Stray

𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙀𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣 - 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙮 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨

Playlist of the day -

Sorry it took me so long to write and publish this chapter, I've just been really exhausted.

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  Three o' clock came quickly; the sun high above the school and the noise of the young class of children filing out of the class replaced the enthusiastic chatter of their interactions with the hero class. Eraserhead knelt down to gently wake Giichi and Akira. They shifted a bit, each waking up with a quiet yawn. Stray woke up too and quietly passed the kids into Eraserhead's arm. He stood and the two kids waved goodbye to Stray as they crawled out from under the podium and Eraserhead set them down to return to the line with their classmates.
The hero students had left a few minutes ago to return to their dorms for the day. The teacher and Eraserhead exchanged a few words before the classroom door finally slid shut and the hero sighed in exhaustion. "There's an opening at the counseling facility."
Stray looked up at Eraserhead, then down at his shoes quietly for a few moments. The hero watched their expression become mildly detached like it had been a few days previously in their dorm, but he said nothing about it and grabbed his keys from the podium drawer. "Let's go."
He held the door open for Stray and locked it behind them once they walked out into the hallway. Together they walked down the main hallway and down to the ground floor to the parking lot. He turned to them and pulled out a set of cuffs, securing the cuffs around Stray's wrists having learned his lesson from before. The masked villain was clearly pissed, but said nothing and they both got into Eraserhead's car. He looked down at his phone screen and Stray stared ahead at the dashboard as the hero typed in the name of the building to double check the address. Eraserhead turned the ignition and the car hummed to a start.
As he pulled out, he turned on the radio to a random channel and generic music started playing to fill the silence. Stray was still quiet like they usually were and Eraserhead would glance over at them every so often as they retreated to the back of their mind again. If he hadn't seen Stray do this before and have a base level of knowledge of their behavior, then this would be infinitely more unsettling.
Regardless, Eraserhead drove for a long while and the radio kept playing varying songs until a turn brought them into the parking lot of a good sized building.

   He turned the key and the ignition turned off with it, leaving the previous noises of the car silent for a while as the hero turned his full attention to the teen next to him.
   They didn't look back at him, but by the way Stray shifted slightly uncomfortably and their gaze dodged around the outskirts of Eraserhead's silhouette, he could tell they were paying attention. The car doors opened one at a time and they stepped out, Stray following behind Eraserhead as he led them inside the building and to a check-in counter.
  Everything that he said to the woman behind the counter and everything that was said back just doomed into the background as Stray stared forward at the counter. Eventually a clipboard was slid in front of them, which garnered their attention enough to make them look up, ears shifting forward.
  "Fill this out. Truthfully."
Eraserhead told them, taking a pen from the counter lady and setting it on the clipboard.
  They took the clipboard and the pen, however reluctantly, pulling it closer to themself and glancing over the contents of the paper. Eraserhead watched Stray closely as they did so, waiting to see if this is a rare matter that they'd cooperate on, and seemingly, they did. Stray picked up the pen, awkwardly manuevering around the handcuffs, and circled a few numbers going down a column. Quickly. Much too quick to be answering honestly, which took away Eraserhead's momentary relief.
  Stray set the clipboard back on the counter and looked up at the hero with a narrow glance, clearly not happy about being here, but also not making a scene at this place meant for those who had ready been through so much. This was the only thing Eraserhead could be grateful for right now, other than the fact that Nezu had actually followed through with getting the villain into counseling.