Saitama, despite being so close to Tokyo, wasn't nearly as interesting.
Oswald felt confident in making this assertion after being there for what? Three days now?
Either way Oswald was confident his current mentor's route was rather boring.
Sure, learning to jump around the rooftops was pretty exciting the first time, would probably be even better somewhere more urban, Oswald could imagine just how cool it would be to zip past the dozens of neon-signs.
But after scaling the same buildings over and over again the activity had lost a lot of its luster.
It was a bit less boring today since his mentor allowed him to do patrol tonight somewhat on his own, his mentor was somewhere nearby, close enough to come help Oswald if he called but far enough to not to see or be seen.
Most heroes probably wouldn't let him patrol 'alone' during his second year, not enough field experience to be trusted, but his mentor apparently thought that he was competent enough to do a semi-alone patrol.
Which, as Oswald stood on a rooftop, he thought that he'd been handling it pretty well all things considered.
He hadn't fallen over himself or off a roof so far, he didn't run into anything majorly serious and was able to call for his mentor to deal with things, just a couple lowkey B&Es and a drunk guy pissing on a fire hydrant.
Oswald had taken a moment to drink some water, leaning on the railing of a building's roof over the street at one of the busy highways.
His eyes drawn to a sushi place, and he dug out his phone to snap a picture of it. Mirio had mentioned the chain before and commented about how Jiki really liked the place the one time he was able to convince Jiki to come with him to one.
This part of town was quiet so he might manage to convince Jiki to come with him here on a date, not the first but getting sushi together pre-patrol sounded like a decent date idea.
Upon realizing what he just done and thought Oswald buried his face in his hands and mentally groaned.
His mind was getting far too carried away with itself again.
Oswald didn't even know if Jiki liked him that way yet and yet his brain was running away, making up possibly future dates with Jiki even though they weren't official yet.
Something that had only started to happen once he started looking at Jiki more romantically but had gotten so much worse after his self-imposed isolation from the boy.
And Oswald wasn't sure if he was just stupid about his own feeling about his friend or if the teenage hormones were really screwing him over right now, but apparently that 'distance makes the heart fonder' or however that phase went was true in his fucked up case.
But now that he was avoiding Jiki his feeling towards the boy had jumped from 'you're cool and do you want to explore beyond just friends?' to a straight up crush.
But how the hell was he not supposed to fall for Jiki when he was so ridiculously pretty with that shy smile of his?
Lop-sided smiles shouldn't be that fucking precious, it made Oswald want to just... just... just do something like kiss Jiki senseless or hug him with his arms and all of his hair then bury the two of them in blankets.
Oswald grumbled as he thought that and smacked himself.
The point of staying away from Jiki was to give the guy the space to figure out his own feelings without feeling pressured, not for Oswald to become some bumbling love-struck idiot tripping over his own feet.
So, Oswald finished with his break and needing just about anything to distract himself from his own gosh darn and shitty, traitorous feelings, he jumped back into his patrol.
Clearing the rooftops with speed and stealth, carefully looking around for traces of nefarious activity.
Because it paid off to be overly cautious of any small changes.
It was absolutely not because he was searching for something, or someone to drag his attention off of his growing crush on Jiki.
And yes, Oswald was aware that bottling his feelings up was bad, the therapy dog had said it a bunch since he started going to him.
However, considering the alternative was maybe pressuring his friend with his growing affection for him, then Oswald was pretty sure he'd give himself a pass this time around.
Which the universe probably agreed with him since he thankfully found something else to focus on.
That something was some purple-haired kid probably only a couple of years younger than him, if that, feeding an alley cat at like, one am... on a school night.
Yeah, Oswald most definitely had to do something about this, at least he should be able to handle this on his own.
Still, Oswald sent a text to his mentor about the boy and that he'd be held up for a little while talking with the kid, and he might need to walk the kid home depending on where the kid lived before he moved to descend from the roof.
Carefully climbing down with his hair letting him reach the ground without so much as a creak from the two fire-escapes he used to get down, ending with him standing behind the boy and he waited for the kid to notice him.
The purple kid though was pretty invested in the cat he was petting though.
So, after a couple more seconds he cleared his throat making the boy jump out of his skin, the boy whipping around and staring at him with wide eyes.
"Up pretty late for school night kid." Oswald commented, making sure his body language was causal and open.
The boy was frozen for a minute, likely still in shock, but once his mind finally caught up the boy tsked and turned away to focus on the cat which somehow hadn't been scared off.
"Yeah, so what?" the boy pointedly asked back.
"There a reason you're out here and not scrolling on your phone in your room?" Oswald replied, not really judging over the kid being here, he was more concerned than anything else.
He'd been the dumbass kid in a random back alley before, and if some hero tried to approach him any of those times he'd bit the guy's head off too.
So, he knew that more often than not kids like them weren't at home for a reason.
And like hell was he going to over-react by forcing the kid back if the home situation wasn't an ideal one.
The boy's scowl when he mentioned the boy's room only reinforced him going forward with this approach with the kid.
"It's none of your business. Go find your poster child somewhere else, I don't need some lime-light hero wannabe getting up in my business." the boy spat back.
Oswald's face screwed up.
"The hell makes you think I'm aiming to be one of those lime-light lickers?" Oswald questioned, choosing not to touch the touchier subject of home.
The boy scoffed and motioned to his entire being.
"What else would you be with a costume like that? Did you ask for them to make you look more like cotton candy or something?" the boy threw back at him.
Okay, the kid might of have a point there but that didn't stop Oswald from feeling a bit insulted and defensive over the comment.
These were his Mom and Aunt Trinity's colors, he wanted to honor them before they were able to reconnect, and now they were his family colors that made him feel better about himself.
So, forgive him if got a bit uppity in his head over this brat insulting them, even if unknowingly.
"Any dickhead can sneak around in the shadows wearing black, it takes actual skills in stealth get around without people noticing you in bubblegum pink." Oswald said, crossing his arms.
The boy rolled his eyes "Whatever, just leave me alone." the boy told him, trying to focus on the cat instead.
"Yeah, no dice buddy. I ain't leaving someone in a back alley at one in the morning, I understand your home might not be the best place right now-" Oswald tried to tell the boy, but the boy turned around and glared at him.
"The hell you do, someone like you would never understand." the boy snapped back at him.
"What do you mean 'someone' like me?" Oswald questioned back, making the boy scoff again.
"How could someone with a 'good' quirk like yours ever know what it's like?" the boy spat venomously.
Oswald eye twitched as he thought *For fucks sake, I hate dealing with these fuckheads... *
He took a deep breath then put his hands on his hips and glared back at the boy.
"Oh? I can't know what it's like to have a shitty home life because of my quirk? Really? That's fucking news to me," Oswald spat right back.
"Cause less I checked not having a 'villainous' quirk didn't stop my dad from being a cheating, narcissistic bastard of a man that lied to me about her being dead after he divorced her to marry the sex-crazed whore he knocked up, or stop him from kicking my mom out onto the streets penniless after she was nearly burned to death along with my aunt." Oswald flatly described the kid.
"But hey, I guess you're still right in the end, I have no clue what it's like to be treated like shit for having a 'villainous' quirk." Oswald sarcastically added with a sneer and a flippant wave of one of his hands.
He watched as the boy's face twisted with different emotions as he spoke, surprised for being called out no doubt and then squirming as discomfort set in from being slapped with the guilt of what he assumed about Oswald was clearly and very blatantly wrong.
"I'm sorry I-" the boy tried to say but Oswald cut him off.
"The fuck you are." Oswald told the boy, making him flinch and if he did that in front of anyone other than Bullet-Sensei he knew he'd be scolded for being so harsh to the boy.
"You're not sorry for that crappy shit you just said to me or the quirkist bullshit you implied about people with 'perfect' quirks not able to have a shit life. You wouldn't be apologizing if I didn't just trauma dump on you." Oswald said and the boy fell silent, ducking his head.
Oswald sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose from his irritation.
"Look, you have the right to be pissed about how everyone treats you because of your quirk, that shit sucks, but that is no damn excuse for you to act like a shithead to the people that aren't part of your minority, especially when they're just concerned about your dumb ass." Oswald said waving his hand slightly from his exasperation.
The boy curled in on himself, wincing and biting his lip.
Oswald groaned then walked over to the kid and crouched down, reaching a hand out to scratch behind the cat's ears, making it purr.
"You don't have to tell me anything about your homelife, I'm not here to dig through your closet for skeletons, I just want to know if you're out here because you're safer here then at home." Oswald told the boy.
The boy still avoided his eyes but mumbled a defensive "My parents wouldn't hit me."
"Great, but can you really live with them until your legal?" Oswald questioned, avoiding digging into what kind of abusive the boy's parents were, just like he said wasn't.
"Yeah... " the boy hesitantly answered, his hand going to his neck.
"Okay, then I'll leave it for now, but if that changes you better get the hell out and run to the nearest red-light district, you got it?" Oswald questioned, the boy's eyes widening and staring at him shocked.
"Shouldn't you tell me to go to the cops?" the boy pointed out.
"Fuck no. The best the cops would do is send you to the foster system and their dog shit for kids like you, especially if you got siblings involved in this too. It's better to grab your crap and run for the districts, find a rabbit and explain your situation to them, they'll help you way more." Oswald explained.
It most definitely wasn't protocol to suggest that, but he knew the system also sucked hard for certain people, and Miyake had told him if anything extreme happened at home before he called Aizawa to get him out, that he could run to the nearest district to a Vespa for help.
The boy blinked, his mouth opened a little before closing it, looking conflicted.
"I'm just making sure you know there's more options than the fuzz if shit hits the fan, it'll still suck but you shouldn't have to think you only have the downright crap options of the foster system or your parents." Oswald pointed out to the kid.
Silence hung in the air for a few minutes, filled only by the cat's purring.
"Thanks." the boy muttered finally.
"No problem kid, need me to walk you home now?" Oswald asked.
"You're not asking, are you?" the boy guessed.
"Walking you home? Yeah, you're not getting out of it you little shit, but if you need some more alley cat time then I can spare you about ten more minutes." Oswald told the boy.
"I'd like more cat time please." the boy replied.
"Kay, this emotion support demon got a name, or do you just get friendly with all the strays here?" Oswald asked, scratching the cat's belly when the cat flopped on its side.
"She's Yumi, her owner lives in one of the nearby apartments." the boy answered, then focused on petting the cat.
The two of them sitting in the alley playing with the cat before it was time to leave, Yumi yowling at them when they stopped, and even tried to follow them for a few blocks.
Oswald as promised walked the kid home, some little townhouse in a suburban neighborhood, and he made a note of the address just in case.
The mugshot of a brown-haired boy with dead-looking grey eyes flashing through his mind, along with Miyake explaining how lucky Ren had been to get a deal that would have him out of jail when he was eighteen and wouldn't go to the foster system, and separated from his father.
And he knew he was even luckier having been able to have Master-Sensei take him in, allowing him to stay in the hero course and still see his mom and aunt Trinity on the weekends.
This kid though might not be that lucky if Oswald rushed in.
God, he hoped Miyake had some advice for this kind of situation.
I normally love reading about Shinsou becoming friends with Izuku, I adore the two beans but Canon Shinsou needed someone to punch him in the dick, and one of the stories I really like does this in a very nice way where Izuku actually is the one to shoot Shinsou's apology down himself and I god damn love it.
I can't remember which fic it was but this series has Izuku chewing Shinsou out too.
The series is called All for One (None for Any), it does have Shouta being a platonic yandere so do be warned if you don't like that kind of thing.
Part 8 is where he chews Shinsou out if you want to skip to that bit.
/series/2810002