Chapter Text
It probably says a lot about you that your first thought on meeting Deku, international Symbol of Peace, isn't something like "Oh, wow," or, "Oh he's so nice," but is, instead, the un-Plus Ultra thought of, "I definitely would’ve bullied him, in high school."
At least until those muscles came in.
In your defence, the first time the pair of you meet isn’t in the sterile meeting room of your publisher’s office, where it was supposed to be — but is instead amid the looming shelves of your favourite bookshop, where he was being an absolute, awkward weirdo.
Admittedly, “awkward weirdo” is… probably not how most people would describe The Symbol of Peace — he’s awkward in interviews at times, definitely, but it’s translated as adorable, authentic. Nothing alarming about it, through a lens. It is however, exactly how you would describe the intensely earnest guy that started talking to you, randomly, about the manga you’d happened to be holding, one late January day.
You’re in a Hon’ya chainstore, lonely as it is, tucked away amid empty shopfronts on the upper-floors of the Boardwalk Plaza. It’s a popular complex, even run-down and shabby as it is, for its collector stores of hard-to-find figurines and manga issues, ancient VHS tapes. Vintage merchandise of old-guard Pro Heroes; superhero cartoons that predate the existence of Quirks. There’s an underground level to it, that runs tangentially to the train-lines — a marketplace, crammed with little old Aunts who shuffle around to do their daily shopping, argue with each other. But it’s the above ground levels people – obsessive fans, local and foreign alike – come for.
It’s completely out of your way, on the opposite side of the city to anywhere you need to be, but you come to this Hon’ya in particular, specifically to get out of your head. The train trip empties you out, lets you think about nothing as you stare at the skyline of buildings, construction cranes. Stolen time, just to yourself.
It wasn’t as if it was completely for the alone time, anyway; they often got volumes of stock other bookstores didn’t — and they never hike up the prices, unlike the collector stores on the same floor of the Boardwalk that might, if you were dumb enough to look there.
You’d never admit this – not out-loud – but it’s become a way to stroke your ego, too, a firm pat of reassurance down the flank of the prized horse that is your self-esteem. The shop is brightly lit, and popular today; you pass by a large guy in the divided white and red of a Shouto hoodie to pause by the wall of magazines, letting your eyes skim over the bright colours. The latest issue of HEIGHT! is out, and you eye your illustration of Swan-Hime critically, pasted next to the hero of some insanely popular action manga, the palettes and styles clashing hideously. They looked like they were about to launch into a fight together — and the internet was bound to have some choice opinions about that, you thought warily, reminding yourself to avoid your socials for awhile.
The pastel colours of a cover catch your eye — you’re always looking for more inspiration, when it comes to your illustrations — and you pull the magazine and all its’ extra packing free, the flimsy plastic crinkling in your hand as you look it over. It comes with a little pencil case, pale lavender and blue with tiny gold stars, some cheap golden trinkets dangling from the zipper. You thumb them through the packaging, then eye the model who’s pouting at you. Her cheeks are flushed pink, lips perfectly glossy — they’ve added little stars around her eyes, her lashes long and delicate. It’s a pretty picture, you think idly; you’ll have to try and recreate something like it for the next cover art you do for Hime.
You didn’t come here for magazines, but you manage to collect a few more in the lazy drawl it takes for you to leave the aisle: a streetwear issue, with serious-faced boys in expensive sneakers. An MMA magazine with the current champions — and their muscles — oiled up, staring out at you in a silent threat. Anything can be a reference, you’ve learnt. Everything. It only takes a tiny detail (like the curve of a model’s neck as he faces away from the camera, the way another model’s sleeve falls as she looks out from the page) for you to think: oops, I need that.
It’s a bad habit — an online mood board would be better, you think to yourself, amused. But you already have several accounts across varying sites, and several dedicated folders on your phone for random saves. Trying to be diligent with this hasn’t saved your apartment, long overrun with your books, your comics, your magazines. Your objects owned your house; you just lived among them, like a mouse — doomed to die amid the clutter at some old, lonely age, the dried-out husk of your body found by your landlord when the neighbours finally complain about the smell.
With such a bleak ending in store, who were you to fight against the tides of Capitalism? Not feeling even the slightest bit guilty about adding to the pile of magazines that would inevitably teeter forward and crush you at that old, lonely age, you pick up another one. A gothic lolita catalogue this time, girls sitting in full, frilly dresses around a lacey table, weighed under with teacups and pearls and flowers. You definitely had to do something similar, for Swan-Hime.
There’s a quietness to this store, like it’s shielded from the noise of the Boardwalk beyond its’ doors. Even though the conversation in your mind is alive and bright, outside of it no one talks; everyone else absorbed in the worlds between their hands. You’ve always liked bookshops and libraries for this very reason, their insular nature, and out of no-where you think about high school, of the reverent quiet of the school library where you used to spend your lunches.
Your lunches with your boys. Your nerds. Your friends.
You glance around at the others, here and now, in this place — mostly men that you can see, and most of them in the suits and ties of office-workers. Any one of them could be one of your boys from high school — a wistful thought. You were all scattered, now, flung out into the real world where you’d had to settle down into adult life, drifting apart from each other one by one — or maybe they’d just drifted from you, you think balefully, staring at the bright spines of a display. The boys had always been closer to each other —
Your mouth twists. There was no point in thinking like that, though the possibility of it – the very real possibility of that truth – lingers.
The plastic around your magazines crinkles under your arm, the bonus pencil-case of your first find digging into you. You glance down at it again; it looked something you might’ve had, as a teenager. One of the bright, cutesy accessories that your mother bought you — you used to trade them, sometimes, with Kenzo, for the All Might stuff he stole from his older brother. He was the only one, out of the boys, who you still talked to: bi-yearly messages you would send each other, like newsletters.
The zipper of the pencil digs into you further; you shift your magazines, your coat, and finally skulk around the corner to look for what you’ve come for.
A bright, bright display catches your eye — the ego stroke. They have plenty of stock of the latest volume of Swan-Hime and the Garden of Stars, sitting there prettily with the reprinted volumes of the original series. You linger over it, admiring the spines of your version, the way the flowers float across them. It’s gratifying, but it’s still not what you’re here for — and you wind around the shelf until you find where it should be, if they have it.
Where it is.
There’s three copies, the dark spines prominent. One copy of the first volume, and two of the second; carefully, so carefully, you edge the first volume out, looking down at the familiar, very loved face that stares back at you.
Justice Shield.
Your first published piece. Yours and Reo’s.
You’d both been so, so proud of this story, you think, your eyebrows knitting. A pride that never really faded, existing within you and under all your other achievements like a warm glow, the first knowledge of what accomplishment felt like.
Twenty-five long chapters, in total — printed in a tiny run with a publisher that collapsed, shortly after they cancelled your contract. It hadn’t mattered: you and Reo had been given enough warning, thanks to your editor, and two volumes were all you needed to start and finish the story you wanted to tell.
And finished it you had; you’d always been fascinated by Pros, as a kid, something that didn’t change in the collapse and rebuilding of Hero Society, in your teens. You’d known enough of their tragedies, their highs and lows, to craft something convincing — or so you thought.
That fascination had been one of the things that had bonded you with your boys — boys you would’ve been worlds apart from, usually, if you hadn’t overheard them debating amongst themselves about All Might’s collapse one day, and had – quite literally – jumped in, springing out from behind the bookshelves to shout, “No, shut up! You don’t even know —”
That move had gotten all of you kicked out, unhelped by Yamae shrieking in shock. The boys were actively wary of you, after that — Reo being the only one unperturbed by your random visits to bully them about their opinions.
You’d only been in the library, originally, to sulk; annoyed with your friends for not taking your side on something, and hiding from them to see if they noticed. They did, but not in a way that made them come and look for you, and eventually you ended up spending your lunch hour with the Library Boys instead, watching them play their card games while you cradled Reo’s saxophone case for him, like a baby, arguing over Pro Hero rankings and compiling your own lists.
Justice Shield had been born from that time in your life — sharing what you loved about your favourite Pro Heroes, learning what those boys (your boys) liked, what made them tick, how they saw the world. You’d forced your way into their lives, a hostile takeover where you then proceeded to strong-arm them into being friends with you, taking them hostage. And they had let you, had allowed you to bulldoze your way amid them; especially Reo.
Reo Murata — quiet, polite, lugging his saxophone everywhere. He’d loved writing, the same way you loved drawing: inarguably, without doubt or concern for what it could eventually do for you. It was just another, unremarkable fact about yourself, the same as your skin tone or the shape of your eyes or the sound of your name. It was just — it was just apart of you. Like his words were apart of him.
(You used to draw his favourite cartoon characters for him, his favourite Pro Heroes. In his notebooks, in yours, the pages roughly torn out. When you were done you’d press your hand against the picture and activate your Quirk, watching as your drawings would move across the page, run, fly.
He’d watch them all with his careful, thoughtful gaze, before taking it and evening your haphazardly torn edges, tucking them gently into his folder.
The light inside you would hum, elated; it was like he was guarding something precious, that he understood — that he was guarding you, your heart in ink.)
You, adult you, now back in the real world, hold that copy of Justice Shield like you used to hold Reo’s saxophone: tenderly, with all the awareness of caring for something valuable to someone else.
Plastic wrapped, Knightshield – the titular Hero of Justice Shield – stares up at you, grim. You hold it – him – close, all too aware of the surreality, the removal of seeing your own art look back at you.
You’ve only improved since then, your line-work more sure — but there’s a roughness, a charm to this that you’ve missed, that belongs solely to that time in your life.
Working on those early chapters had been a giddy, lawless time — sitting with Reo in your shoebox apartment, pages and pages of rough drafts around you both. Renting an overnight Karaoke room with Kenzo in tow so that you could hash things out without having to go home: drinking, singing, eating fried chicken from the Korean place next door and falling over each other laughing, too drunk for real work.
You thumb the cover.
“That’s a really good one,” A warm voice behind you says, and you glance back, meeting green eyes over a black surgical mask. They’re oddly familiar, you think, letting your gaze flicker over the man. It’s the Shouto Hoodie wearer; he’s got the hood of it pulled up, a Froppy baseball cap covering his hair under it. He might’ve been blocky, under the terrible fashion choices.
When you don’t immediately say anything, he adds, “It’s one of my favourites! It’s — it’s a brilliant look into the burnout of being a Pro Hero, really. I mean, for all that it’s written by a civilian with no ties to the Pro world — but, they might’ve! I guess we don’t really know, given the pen name, but I think it makes it more impressive, if they didn’t — ”
You can’t help it; you snort. If the hideous clashing choices in merch hadn’t clued you in, the rambling did.
“I’ve heard it’s okay,” You say, faux-casual, letting your eyes fall back to the comic in your hands. “Can’t say much about the author, though.” It’s a dry, self-depreciating joke, a laugh at yourself with yourself. Your newfound friend, however, seems to take it as a personal challenge, those green eyes widening as he straightens.
“Island Turtles?” He asks, and out-loud the pen name you and Reo had picked, for the promise of seeing some, some day, sounds absolutely ridiculous. “Well, actually, Justice Shield in particular is a two-man team effort — ”
The explanation he then gives you is well-versed in yours and Reo’s work — not just Justice Shield, but the one-shots you did building up to it. The one-shots you did, by yourself, afterwards. It leaves you bemused, flattered, slightly alarmed. His earnestness is… sweet. Unashamed. Overwhelming. It reminds you, in some part, of your boys from school — the way they would tumble over each other in conversation, talking about the combat system on their favourite games, the scandals the developers would cause, the ridiculous things they’d create if they could. Eventually, you take pity on your Shouto-Hoodie-Wearer, who’s now explaining how Justice Shield was a, “— really amazing look into the disillusionment that can come when you’re facing down the system that created you, you know?”
“Maybe they’ll do another Hero story,” You say, another private joke with yourself. Your editor had approached you with a pitch a couple of months before — a licensed property for the Symbol of Peace himself. Nothing had been set up yet, which you were beginning to think of as a blessing in disguise. You couldn’t imagine the rules and restrictions you’d be working with, if either side came to an agreement.
“Maybe!” He says, and it’s unconvincing and strangled, far removed from the quick confidence he’d been rattling off with, about you and Reo. He swallows; you watch the movement of his lips behind his mask, curious. “There have been talks,” He adds, then hastily clarifies, “I mean, there’s been rumors — ”
“Hero Hentai.” You embellish playfully, grinning. You are a literal menace to society in this mood, but the trap’s been set now. “It’d be more lucrative,” You add. “A knock-off Deku giving it to a Ground Zero fake, maybe. The fangirls would eat it up.”
Your hooded fanboy lets out a tiny, shocked noise, standing rigid. “Maybe!” He says again, a little too loud.
Your laugh is mean. It’s not the nicest part of you by any means, but it’s not often you get to fluster a fully-grown man. “Thanks for the recommendations,” You say, trying to push Justice Shield back into the shelf — your magazines are starting to slip, though, and you make a small, annoyed noise, something like a hiss — but before anything can fall, your Shouto Fanboy moves quickly, one hand catching the magazines just under your arm, the other gently returning Justice Shield for you. For one awkward moment, it’s almost as if he’s sheltering you, curling into the bookshelf as you are, his blocky body against you.
“Okay,” You say, meaninglessly — you can almost feel the heat of his face as he flushes red under his mask, reaching even up around his eyes as he near dematerialises backwards, opening the world to you again. He’s returned to the ramrod straightness of his awkwardness, mumbling something you can’t quite make out.
“My hero,” You joke, motioning with your magazines. If anything, this seems to make him even more embarrassed — his muttering gets faster, and you have no idea if he’s talking to you or himself.
You can still feel the heat of his embarrassment, almost, when you leave; glancing back before you turn for the cashier, you catch him looking away, not subtle in the slightest, and you grin to yourself, waving an obnoxious goodbye.
There’s a couple of train stations, in the immediate vicinity of the Boardwalk; you avoid them both, wanting more time for yourself before you crawl back into the dark hole that is your work.
It’s a bright day, even with the January cold — your bag rustles against you as you walk along the main road, your thoughts everywhere at once. There’s meant to be a donut shop around here that does some kind of revolutionary, deep fried cheese flavour — Hana’s been going on about wanting to try them for weeks — but you have no idea where it is, exactly, and you can’t remember the name of the store for the life of you. Hana will just have to wait another day, you think.
You stop at a corner, waiting for the traffic lights and staring absentmindedly at the bare branches of a nearby tree; there’s singing behind you, cheery and off-tune, a children’s song, and you glance back only to grin to yourself when you realise it’s a couple of daycare workers, bright in their pink aprons and pulling along plastic carts — carts loaded with tiny, tiny children in matching, yellow hats. They wobble in their mobile pens like baby chickens, just as bemused.
The women notice you and smile, nodding. You smile back, eyes following the kids as they’re jostled about, grasping the edges of their carts and staring around them with wide eyes. One little boy, with silver-blue fins sticking out from under his yellow hat, waves at you, his fins wiggling. You wave back, watching the little collective as they’re tugged away, the carts rattling nosily over the singing.
You miss the light to go; it doesn’t matter. It’s a beautiful day.
Your lazy detour takes you along the fenced wall of a park, signs proclaiming the temple deep inside the grounds; you follow the edge of it for a little while, the rustle of the trees within following you until you break out onto another main road, the traffic long. There’s a network of little streets around here, all leading to the train station; you turn down one for the smell — something fried and spicy.
It’s like any other small city street: there’s a few empty shop fronts, dotted between crowded, pokey little stores, old aunts and uncles bending over pickled vegetables or mountains of bright, out-of-date promotional chocolates. You pause in front of a vending machine, sitting by a tiny flower shop; peonies and sunny bouquets of daffodils spilling out into the pathway, curling ferns hanging above them.
You admire them for a moment and then slip some coins into the machine, letting your gaze flicker over the Coca-Cola Valentines Day ad on the side. A woman in a paper crown of red hearts is sharing a bottle with a man as he opens a box of chocolates in that same, distinctive red shade. You make a mental note of the crown, as the machine regurgitates your drink — maybe you can work in something similar for Swan-Hime, at some point.
None of this is why you came this way, however — next door to the tiny florist is the smell you followed: curry buns. The glass counter set into the shop-front shows baskets of them, fat and fresh, sitting under warm lights. A chalkboard just in front of it — matching the one in front of the florist, funnily enough — shows a bun broken open, an egg inside. They smell amazing.
I want one, you decide.
The old aunt behind the counter is chatting gaily with another shop keeper who’s in a bright shapeless apron that makes you think of the daycare workers. You haven’t stepped close enough to be an obvious customer, willing to wait for them to finish their conversation — but then you glance at your phone and realise your dawdling has cost you time. The price of freedom, you think bitterly and over-dramatic, as you shove your phone back into your bag, the charm on it catching.
The train station is crowded as usual when you make it, morose and sulky. You top up your Brica card at the machines by a wall of moody posters, advertising the city ballet; they’ve been everywhere lately, in the vibrant red ruffles of their latest production, Don Quixote. You’ve already saved one on your phone, for the dress, and you think back to the crown of hearts you saw on the vending machine: it’d make a good cover outfit, maybe for some Valentines art. If you’d brought your journal you could’ve started some kind of sketch —
Well, it didn’t matter. You had your phone; the charm that dangles from it hits your hand, as though agreeing, when you pull it free of your bag again.
You’re drawing the vague lines and ideas of an outfit on it when you make it to the platform you need. It’s rough — you’re not putting any real effort into this, just wanting the basics of an idea down, but you glance up absentmindedly and catch the eye of a little girl nearby, who’s staring at you, intently.
You glance back down to your phone, and realise it’s not you — it’s your phone charm, the cheery face of the original Swan-Hime winking pertly, glittery. You look back to the kid, who’s retreating behind her mother, and notice her shirt — more original Swan-Hime. It looks vintage, and contrasts with the Deku action figure she’s holding, which is now buried face-first against her mother’s thigh. You grin at her.
The kid pointedly looks away from you.
Trying not to laugh, you shake your head, obedient to the dismissal on her face; the platform is filling quickly now, other commuters similarly on their phones, or reading books, papers. It’s the comforting, everyday crush of city life, and you tilt your head back as a train isn’t yours whirs past, throwing a gust of cold air over you. Your hair moves with it — you grimace, annoyed with the movement, and finally catch sight of a familiar block of red and white.
It’s a Shouto hoodie — the guy from the bookstore, standing about a carriage’s length away, a crush of people between you. The green bill of his Froppy cap has been pulled down low, hiding his face, but even so you recognise him, recognise his build. His atrocious fashion choices. The clashing Pro Hero merch would’ve been cute if he’d been a child, with all the energy of childish enthusiasm; you think of the little girl, the Swan-Hime-slash-Deku fan, and glance back at her. She’s still staring at you – at your phone – from behind her mother. You grin again; she frowns at you.
A lilting tune – the station tune – announces the train. You wait for it to stop, lined up perfectly with a mayonnaise advert on the doors — you and your little frenemy entering the same carriage. Your Shouto Fan Boy disappears into the next, much to your disappointment.
It’s one of those ridiculous, selfish things — the imagined connection with every stranger you so much as glance at. Maybe you were touch-starved; maybe it was the hazard of being so in-depth in your stories, the expectation that every interaction would eventually lead to something. You hadn’t even liked him, you think to yourself, dryly. But it was a possessiveness that you lived with; something you couldn’t blame on some kind of urban loneliness. Your imagined ownership of complete strangers was something else, you think — something more insidious, maybe, or more starved. An ugly need to feed into your belief that you really were the centre of the Universe.
You look down at your phone screen, the ruffles of a dress you’ve drawn; you erase it all and start again, drawing the broad lines of a man waiting in line, the head of his hoodie pulled up.
The train travels through the darkness for a minute, less than, the pulling motion setting you to a sway; just as your carriage breaks out into the sunlight of the outside world, the whole train shudders, still going — you glance up just as you hear the exclamations further down, from beyond your carriage doors.
You look around at the other passengers — they’re staring at you. At your side of the train, more specifically, out your windows, and you turn to look with them and instantly see the reason why.
He’s several stories tall and gangly, more length than weight, which is probably one of the only things that’s stopping him from using the construction crane he’s trying to bend as a weapon.
A polite voice comes over the train speakers. Please bear with us! There is a slight delay in our route. Please stay calm. The emergency recording.
The train comes to a slow halt as the tracks beneath it shudder again; enough like an Earthquake that you press a hand flat against the seat next to you in reflex. Nearby, your little frenemy twists in her seat to see better, unafraid, Deku tight in her hand.
Above the giant assailant, who’s still trying to wrench that crane up, there’s a cascade of bright flashes; the faint rattle of repeated booming. Telltale signs of Ground Zero at work. There’s a round of cheers from the carriage after yours and you frown to yourself.
Really? You think. Were Ground Zero’s fans that easy to impress? With far away sparkle effects? He hadn’t even felled the guy, yet —
But there’s another shudder — smaller, along the side of the train and you look out your window just in time to realise the door to the next carriage has been wrenched open, green lightning fanning out in a crackle. The cheering is louder, now, with clapping — and you get to witness, in real time, as your Shouto Fan Boy leaps from the now open door.
People are still cheering as he falls, his hoodie flying back as his the Froppy cap falls, that same green lighting from before crackling around him — it’s Deku, you realise. The dork from the bookstore was Deku.
His hoodie flaps behind him like a cape as he leaps and bounds towards the fight, traceable only by the green blur of his power. Ahead, the giant in question cops a face-full of explosive, thanks to Ground Zero: he roars indignantly, staggering back against a building, and you can make out something like a white ribbon, trying to wrap around him — tape, you realise. Cellophane must be there too, now trying to bind the fucker’s arms.
For one treacherous moment, you wonder at what the Symbol of Peace could even do — that’s probably a war crime, even just thinking that — but Deku is amid the action quickly, judging by the path of green light that zips forward, darting up as the giant in the middle of all this roars again.
The Pros are small figures, like far away toys; you can make out the swing of Cellophane; see the dark figure of Ground Zero as he falls, after a controlled explosion — but it’s Deku you follow, having climbed to a great height and now dropping, plummeting towards the oversized-moron with his arm back, ready to deliver a career-ending punch.
“Look!”
It’s the little girl, from before: the Deku fan, calling for her mother to watch. The woman is, anxiously, on her phone as she tries to hold the little girl close — but the kid is in awe, wriggling away from her mother’s nervous hands. There’s a great thud, the impact of Deku’s punch strong enough that it’s caused the guy’s Quirk to falter, the giant menace now just a tiny, falling man, Deku falling after him; there’s more cheering, from everyone within the train. Sirens, from the outside. But you’re looking at your little Deku fan, her face as she clutches her action figure to her in wonder.
Your phone is still open to your sketchbook — quickly, alongside the lines of her Hero, you try and draw her face, the awe of it, fingers moving across the screen swiftly as outside the smoke rises up from the fight, filtering the sunlight as the emergency announcement plays again. Please bear with us! There is a slight delay in our route. Please stay calm.
It takes the Symbol of Peace’s people nearly three more months to finally, finally arrange a meeting about the property.
You’re unimpressed and running late. It’s not your fault — you and Hana and Yuuto were up until the witch-hours of morning, pulling overtime on some revisions for the next chapter of Swan-Hime: you’re entering the Heartbreak arc, now. In the original Swan-Hime, the classic, this is where Koemi — your titular Swan Princess — confesses her feelings to her best friend. It is the moment, in the original, the one event everything has been leading to, and fans of it (both kind and awful) have been waiting to see how it’s pulled off, in your remake. You need to do it justice. The stress of that has been eating into your days and your nights, leaving you to question every creative choice you’ve made as you stare at your drawings and wonder at your own audacity in existing.
“It’ll be okay,” Hana had said, maddeningly calm in the face of your dourness. You’d shot her a filthy look over your lightbox and she’d shrugged, undeterred, twirling a pen amid the tips of her fingers, the webbing between her fingers translucent. “It will. We’ve done good. It’s a good chapter, Turtles, you need to believe it.”
Turtles. A stupid nickname from that stupid pen-name you’d picked with Reo. You’d thrown a little squirrel eraser at her — impractical, one of the many cutesy things Hana kept buying and bringing into work, like bright little charms — and frowned at the pages before you.
The pages had worked out in the end, or as close as you were ever going to get it, but it left you running on empty. With only a few hours sleep and the sickening sweetness of canned coffee – from a vending machine – to fuel you, you’re a slob when you show up to your publisher’s office. You try hard, daily, to walk through the world like you don’t care, like you’re above mundane matters like embarrassment or the superficial expectations of others. It’s a lie, of course; performance art, as your mother would say.
“Everything’s an act,” She tells you often, making you roll your eyes every time. Still, even though you’re sloppier than you’d like to be, on the outside, you’ve internalised too much of your mother’s lessons on sexuality and worth to lose complete control; underneath the loose casualness of your outfit, you’re wearing the kind of flimsy underwear that makes you feel as though you’ve sauntered out from a heady perfume ad. It’s a secret, sitting against your skin — one that reminds you of your own power, your magic.
You have to think of that power, that confidence – that delusion – when you open the doors to the meeting room everyone is waiting for you, in.
The chatter stops, all eyes on you — harried, sloppy, a bag slung over your shoulder and your journal in your hand. But your eyes are on Deku, who’s now staring back at you in wide-eyed recognition.
He was waiting for you, you think archly: when you flung open the doors he rose on instinct, like a school kid standing to attention, nervous.
“Deku, please,” Your editor is all smiles, motioning to you even though you know the man probably wants to break your neck for being so late, no matter how much he loves you, “This is — ”
He introduces you to the room by your proper name, as you rearrange your bag on your shoulder, letting your gaze flicker over the Pro across the table. He’s still standing — waiting for you to sit — and dressed casually, in the pink and white of a Uravity letterman jacket – but he’s staring at you, green eyes large, still surprised.
He remembers you.
You grin. It’s the same one you gave him, back in January.
“Changed your mind about the Hero Hentai?” You ask as you take a seat, and the look of horror that instantly transforms his face is worth the angry squawk from your editor.
“There’s to be no explicit content of any sort, in the contract,” A firm, older man interjects, his salt and pepper hair parted smartly. Your editor tries to make a pacifying sound, but the guy gives him a flinty look, as though Enyo was in any way responsible for the filth that came out of your mouth. “We don’t need the Symbol of Peace being compromised by being put into any kind of… romanticised ridiculousness.”
This seems to only embarrass the Symbol of Peace further, his face burning brightly.
Oh yeah, you think, letting yourself relax into your chair. I definitely would’ve bullied him, in high school. At least before he got those muscles.
The talk goes no where.
Deku’s management team, you quickly discover, want something kid-friendly, a rosy look into his early days at UA. What it takes to be a hero, the work effort, the admiration of others — propaganda, basically.
You almost ask why they bothered coming to you, of all people — for all that the Swan-Hime reboot is doing well, you’re hardly famous, and there are more seasoned mangaka out there — but Enyo’s warning looks have you keeping your mouth shut as he smiles at the Pro Hero’s legal team.
It’s ridiculous, you think, idly sketching in the pages of your journal. You’ve drawn Salt-and-Pepper hair, his serious face and tidy part; Enyo, smiling in profile. Occasionally you glance at the Symbol of Peace, wondering if it’s worth being caught looking, in order to draw him — but he’s always watching you in turn each time, face surprised.
The weight of what actually happened, in those early days, looms over you all: remains unspoken as they try and condense history. Just that morning you’d seen the Justice Tribunal – set up after the collapse of the Hero Comission – in the news, the perpetually tired face of the acting Head as he gave a statement about the on-going investigation into a spate of disappearances.
Trying to be transparent, you guess. Hero society’s newest creed.
You look around the room, tapping your pencil against your little journal. Everyone here was old enough to have lived through the reformation of Hero society and remember it, from varying angles — Enyo had lost family in the Jaku City attack. He didn’t talk about it much and you never pressed, but that loss was partly why he’d fought so hard for Justice Shield, back at your first publisher. Pretending everything was all… sunshine and flowers seemed disingenuous at the very least —
A book is slid over to you, from across the table, as the suits around you bicker. You blink, frowning; Knightshield’s serious, dark gaze is staring up at you. It’s the first volume of Justice Shield, worn and well-loved. Then you look at the hands that are gently pushing the volume forward — big, heavily scarred hands, faintly freckled. You want to draw them.
You glance up, Deku looking at you, his mouth thinned. “I meant what I said,” He says, and his team titter among themselves for a moment before falling silent, confused. “You got it. You — you really understood it. The weight. The disillusionment.” He pauses for a moment, then finishes, firmly. “It should be you.”
Your nose twitches, and you frown as you take him in. He stares straight into your eyes, unwavering, the same earnestness that repelled you in the bookshop its’ own physical force, here, and you genuinely have no idea how people have the nerve to meet him head on like this and still take him on.
Both your varying spokesmen and agents are quiet, waiting.
“Alright,” You say at last, feeling your chair rock beneath you as you pull back. “Let’s work together, then.”
The smile the Symbol of Peace gives you is blinding, in turn.
It’s not enough for just you two to agree to work together; both sides have stipulations, rules, cuts they want.
Despite this, despite his team’s protests, the Pro wants to share his own notes with you. Years worth of them, apparently.
“We can send a document on what events should be written about,” The guy that first corrected you — interrupted you — says.
You arch an eyebrow, almost suggesting they write it themselves, in that case — but Deku is raising a hand (big, scarred, jutting knuckles), and saying, gently, “I want to share my notes. I think — I mean, it’s for the best. It can only make things better. Even if they’re never used.”
Despite yourself, you like the kindness he says it with — polite. Firm. There’s a difference between nice and kind, you think; your library boys, for instance, were eventually nice to you. But Reo was kind — in a way that meant he listened, that he cared, but didn’t let itself be taken advantage of. You survey the Symbol of Peace through your lashes, then suggest, “We can meet up, if you want. To hash out the story you want told.”
It’s not going to be autobiographical — as it is, his friends and peers are going to have to be amalgamated and repackaged, or made up entirely, least their branding sues the shit out of you for image infringement. And then there’s the ugly bottom line at the end of this, that you’re trying to sell Deku the legend, not the man — going over his notes with him will be as much of a say as you can give him, beyond the interference from both your teams.
The meeting drags on. There’s plates of biscuits, in the middle, individually wrapped ones from the konbini that some poor intern probably had to run out and buy that morning — but you want real food, something hot.
“I’m hungry,” You say aloud, toeing at Enyo with your foot like a child. It’s a hint – not even a hint, a demand – to break for lunch, but he ignores you in favour for talking with Deku’s PR manager; you slump in your chair and think about something deep-fried, easy to hold. A konbini corndog, with their sweet batter. Or maybe a curry bun? You think about the ones you saw, that day you first met the Symbol of Peace — something freshly fried. Maybe with an egg inside. There’s a konbini around here that sells something similar, smaller. Enyo continues to ignore you, trying to salvage your professionalism; you start drawing curry buns and corndogs in your journal. A tiny, unflattering version of yourself eating one of both. You glance up as you finish, and catch Deku himself watching you, fascinated.
You arch a brow; he immediately flushes, straightening, and you take the moment to roughly – wildly – sketch out his hands as he has them, pressed flat against the table, his scars prominent. His fingers twitch, anxious; then he notices what you’re doing and stills them, letting you draw.
“How’d you get ‘em?” You ask. A few of the others around you glance at you both, but say nothing, and Deku shifts uncomfortably in his seat for a moment before he clarifies, “My scars?”
You trace a deeper outline into one, in your book, and look at him. Obviously.
He flexes his fingers, looking down at them, then seems to make up his mind. “I’m hungry,” He says, and everyone instantly pays attention. “Could we – maybe – get lunch?”
Typical. You’d only said the exact same thing and had been ignored. And yeah, you didn’t save Japan on the regular, but that shouldn’t have counted against you —
“I think we’ve worked out a lot, today,” Enyo says in his friendly manner, to the room at large. “I can’t see the harm in breaking early — ”
Salt-and-Pepper frowns. “I would like to have a solid plan, outlined, before we go anywhere — ”
But Deku stands. “Onishi — you deserve the break, too.” And it’s said gently, again — but firmly. Kindness, not niceness.
Salt-and-Pepper — Onishi — acquiesces with a tilt of his head. “The fresh air would do some good,” He says, like he’s the one who suggested the idea things end early.
Enyo glares at you — knowing you too well, telling you silently not to say a word, not even to think it — and you go through the round of goodbyes and murmured thank-yous politely, without any bite. Even to Onishi, who bows to you curtly.
Deku is last. What he’d said had been a well-practised dismissal, for his team, and Enyo takes the opportunity to beam at him, delighted to be this close to the legend himself. “We’re so thrilled you’ve chosen us to help tell your story,” He tells him.
Deku blinks, bashful, a hand going to the back of his neck — a reflex. “Please!” He says, “I’m — I’m the one who should be thrilled. I mean — I am!” He bows deeply. “I’m grateful to you both, that you’d even consider wanting to tell it.”
It really is too much — before Enyo can embarrass you further with a grovelling display of his own, you pick up your bag and coat, motioning to the Symbol of Peace to follow. “C’mon, you,” You tell him, and Enyo makes a horrified noise next to you.
“I told you I wanted something to eat,” You say to your editor, crossly.
He groans, face tight, before looking to Deku pleadingly. “Please, ignore — ”
“I’m getting curry buns,” You announce loudly, turning to leave.
There’s a moment of stunned silence, from the both of them — and then there’s heavy footfall on the carpet, hurrying til Deku is walking in pace with you out of the office and down the hall, posture ramrod straight.
“I’m grateful we’ll be working together!” He says again, still awkward as you arrive at the empty elevators. They open for you; he follows you in, trailing like a puppy, and you lean against the smooth elevator wall as you survey him, marvelling at the difference between the man before you, now, and Deku — the Pro Hero that would drop from the sky in a triumphant blaze, reigning down on his enemies in all his righteous fury.
It’s something to explore, you think — in the comic. Your brain is already beginning to piece together some bastardised version of the man in front of you — a gangly, easily flustered child that had some hidden store of courage within him, that he had to be forced to call on — ugh. Already planning, envisioning it — a dangerous sign that you were already getting invested in this story.
“Come on,” You tell him, when the elevator pings at the ground floor. He fumbles for a mask, from his pocket, and you hold the button for him. “I’m starved. Buy me some curry buns and we can talk about where you see this thing starting.”
“Oh – sure!” He says, mask finally in place as he strides after you, obediently. It’s cool when you both exit the building — the early April cool. Along the streets are a few cherry blossom trees, already blooming with white, pale flowers. You glance back at your Pro-Hero Puppy; he’s shoving his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts (cargo shorts, you think in disgust), looking around him as though he’s never seen the city before. Maybe he hasn’t, from the ground — amid all the small folk, you think, amusing yourself.
You lead your Pro-Puppy through the weave of people, some of them occasionally casting him surprised or suspicious looks; no one stops you, however, and you turn down a side street alley, cutting through the block.
People park their bicycles here, a bright collection sitting along in racks, like a library. You and Deku are silent as you walk past, and you’re beginning to wonder if you’ve made a mistake, bullying the Symbol of Peace into following you, but you’ve always been committed to following through on your idiocy.
“Talk to me,” You say, cheerily enough. “What’s going on the squirrelly head of the Pillar of Peace?”
You glance to him; said Pillar of Peace is frowning in thought, contemplating your question, like it isn’t one he’s constantly asked by hopeful reporters and bloggers, regularly.
“I wouldn’t say it’s any different to most people — ” He starts, halting himself, like he’s actually doing the introspection. “Obviously, with my duties, work is a given at any time — cases. Or what I need to improve on, in my fighting.”
“Improve?” You repeat, like you’re tasting the word, pausing. “You’re already the best. What does the best need to improve on?” You kick a can away, too lazy to pick it up — and it clatters along the ground, Deku watching its path for a moment before patiently following, picking it up in a thoughtful gesture that instantly makes you feel bad. Shown up, you think. By the best.
If he thinks badly of you for it, however, it doesn’t show as he smiles back at you. “Everything,” He explains, simply. “Everything, all the time. That’s the only way I can keep helping people. You said it yourself,” He points out, can still in hand. “‘Pillar of Peace’?”
He grins at you when you stop in your tracks, knowing he’s won his point.
“I guess I did,” You admit at last. “Mr. Pillar.”
You’ve come to the street the alleyway opens up to and Deku peers around, interested in the area. It’s bright and broad and quiet; away from the busier tourist centres. You both stand there, taking in the middling spring sunshine, watching as an older man cycles past, lazily.
There’s a little dog in the basket on his handles, staring at you both with black button eyes as as the pair goes past — you’ll have to try and draw it, you think, and then glance to Deku, who’s watching them glide away with a wry smile.
“People deserve to be safe,” He says out loud, and you wonder at how he sounds so perfectly… noble. Was this what being the Symbol of Peace meant, being the Pillar? Having to think in absolutes, all the time?
He looks to you, then, almost as if he can read your thoughts — you wouldn’t be surprised if he could, you think. His Quirk was infamous for being so adaptable, for evolving — and he hesitates, as though he’s second guessing himself, before he says, “That’s — that’s how I got my scars. You asked, back in the meeting — I got them because people deserve to feel safe, and I… I can do that.”
In the brightness of the day, his green eyes are glimmering, clear and wide, unblinking as he stares at you.
That earnestness, again — it almost makes you want to crawl out of your own skin in order to get away from it, but instead you let your eyes flicker over his face, his freckles, those glimmering eyes.
“You do.” You hear yourself say, dryly. “You do indeed do that, Mr. Pillar, don’t worry. Now let’s go get something to eat.”
You get your konbini curry buns, though they’re smaller and less tempting than the ones you saw that day, after The Boardwalk.
You also load up on corn dogs; as well as several drinks, all to share between you and the Pro. And because the last 24-hours have been a nightmare in terms of pure demands, you buy a tallboy, the silver can of the beer obscene in your hand as you set it on the counter.
The cashier barely looks up, a young guy, disinterested. Deku had been distracted with a magazine, when you paid, frowning down at an article — you shake the plastic bag with your goodies at him, when it’s time to leave.
“Come on, kiddo,” You say, your feet in a patch of sunlight, through the glass. The pair of you were probably around the same age, you suddenly realise.
He looks at your bag and then your face, surprised, before hurriedly flipping the magazine in his hands closed, trying to replace it on the rack neatly, a fumbling show you watch, amused.
There’s a canal along this street, widely and deliberately built and popular for the cherry blossoms that bloom along it, at their peak. The fragile flowers have only just started their season, now; you stop by one older, larger tree that overhangs into the canal.
“Here,” You say, unpacking your bag on the wide ledge of the barrier, “Food and drink, at last.”
It’s a strange lunch; an early Hanami, a cherry blossom viewing with just you and one of the most famous men in Japan, neither of you talking.
The paper bag of your curry bun crinkles in your hand as you eat, leaning forward on the barrier. Next to you the Symbol of Peace hums in thought as he eats the same; you wonder if he’s ever truly still. The silence stretches out — it’s uncomfortable, you decide, and you look at him again only to realise he’s watching you, too.
His green eyes widen when your gazes meet. You find yourself giving him a wry grin, unable to help your laugh. “What is it?” You ask.
“Your work,” He blurts out, like he can’t contain it. His hands — one balled up, on the barrier, the other holding his curry bun — tighten, and your eyes linger over his scars for a moment, before flickering back to his face. “I meant what I said, back — back then, in that bookshop. Your work is amazing.”
You’d set your phone down on the ledge, when you had started eating. At his words you nudge it, the lock screen lighting up. It’s a picture of Knightshield; drawn and tidied up after you’d met Deku that day, in January. He’s leaping in midair like the Pro next to you had, Knightshield’s dark cape arching behind him like batwings.
Deku peers down at your phone in interest. “That’s — there isn’t anything like that, in the volumes. Is it — ”
“It’s new,” You confirm. “I drew it after we met.” You give him a sidelong look, your curry bun still in hand. “I was on the same train you were, that day — the one you leapt from.”
He colours instantly when you say that, maybe more out of habit than any real need to be embarrassed. Someone had uploaded footage of it, from his carriage — it looked nothing short of what it was: incredible.
You both fall silent again, a weird overlap in forced politeness and genuine uncertainty in what to say to each other. You finish your curry bun, opening your phone to your sketchbook, and finally asking again, “What do you want your story to accomplish, Mr. Pillar?”
Next to you he stills, and you glance at him; he’s looking out, beyond the canal. Frowning deeply, a hand on his chin, looking for all the world like you’ve just asked him what the meaning of life is.
“I just…” He stops, letting his hand drop as he nods to himself, then starts again. “I want people to know that there’s always someone there to reach out a hand, when they need it.” He looks at you, askew. “It doesn’t matter who you are.”
He sounds so — so media perfect, you think. So sure of himself. He’s looking ahead again, into the day before you both, his face calm and you ball the paper bag in your hand and start sketching him, roughly, on your phone.
You’re just trying to get used to the feel of him, you tell yourself; used to the lines that make him, but he catches on to what you’re doing quickly, flushing again in a colour so bright you can see it from the corner of your eyes.
“Stay still,” You tell him, not looking up. You can feel his gaze on you, though, and you change your brush to add a smack of freckles on his face, swiping some colour underneath them, for his blushing.
You pick a white-pink, and start adding little splotches around him for cherry blossom petals, falling down.
“It’s great,” He says, awed, and you finally look to him to see the wonder on his face, like he doesn’t get fanart on the daily. “Can I try?”
He’s like a kid, asking if you have any games. You laugh and nudge your phone to him. “Sure, knock yourself out,” But he hesitates for a moment, his hands hovering before he gingerly picks your device up, using a big, blunt finger to start drawing.
It takes him a while, and you watch the entire time, fascinated. Where someone starts, with a drawing, can tell you a lot about them — he’s decided to draw you in turn, choosing to do your eyes first, your lashes. It’s a blocky effort, but it’s not bad; just unsure of the feel of the screen and his finger, you think.
He’s kind, however: your hair is nicer in his picture than it is in the here and now, and he’s drawn you smiling, softer than you feel like you do in life.
Surprisingly, he’s captured the crinkle of your eyes — a tiny thing about yourself that you’ve seen in photos. He notices details about people, then, you think; it makes sense, given what he’s chosen to do with his life. Musing this, you watch as he uses the same white-pink to give you a lopsided little flower, behind your ear.
It’s charming. He’s charming, when he looks at you afterwards and smiles, a wide one that crinkles his big eyes and transforms his face.
It makes you want to be charming, in turn. Before you can help yourself you lean over, pressing your palm against your screen; activating your Quirk.
When you pull your hand away, the pictures are animated; yours and Deku’s both. Illustrated Deku closes his eyes and breathes in, petals raining down. Your little portrait blinks, your flower fluttering as your smile curves into something more like you.
Deku — real Deku, in the flesh — breathes in almost in tandem with his picture, excited. “Is this your Quirk?” He asks, eager. “What is it — image manipulation? But, I mean, of course it is, we’re literally looking at the results of it now — ”
“Something like that,” You say, leaning against the barrier again.
“What are the limits?” He asks, and there’s a thread of steel, in there — the confidence of someone who revels in what they’re inquiring about. “It can obviously extend to a digital screen, but does size matter, or is it — ”
You’re beginning to recognise this enthusiasm from the bookstore.
“The material doesn’t matter,” You clarify, tapping the paper bag ball of your lunch against the ledge. “There just has to be some kind of artwork. I have more control if I draw it, but I can manipulate most things.” You tap out a haphazard rhythm. “It doesn’t really amount to much, though, beyond a cheap party trick.”
“It’s incredible,” Deku says, sincerely; it catches you off-guard and you pause, looking down at where he’s holding your phone in his hands, carefully — the cradling of something that’s important to someone else. He’s still watching the drawings move in rapt attention, muttering to himself, now — but for a moment, you see a different man. A different boy, looking down at a different drawing, with his careful, thoughtful gaze.
The taste of your curry bun sours in your mouth and you swallow, looking out over the canal instead.
It’s a bright, clear day, you think.