause for a moment, not turning around to look at boy. Is this another game of guessing my quirk again?

"No. Absolutely," although it is not quite as absolute as I said.

The guy noticeably hesitates behind me, but doesn't say anything else. I slowly walk out of the shadow of the service building and head towards the main school entrance for classes.

/

The music hits my ears with heavy beats, resonating somewhere in my chest. The crowd, wanting to sneak up even closer, presses the front rows, pushing people into the stage. Awkwardly dodging someone's hand, I still decide to step back. The air smells of alcohol and cheap perfume. The blue dim lighting unpleasantly hurts my eyes. Afterwards, it will be hard to look at normal light sources. Standing so close to the musicians is not an option, I should have guessed earlier. Cursing, I begin to weave between dozens of drunk and not-so-drunk bodies.

All day long I was thinking about last night and the "ambush" in the parking lot after work. Should I have gone back there today? In all fairness, there shouldn't be a trace of me there anymore, but I can't just suddenly not show up for my shift and then quit altogether.

It's pointless to hide: if my worst fears are confirmed and some villainous group or something worse is really looking for me, then they just have to want to, as they will get me out of the ground right away. So it's better to turn myself into a nightmare in the eyes of that guy - or whoever comes for me next time - and make him forget myself like a bad dream, and then live as before. A year is too short to find all the traces and untangle the paths leading to me, and then I will simply leave here to study in another city. And that's it, the story is over, everyone is well and alive.

I came to this conclusion at the end of the school day.

While I was walking to work after classes, I suddenly got a call to say that the schedule had changed from today and that I didn't have to go anywhere now. Cool, but where am I supposed to earn money? A day off is a day off, but no one is going to give me extra yen for today just like that.

Not wanting to go home and work on my research project, I wandered around the city mindlessly, walking unfamiliar streets and looking at shop and bakery windows. After a dozen days of routine, doing something out of the ordinary seemed almost exciting, but terrifying. You walk the same road to work for months, and then suddenly turn around and find yourself in a new place, a new city. I think I'm becoming derealized by the monotony of my own life.

But I've always loved consistency, so why is it that now, when I do something out of the ordinary, it seem to me as if everything around me can sparkle with a new bright colors?

It gets dark early in winter, so by five o'clock the sun is already invisible. The frosty sunset spreads out in a red glow across the viscous sky and soon fades away. There are no stars today like yesterday. My senseless adventures led me to some club or bar, on the doors of which hangs a poster about an evening gig with free admission. And the only thing I value more in this world than science is music. So, without thinking twice, I went inside.

That's how I end up here. Next time I'll have to be a little more careful. I thought that usually all the drunks hang out on the dance floor, but here they're closer to the stage. When I get out of the crowd back to the tables and the bar, I finally breathe a sigh of relief. Those who actually came here for the music, and not the mosh pit, are sitting in this part of the room, completely untouched by the rest of the visitors.

There are no empty seats anywhere, so I have to lean my back against the door frame. You can still hear the band from any part of the bar. Not surprising. The music is a pleasant wave that covers my body, clouding my mind. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the wall behind me. The sound resonates in my head, causing vibrations somewhere in my throat. The air is filled with the smell of sweat and alcohol. Someone in the crowd is screaming at the top of their lungs. I'm trying to relax, but the tension in my muscles from a long, hard week does not go away. With a heavy sigh, I take out a cigarette and turn around to leave the bar.

I slowly take a step to the right, coming out from behind the doorframe, when someone immediately bumps into me. What a hell, man, I just wanted to go out for a smoke. The cigarette immediately falls out of my mouth, and I frown at the source of my indignation.

The black-haired girl blinks a couple of times before staring at me with her golden, predatory eyes. Her gaze is so innocent that I can't help but shrivel from the dissonance. She shamelessly looks me over from head to toe for exactly a second before speaking up:

"Have you by any chance seen a tall, black-haired idiot around here?" Her voice is extremely calm and light.

Just like that, straight to the point, without apologies.

I mumble something vague in response, still in a state of confusion after losing my last cigarette.

"He has a lot of piercings on his face, it's impossible to confuse him with anyone else. And he has such a dissatisfied face... just like yours," the girl says, tilting her head to the side. It seems that she is exactly the type of person who has no sense of tact at all. And she seems to have no trace of conscience.

"Uuuuhh, no?.." I drawl uncertainly, not really listening to her speech.

"Oh," she answers briefly and doesn't take her eyes off me. Then she puts her hand in her pocket and hands me a cigarette. "Here. You lost yours because of me."

I drop dead because of her unrespectful and serene tone of voice.

I'm still torn between conflicting feelings. For the first time I'm m faced with a person whose appearance and manner of speech are absolutely unredeable. Something deep inside my heart whispers me about danger. Is this an instinct of self-preservation finally working? I look at her, puzzled, but still accept the cigarette from her hand. Maybe she will at least give me a joint, then I can sell it. I look down at my right palm and unconsciously notice the remaining burns where the rings were and chuckle in surprise. Well, I smoke exactly the same ones.

"Thank you," I reply automatically, smiling tensely at the corners of my lips. The music continues to pound in my ears as we continue to look into each other's eyes with stupid faces. The girl is clearly thinking about something of her own, as her gaze is directed somewhere through me. And I, in turn, continue to pretend to be the epitome of politeness, making friendly faces. Finally, after a couple of seconds of tense silence, she suddenly claps her hands loudly, and I blink sharply in surprise.

I don't like meeting new people.

"Okay, screw him. Shall we go smoke?" suddenly an offer arrives from a stranger. The musicians on stage finish performing a track, and the vocalist starts talking to the audience, asking the same type of questions about the past evening, about the feelings from the concert, about emotions and the like. Still not realizing the whole situation (all of this events are developing somehow too quickly for me), I, without giving any verbal signs of consent, silently follow the girl's retreating figure to the exit. Finally, in the corner of the bar, I catch a barely audible conversation about psychotropic substances and immediately form a nightmarish entity on my hand. I give the order to search the pockets of that guy over there, and seven seconds later I hide a pack of pills in the pocket of my hoodie.

Out of the corner of my eye, I feel someone's gaze on me and involuntarily turn around. Did someone notice me? Come on, it can't be that in two days two different people could see my quirk.

Right in the heart - like a bolt of lightning or a sharp spear - a glance of familiar turquoise eyes pierces me from the crowd.

Everything around me slows down. My limbs go numb, my ears ring, and I feel like I'm falling out of my own body.

Fuck it. Are you kidding me?

It's the same darned guy from yesterday. The same staples, glinting in the dim light of the nightclub. The same scary burns, visible from afar.

Right now all three stages of denial of the inevitable are probably written on my face.

The band begin to play the next song, causing the crowd, which had dispersed during the short break, to press towards the stage in a new flux. The cold blue gaze slips out of my vision for only a second, and that second is enough for me to rush like a bullet to the exit.

This is some kind of surrealism. Come on, did some invisible trigger valve turn on yesterday when I met that guy and my life went downhill uncontrollably or what?

There are smoking men on the stairs. They are quietly talking about something their own and only glimpsing in my direction. Outside, a dark gray, starless sky covers the night city like a dome, and I frown once again during this day, shoving my instantly frozen hands into pockets. A clear girl's voice calls out to me from the left. I ignore it.

"Where are you going? I'm here," quiet footsteps are barely heard behind me, as if trying to catch up with me.

Oh fuck, please go away.

I sigh in resignation, but don't slow down and go around the corner of the building. I feel the girl scurrying after me into the alley. She doesn't say anything, and I remain silent, not even turning around to look at her. With a slight movement, I take a lighter and a once-given cigarette out of my pocket and light it. Another sigh. The alley is damp and smells of wet concrete.

"What are you running from?"

From whom.

"It's like I suddenly got fed up with everything," I'm not lying at all. The girl hums with satisfaction and, apparently, nods her head. She comes up to me and tries to look into my face, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes. I stare at the wall opposite with an empty, unfocused gaze and don't pay attention to anything around me. Nicotine smoke fills my lungs and poisons my body. Extraneous obsessive thoughts settle in my head in a loud, almost screaming stream. I hear a fuss and the striking of another lighter from the side.

I don't like other people's presence.

"Do you like music?"

"What?"

"Music. Do you like it?"

A brazen, shameless mug with yellow, like two ambers, eyes most shamelessly violates my personal space, taking a step in my direction. Her gaze is interested, but I do not see any hidden motives in it. I see absolutely nothing. The girl slowly tilts her head to the side, and I involuntarily repeat after her. What are you thinking about? What are you going to do next? I don't know, and it fucking pisses me off.

"What kind of questions are these?"

"Just answer," she opens her lips and continues to hypnotize me, without breaking eye contact. I squint, her behavior seems strange to me. I twitch my fingers slightly, trying to catch the threads of her fears with a quirk.

How is it that I don't feel them?

I blink my eyes in confusion. Once again. Twice. The girl in front of me doesn't disappear. Too bad.

"I don't like music. I love it," I answer briefly, not allowing a single muscle on my face to twitch. My interlocutor slightly moves her head away from me. A weak smile touches her lips, and her eyebrows rise. Her eyelids are half-lowered, and her eyes reflect a strange (for me) curiosity.

She, surprisingly, remains silent in response. She takes a drag on her cigarette, holding her breath for a few seconds, and then exhales clouds of smoke somewhere to the side. The girl puts her hands on the protruding iron railing and leans her whole weight against the structure. She fidgets awkwardly in place, moves to the right, as if inviting me to stand next to her, but I stay in place.

There are disgusting and stinks of nicotine in the alley.

"I like to describe my inner state with music. I can't say whether I feel good or bad, but I can name a song with which I feel identified at the moment," she says after a short pause. I just nod understandingly, actually being somewhere in another dimension and not delving into the full depth of her thoughts.

"And how do you feel right now?" I say distantly and without much enthusiasm.

"Like the song 'Brich Aus'," she answer me and exhale heavily.

This is the most strange conversation in my entire life. For some reason, I don't want to end it.

"And I associate not feelings, but days."

"Every day is like a song from your playlist?"

"Exactly."

The girl nods again. Her thin fingers tap rhythmically on the railing, a cigarette smoldering in her teeth. How does she do it? Her face does not display a single sincere emotion. I can't use my quirk on people who are not afraid of anything. I don't understand her, I don't understand even after all she said.

Come on, give me at least one emotion, give me, let me understand you, let me see at least the smallest part of your soul in your bright eyes.

The girl nods at something again. Her slender fingers are tapping steadily on the railing, a cigarette is smoldering in her teeth. How does she do it? Her face does not display a single sincere emotion. I can't use my quirk on people who aren't afraid of anything. I don't understand her, I don't understand even after all her words.

Come on, give me at least one emotion, give me, let me understand you, let me see at least the slightest part of your soul in your bright eyes.

"Teruko Mizu," she suddenly says to me.

What? Did this girl really tells me her name? Do I have to introduce myself in return? Do I have to?

"Fuji Enko," it's the first name that comes to my mind.

The girl turns around. She stares into my eyes, showing absolutely no emotion. Her face is absolutely empty. Not a "straight face", not a "stone face", but simply emptiness. And the most paradoxical thing is that with all this, I clearly see how her pupils shine, how life splashes in her golden irises. She does not seem to me a spineless doll, a lifeless puppet. Mizu is a living person standing in front of me. She has a soul, tangible by my quirk, but her fears are not felt. At the same time, I understand for sure that they are taking place. But why then I can't subdue them?

For the first time, I see a completely incomprehensible person in front of me, whose emotions I can't read. A person I can't understand even with the help of my quirk.

"You have a pretty telling name," Teruko begins, tilting her head to the side again, "Let me try to guess your quirk. Is it something to do with fire, isn't it?" shit, what the fucking kind of fire? Wait, how did I introduce myself to her? Enko? Fuji Enko? Then that explains a lot. Now, why the hell did I even choose that name?.. "Will you demonstrate your quirk to me?"

The girl's expression begins to show emotion for the first time all evening: mild curiosity, fleeting interest. Is she waiting for me to shoot a fireball at her or something? Then I have bad news for her: I only know how to talk bullshit.

I smile: the corners of my lips lift slightly, and my eyebrows arch upward. I remove the remnants of discontent and fatigue from my face, completely replacing them with false admiration and delight: "Yeah, you're right," I say briefly, not stretching out the vowels. "But please forgive me. I don't like using my… quirk. It… hurts me," for some reason I can't speak without hesitation this time, and I really don't understand why. The image of that burned guy flashes through my mind again, and I have to fight the urge to shrug my shoulders at such thoughts.

Is my false identity for Mizu based on the identity of yesterday's freak from the alley? How did this even happen? No, how did I allow this to happen? The girl, surprisingly, does not start bombarding me with tactless questions. Uncharacteristically for herself (as far as I can judge her after a couple of minutes of acquaintance) she remains silent and slowly nods her head. The smoke from her cigarette envelops her from all sides in a nicotine cloud. Mizu's bright yellow eyes shine in the silence of the night.

Again, the already familiar feeling of danger, coming directly from my interlocutor.

"I understand you," she finally says after a while. "I have a friend with a similar quirk. He also constantly gets hurt because of it."

It would be funny if it turned out that we were both talking about that weird guy with the fiery quirk.

The conversation reaches a dead end, and no one is going to continue it. Two smoldering cigarettes shamelessly fly onto the wet asphalt. The alley is deathly quiet and smells of Mizu's perfume. I don't want to leave and I don't want to stay.

"It was nice to meet you," she smiles, and now I can clearly see the emotions slipping on her face. "Who knows, maybe we'll meet again," the girl says in some fucking silly mysterious manner, turning her back to me.

Her comment makes me let out a short laugh, and I don't even try to hide my mockery of her words. Mizu turns over her shoulder and raises her eyebrows:

"What are you laughing at? It's a small world."

/

"It's a small world," flashes through my mind the next day as I stand at the table with a pink notepad in my hands, about to take an order from customers.

In front of me, two people were sitting on two red leather couches: a dark-haired girl with an unreadable expression on her face and with predatory amber eyes with red eyeliner; and, to my great regret, a fucking burn-bracket man with a fiery quirk, who recently set my hand on fire. A motherfucker.

I'm gonna be dead right now. What was the chance that I'd meet them all at the same time under these circumstances?

I smile saccharinely, trying to make the friendliest face possible, but at the same time, I don't hide my contempt for the customers. I breathe steadily and deeply, not irregularly. I want to break the ballpoint pen in my palm, which I planned to use to write down their order, but the plastic item treacherously refuses to crack under my fingers. Well, I don't even have the strength to break the pen, what a shame.

"Fuck off. Both of you," I say in a mockingly sweet voice. The guy looks at me with a stunned look, frowns, and his face even contorts. Mizu, on the contrary, positevely shines at the sight of me. Her eyes are wide open, and the girl herself slightly jumps in her chair, leaning towards her companion.

"Oh-oh-oh! Look, it's the one I told you about! She has a quirk almost the same as yours!" Mizu says with such delight that I finally stop understanding her character and personality archetype in general. Sometimes she behaves as closed and mysterious as possible, sometimes she behaves childishly naive and inquisitive. How the fuck it can even fucking fit together?

The guy looks at me like I'm the worst conspiracy theory in a world, which makes him frown even more. His turquoise eyes drop to the badge with my real name on it, and he leans back in his chair, throwing his elbows on the back, muttering something under his breath.

"Ishikawa Nana, then, right?" he grins and snorts.

Mizu blinks:

"She's Fuji Enko.

And I just smile stupidly, watching as both of my visitors slowly come to the realization that they've been screwed. The girl also notices the badge on my shirt and groans in surprise, slightly pursing her lips. And if the guy's expression shows how the puzzle is coming together in his head, then, apparently, Mizu has an absolutely opposite situation in her thought processes.

"Yume Mirai? Wait, then you aslo lied to me about the quirk too," the girl thoughtfully notes. "Give me a second, let me guess... your quirk allows to control other people's dreams or something like that? " her eyes are full of curiosity. Is this really what she cares about right now? Not about that she was, I dunno , brazenly deceived on such a simple thing?

The guy chuckles:

"More like to control nightmares," he adds gloomily and crosses his arms over his chest." Mizu, tell me, where do you find such freaks every time?"

"And you're a burnt-out loser," the words fly off my tongue. A sharp look dangerously pierces me from under his brows again. Oh, I can get scared, actually. Probably. I'll think about it later.

"At least I'm not her friend," he replies back toxically.

"And what kind of friend am I? I knew her like since yesterday."

"Are you both fucking nuts?" Mizu answers in a raised tone, and the guy immediately lazily rolls his eyes and turns away.

The situation is surreal. My two headaches are sitting in front of me at the same table, and I have no idea what they want from me. Is this coincidence or an accident? I feel that everything here is not as simple as it seems at first glance.

It's not even getting dark outside the window yet .The setting sun shines into the room, causing the napkin holder and salt shaker on the round table to cast long shadows on the white blanket. The silence between us takes too long. I patiently stand in place, fighting the urge to start twitching my leg. I cannot show tension in front of them, I cannot show any weakness at all. Mizu stares at my face, but does not say a word, and that puts even more pressure on me.

Suddenly, she snaps her fingers: "Do you read a person's hidden desires and embody them in their dreams, or do you simply make them dream a certain dream?"

And why are you so sure that my quirk is about dreams? Are these conclusions based on my name alone?

"Her quirk is not about just simple dreams. But nightmares," the guy repeats my thoughts. It's seems like my quirk left its mark on him. Well, at least I have heard some good news.

"Get the fuck out of here at last," I can't stand their appearance.

"Don't cry. Better bring me two cups of coffee," Mizu suddenly says. She turns her gaze to her companion and stares at his face, without saying a word. He's still ignoring her outright.

Wanting to get the hell out of their fucked up group as soon as possible, I take their order and walk away from their table.

Seeing my twisted mug, my partner at the counter asks, making a cloyingly worried expression on her face: "Mirai-chan, is everything okay?"

I smile – if lips pressed into a thin tube can be called a smile – and briefly answer through my teeth that everything is fine. The girl in response only removes her mask of concern and indifferently buries her face into the phone screen, not paying the slightest attention to me.

While cheap powdered and stupidly diluted coffee is poured into white cups, no longer new and blackened from the inside from plaque, some disputes are heard behind. It is not hard to guess whose. Mizu does nothing but raise her voice in emotion, and the guy hisses at her in response, pulling her back. With my back and gut I feel their predatory gaze on me. These vultures, get the hell out of here, you've really pissed me off.

Well, at least they are not completely fucked up to kill me right in front of my partner, right?

The coffee machine beeps as the pathetic imitation of Americano fills the second cup. I put the drink on a saucer, put a spoon and a packet of sugar next to it. For a couple of seconds I stare blankly at the cups, out of focus, thinking about the situation. Oh well, even if they kill me, I, dead, won't care anymore. Quietly sighing and cursing under my breath, I turn on my heels and confidently walk towards these creeps.

It's seems like they decided to have a staring contest here. The guy, sprawled out on the entire couch, glares at Mizu with displeasure and condemnation. And she seems to not care - or really doesn't care, I don't understand her - she sits with a straight back, her chin slightly raised, and looks at her companion like he doesn't understand a damn thing about this life.

Their problems, right? It shouldn't concern me. I silently put coffee on the table and take a step back, when I'm immediately stopped: "Hold on," a lazy male voice says to me. "Sit down."

A thin hand - on the wrist of which I can see the same burns and staples as on the face - points to the seat opposite him, next to Mizu. I'm filled with irritation again. I'm too bad at controlling my emotions today. This is not good.

"Damn it, I'm not going to sit at the same table with you all anyway," I say quietly, proudly straightening my shoulders. Well, if I'm going to show off, then I'll do it until the very end. In light of recent events, it's starting to seem to me that this is becoming my defensive reaction.

The guy chuckles: "I'm already fed up with you, honestly," he rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly. "You're introducing yourself under a name that's not yours, you're also lying about your quirk, and you're also acting like a fucking idiot. Is there anything real about you?"

"My boobs."

He grins at the absurdity and ridiculousness of the phrase and, rolling his eyes, shakes his head: "And you're answering with Dean Winchester's words, not your own. What a fucking mess," he sighs loudly and clicks his tongue, fidgets in his seat, sitting closer to the window. "Anyway, let's do it this way. You'll complete a couple of tasks, and we're even."

Here my calm finally breaks down. I straighten my back reflexively, my face stretches itself, and my eyebrows frown. It's like an oil painting called "Holy shit." Every organ inside me clenches with indignation. So two complete freaks are coming to my work, ordering cheap coffee, and then offering me to do some tasks for them? This is the fucking height of idiocy. They are disrupting my usual measured pace of life and it drives me crazy. Although the strange thing is that it's the fact that they are simply ruining my consistency that drives me crazy, but not the fact that they are directly threatening me.

"Why the fuck would I do this?" it literally rolls off my tongue. Okay, that's it, I should stop showing off in front of those I definitely shouldn't.

Basically, if I summon the nightmare entity now and set it on Mizu, whose fears I can't sense, and just use the quirk directly against the burner, then I can gain some time to successfully get away.

... I thought until I felt a barely perceptible touch on my neck.

"No. You didn't understand," the guy answers calmly, closing his eyes. "You really have no choice, you would have guessed," he drawls cloyingly and saccharinely with all his mockery and irony in his voice. "Ah, right. You don't have enough brains for this, since you started stealing drugs right under one's nose," he chuckles arrogantly and smiles lazily, tensely.

My eyes involuntarily slide down so that I can see the vague outlines of some transparent object hanging over my neck. Okay, what the hell is that? If this motherfucker has a flame, then... fuck.

Mizu rests her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her palm, while the index finger of her other hand points in my direction. The girl barely smiles, her predatory golden irises look at me expectantly. And again, I can't read her expression, or Mizu herself in general. Will she really kill me or is she just showing off? And if she does, does she really not care about, I dunno, at least my partner at the cash register? About the customers two tables away from us?

I notice empty white cups with dry coffee powder scattered at the bottom. Oh fuck, how did I not understand that earlier from her name? It's fucking water.

Well, what a fucking set of damn quirks.

"You're just like in that browser game for two, where the boy is fire and the girl is water," they look at each other, probably thinking to themselves: "Is she completely nuts?" I really should stop to talk bullshit. Is there any way to turn off my defensive reaction, because of which I start to get impudent? Damn, what if, on the contrary, I don't have a defensive reaction, and that's why I'm acting like this? Well, I'll definitely read about it in my spare time, in parentheses, no, I won't. "Okay, forget about it." I say.

"In short, your quirk is fucking awesome, if I understood it correctly, but, damn, it's rare. I wouldn't say that you found stupid application for it if it weren't for one thing. In this place, you really shouldn't be doing such shit. Well, it's not for me to teach you. Do whatever you want, basically," at this point, Mizu looks at the guy strangely, it even seems to me that she's grimacing. "I won't touch you, but can't promise anything about her. Anyway, you have to do a couple of tasks for us."

What the fuck, I still don't get it. Are they pressuring me because of the drugs I stole or what? At least he tried to put the squeeze on me in the parking lot the other day because of that, didn't he? Then why the hell is he telling me now that he will leave me alone? It's so fucking complicated. And on top of that, I have to work for them...

"Well, will you at least pay?" I smile tensely and brazenly. What's wrong? Of course, no one has cancelled the water stake at my throat, but money is money.

The burner looks at Mizu. Oh, now that's interesting. They exchange some gestures that only they understand, establishing a mental connection, before they both sigh wearily.

"Weeeell, by the way..." the girl drawls uncertainly, not taking her eyes off the guy. "We'll see. We can't promise anything," she smiles guiltily (but one hundred percent feigned).

But what can I do? There's no choice anyway, I agreed.

After that short conversation, the girl threw a couple of coins on the table, and the three of us went out together and cheerfully. Let's skip the moment of my early closing of the shift, of course, but oh well.

It's already evening, so the road to who knows where is illuminated by yellow street lamps. Everywhere you can hear the roar of cars, it's people returning from their work. Neon signs of very dubious establishments are shining from all sides. There are almost no passers-by. Not surprising.

For some reason, the whole situation doesn't really scare me. Since I have this 'fucking awesome and rare' quirk that they kindly almost promised to pay me for the work, it means that no one is going to touch me yet. So it will be great if everything stays like this. It is not clear, of course, what, how, when, why and for what reason, but as long as it doesn't concern me, then I don't care. Although it's not really that it doesn't concern me, actually... and I don't really that indifferent . Again, let's skip this point together.

Mizu practically non-stop chats about something all the way with a guy, who, apparently, has long been used to it, cause he skillfully ignores her. Amidst all this talk, I manage to catch his name - Dabi. This involuntarily spreads a smile across my face - it seems that I am beginning to understand Mizu's thing of guessing the quirk from other people's names.

"Dabi? It's obvious – you were a favorite child in the family, so they named you like 'cremation'," I clownish again. I get a wild thrill from the way he writhes, looking at me as if I'm the most impudent and arrogant. What's going on, I've never suffered from such idiocy before, why is this teenage toxicity suddenly waking up in me? Oh, well, maybe since that asshole burned my hand recently? "And you also showed off at me for introducing myself with fake names, well, well," I click my tongue theatrically.

"I can burn you down at any moment," Dabi reminds me in a friendly manner.

"Burning down is fast way. And I can make it so that every remaining day of your worthless life you wake up in a cold sweat and get scared of everything in the world. You, bitch, will not die, but your existence will turn into a living hell," I hissed, reminding him of my quirk in the same friendly manner.

In fact, his words really make me shiver, which makes me involuntarily glance at my hand, from which I recently removed the bandages. The burn there wasn't that bad, I just felt annoyed until the very end because I was able to allow this situation to happen. I wore the bandage as a reminder of my carelessness. Now I've removed it and where am I now? Maybe that's why I snap back, because I'm annoyed? I can't find any other excuse for my behavior, it's awful, I have to stop.

- So what is your task? - I decide to dispel the silence.

Dabi lazily throws his hands behind his neck, while Mizu thoughtfully looks at the sky. The guy mumbles something under his breath, and then says: "Your tongue is long, I hope the radius of action of your quirk is too," and what the fuck is the radius of action of my quirk? "So you'll be stealing all sorts of dammit things for us, which will be useful in the future."

"In what other fucking future? And what is 'you'll be stealing', are you implying that I'll do something like this more than once?" I frown and indignantly cross my arms over my chest.

Dabi laughs low and hoarsely in response to this, not even looking in my direction. He closes his eyes and, still smiling, shakes his head negatively to some thoughts of his own: "Oh, you're smart when you need to be."

He doesn't say another word. He just smirks at my "oh come on," while Mizu starts her chorus of meaningless, pointless conversations again.

Late evening. A hum of cars on the highway. A yellow light of cheap street lamps. A smell of burning and the smell of floral girls' perfume.

I get discouraged just thinking that this is not the last time I will see them.

blame it on the black star,

blame it on the falling sky,

blame it on the satellite

that beams me home.

Radiohead - Black Star