Heroes, Vigilantes, and Villains

Chapter six

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I stayed in my room all Saturday, moving between my desk, floor and bed as I studied my ass off well into the night. I worked through each of the packets that I was given earlier in the week, even circling back around to packets from previous weeks. I held myself up in my room like I was holding up a barricade, pouring over everything that they could throw at me on the test. I really didn't want to go back to the middle school, especially not after everyone knew that I tried to leave. Passing this test really is my only option.

My mom walked into my room the next day with a disappointed look on her face. Seeing it, I couldn't help but wonder if the entire past few days had just been a fever dream that my mind managed to come up with after being sick, and she was mad that I stayed up so late the night before when I have school tomorrow. But my worrying was for nothing in the end.

My mother sighed heavily. "Sweetie, you have to leave your room at some point," she told me tiredly. I watched her eyes fall onto the packets laying around me, her worry only seeming to increase.

I've only been in here for... how many hours has it been again?

"But I-"

My mother held her hand up, effectively cutting me off. "You're studying, yes I know. But what use is your brain going to be if you continue to overwork it like this. It'd be as bad as not studying at all."

"But-"

"The word 'but' is banned from your vocabulary."

I groaned loudly in frustration, dragging my hands violently through my hair and down my face roughly. This really isn't helping.

We sat there in silence for a few long moments, staring at each other as we waited for the other to make a move. It was like playing checkers with each player only having one move left till they win.

"Good," she decided, taking my quietness as an act of concession. "Now take a break and go outside for once. Go down to the post office and drop off your packages, or go down to the store and get ice cream. Just something."

I groaned again, sliding down in my seat and onto the floor below me. Thinking about my life now, I really didn't have much in it. All I could do was go down to the post office or study for a test that I have no chance in passing.

How pathetic.

After getting dressed in something more appropriate for the occasion than a t- shirt that says 'pajama shirt', I packed up all the new envelopes in a large box and headed down to the post office. We needed to weigh everything and add the postage to all of the small packages before they could send it off, but that was something that had to be done there.

The woman at the counter smiled at me, she was the same one that worked with me the last time that I brought in this load. She was nice back then, but I couldn't help but feel bad seeing her. There was more stuff in my box than last time and we took three forevers the time before.

"I see you brought in another load," she remarked in lieu of hello.

I put the box down before responding. "Yeah," I commented quietly, my hand slightly rubbing at the back of my neck. I really was feeling worse and worse about doing this to her again by the second.

The woman laughed soundlessly after seeing my expression. "Why don't you take your box into the back?" She asked, pointing to the door behind her. "My son, Hitoshi, will help you this time." The other people in the line gave me understandably angered looks, but didn't say anything to me, they just grumbled amongst themselves. That was okay though, it wasn't anything that I wasn't used to already.

I nodded, picking up the large box again and going in the direction that she pointed me to. When I stepped through the door, there was the small sound of music drifting through the room. I looked around, trying to find the source of it, when I noticed a boy with headphones in his ears. He was sitting at a small table that he seems to be using as a makeshift desk, a textbook and papers around him the way that they'd been around me not an hour ago. The teen has tall purple hair and all dark clothing that seemed to make the color pop.

The boy at the table hadn't yet noticed that I'd come into the room. His music was loud enough that not even the clanging of the door as it closed could be heard, that or the boy really just didn't care. I walked up beside him, stepping heavier than I normally would so that he might hear me, but the music was really loud, too loud. Putting the box down beside me, I thought about one of the best ways to do this. In the end, I settled on the most nonphysical approach, knowing my own aversion to physical touch.

I stepped up closer to the boy and waved my hand between his face and the broke below him. The purple haired boy jerked back in his seat, nearly falling out of it. A startled gasp escaped from the boy, echoing throughout the room. The only noise after that was a string of curses that fell from the boy's lips almost like he was singing a song.

"Damn it! What the hell, man?" The boy screamed at me in surprise. He gripped his chest like he thought his heart would escape if he decided to let go.

Subconsciously, I knew that the boy wasn't really yelling out at me, that he wasn't mad at me, that his reaction just now was only out of surprise. In the back of my mind, I knew that responses like his were only natural in situations like this, that I'm the freak that scared him. That I'm a freak in general. But even with all of this knowledge at hand, I couldn't stop myself from flinching back violently. The boy that was looking at me with something akin to mild contempt, seemed to realize something through my reaction. His gaze softened at my response. To most it would have looked like pity, but I knew it wasn't. I've grown up on pitying looks, been raised by them since I was four. My mother could barely look at me without pity seeping into her gaze, but this, he, was something different.

Understanding.

He looked at me and saw the same troubles in his eyes reflected in mine. Understanding, that's what this was, what his gaze held.

We stood in silence for what felt like years though it could have only been a few moments, each of us knew something of the other's situation. For once, I had nothing to say. When I couldn't take the look in the boy's eyes any longer, I turned my gaze to ground, suddenly finding the pattern in the floor much more interesting than the teen before me. When I flicked my eyes, stealing a look at the other boy, I saw him in a similar state to me, though his eyes were glued to the wall beside us.

"I... um-I'm sorry for yelling," the boy stammered out, not quite shyly, but definitely without the normal power of a voice.

I nodded. "I'm sorry for scaring you."

He nodded back. The boy stared at me oddly for a moment as if searching for something, but he soon cleared his throat and looked away to the box at my feet.

"You must be the one my mom told me about, the boy with all the hero merch."

Wow... I was so annoying that she complained to her son about me...

"Yeah, that's me..."

The purple haired boy glanced down at the box again and then at the book and the papers laying on the table behind him, seemingly trying to calculate in his head how fast he could get this done.

I peaked at the book, I didn't get a good look at what was in it before but he seemed to be struggling with it. "What are you working on?"

He glanced back again before settling his gaze on me. "Geometry... if I'm being honest, it's kinda kicking my ass."

"... Tell you what, you help me with this," I pointed to the box and all the small packages in it, "and I'll help you with math."

I wasn't confident about actually being able to help the other boy, but it's better than having to lug all the box and everything in it back home and here again another day. That'd be really annoying.

The boy looked me up and down as if reappraising my worth. A sly smile slipped across the boy's lips as he held his hand out to me.

"I'm Shinso."

I looked at the outstretched hand, quietly accepting the feeling of revulsion that was sure to come the moment my hand met his.

"Midoryia."