Darkest Before Dawn - 71 (Patreon)

Chapter 71

On his way back home, Kazuki found himself simply going over the ideas Mei had thrown at them. Not only for his own costume and equipment, but also for the others. It was weirdly fun to try and come up with interesting, useful and sometimes weird things that they could add to their hero support equipment.

He idly wondered if they were, indeed, going to remain a team for the next year, maybe even for third year. He’d called the others sidekicks too. It made him think of a future in which they were all in the same agency, working together.

An idle thought if there ever was one, indeed, but Kazuki found himself… relishing it. Just how he relished any idea for a future of any kind, good futures. Like plans to go certain places with his friends. Goals and dreams for his own future, like being a hero, being respected and liked. He liked to think he was getting close to at least some of his wishful thoughts coming true. 

Even if he was just a fool, it filled him with a great feeling.

‘This is not like me at all,’ he thought with a half-smile on his face. He was supposed to be the pessimistic one. Being that positive didn’t suit him at all. ‘And besides… nice things never last,’ he continued, achieving exactly what he wanted, which was to dampen his mood.

Somehow, it didn’t feel like a success.

No surprises there though, since he was a damn fool.

‘It hurts less when you expect things to go wrong,’ he told himself. That was how things had gone for him for the longest time. He didn’t remember when he’d started thinking like that. Maybe it had been before the Rampage, or maybe it was after. The important part was that he’d never been wrong.

Things hurt a lot more when they went badly if he fed whatever speck of hope found its way to his heart.

And yet, he couldn’t quite manage to put off that spark this time. When he tried, all he did was hear the encouragement of his teachers, his classmates, his friends. He didn’t know if to laugh or cry about that. Were they making an optimistic out of him? That was…

… So mean of them.

And yet, he didn’t begrudge them that one bit.

‘I need to calm down,’ Kazuki thought to himself, taking a deep breath in. It was probably the first time he needed to do that from positive emotions, but he didn’t know how to deal with them. He’d felt good plenty of times throughout his life, of course, but he wasn’t used to feeling good for extended periods of time, quite honestly.

‘Thank you, convenient distraction,’ he celebrated a little when he felt his phone vibrate with a message. Idly, he pulled it out to see that it was one from Distressed. ‘I’m just getting back home. Things went well. How about you?’ he replied as he approached the entrance of his building.

“I’m glad. My day was… normal,” was the response he got and that was pretty good by Distressed standards. He only said he had a good day when he-

“Good afternoon,” someone greeted him and Kazuki hastily, if absently, returned the gesture without stopping on his way up to his apartment.

Anyway, Distressed only had a good day when he got some nice pulls in the gacha game or something like that happened. Normal days were normal days and that’s that. Kazuki sort of envied him that. His definition of a normal day sucked so most “normal” days for other people were pretty damn good in his opinion. Somehow, he felt like there was something wrong with that, but it was what it was.

‘Well, hope something good happened today, man,’ he commented, glancing up from the screen for a moment before looking back down. Distressed was already writing his reply, it seemed.

“Eh, good enough for me as is, really. I’m kind of… confused, I guess.”

‘Confused?’ Kazuki thought, tilting his head and trying to find Distressed, but they weren’t at their place, it seemed. So, there was no way to pinpoint their specific emotions. It seemed that he’d just have to be confused too.

“Yeah, you know, when you don’t know how to feel about something?” Distressed replied with, clearly not very sure about what he was writing either. Kazuki felt like he could sort of understand though.

‘I think I get it,’ he sent back, uncertain what else to say regarding that. However, he imagined his friend didn’t really expect much. It wasn’t often that Distressed openly shared stuff, but Kazuki had a hunch that it was the case that day… Not that he hadn’t been wrong in that regard before, but still.

“I’ve just… been thinking about some things, I guess. You are really impressive, you know that?” Distressed sent, making Kazuki pause. “You came to help me, a complete stranger, just because you could and because you thought I needed it. Thank you for that, Knight.”

‘Don’t mention it. Happy to help,’ he replied, smiling at the screen. He wanted to say more than that thought. ‘I’m just really happy that you’ve been feeling better as of late.’

“It’s all thanks to you,” Distressed sent him. “If you ever need anything, just send me a message.”

‘I appreciate that,’ Kazuki replied, reaching his door and opening it. ‘But I got this,’ he added then.

He was sort of surprised that he meant it. Maybe he needed a lot of support from the people around him and such, but… He did think he could do whatever he felt like doing. For once in his life he felt… at peace and certain.

‘Is this what true calm and confidence is like?’ he thought to himself idly as he moved inside. Either way, he smiled and went to write another message.

‘I’ll keep that in mind though. Thank you.’

Because he’d never say no to more people just… caring.

[}-o-{]

[Mina Ashido]

It wasn’t surprising to see that there were reporters outside the school even after Endo’s “Full Interview” as they were calling it. People hadn’t run out of questions yet and Mina suspected they never would. Such was the life of someone in the spotlight and it made her wonder if she should avoid that stage herself. Being an underground hero didn’t sound like her thing, but there were plenty of normal heroes that didn’t get much screen time, as it were.

She liked people well enough and she wasn’t what one could call shy, but there was a line between that and… that.

Idly, she yawned and shifted where she stood outside the school. She’d woken up at an ungodly hour, but needs must. She had things to do and for that she needed to get there much earlier than she usually would. No other way around it, sadly.

So, she stood there and watched her target arrive.

Endo approached the reporters with a much more confident step than he’d had before the internships. Furthermore, that was just one of the many changes Endo had gone through. For one, his hair looked much better than before and he actually seemed to put some thought into his clothes. She’d been one of those people who questioned his choice, but damn if Uwabami hadn’t changed that gloomy, awkward boy into a… ‘Ahem,’ she cleared her throat, feeling her face heat up.

She needed to get it together, because… Yeah, that was only part of the current challenge. She could see Endo talking and even that looked plenty different from before. Where he’d been somewhat calm, dry and sometimes wry, he was now firm, confident and even charming. Uwabami had really done a number on him. Maybe Mina should consider an internship with her if she could pull that off…

That was not the point though.

She needed to get her head in the game. Mina blamed Endo for being so good at… looking good now. Uwabami did great work, indeed. She also blamed her nerves, because this was going to be… a struggle. Her thoughts were all over the place.

Yeah, that was it.

And besides, the rest of the girls in their year thought the-

“Ashido, good to see you,” Endo greeted, a smile on his face that made her want to shuffle on her feet. Mina held strong though, even if she’d been a little surprised, broken from her thoughts like that. She was better than that, damnit… Even if it was a close thing. “You are early,” he pointed out then, his smile growing a little wider.

Mina gulped.

“I… I wanted to talk with you, actually,” she said, gathering her courage once more. “We haven’t… you know? We haven’t talked or done much together for a while. With everyone, I mean!” she tried to explain herself. She didn’t think she was doing a good job at it.

“I guess. I thought you had your own group now,” he commented, casually, the same way one would state that the sky was blue. That stung a little, even though she had no problems with Eijiro, Sero and Sato. They were nice and all but… But she still missed those first days of school, with the old group. “Besides, we see each other all the time at the training facilities.”

“That… doesn’t really feel like being friends, you know?” she commented, unable to stop herself from fidgeting with a lock of her hair. Suddenly, all the courage she’d gathered to go there and talk with Endo seemed to have left her. “I know I messed up but… But…”

“I mean, we talked things out already, right?” Endo said when it became obvious that she’d struggle quite a bit to get her thoughts across. “Also, do you mind if we start on our way to class? Momo and Shoto are probably already there,” he added, making her blink.

“Momo and Shoto?” she asked curiously. A second later, she chided herself for being so nosy. Here she was, trying to approach an old friend that had drifted away from her and she couldn’t stop her gossipy ass from fishing for information.

“We are all calling ourselves by our first names now. Toru said it’s the new nicknames, as it were,” Endo replied with a fond smile that made Mina feel worse than she already did. “It’s kind of my fault, I guess. I… found out that I prefer to be called by my first name instead of my family name, so I asked everyone to call me Kazuki… and one thing led to the other.”

“... I see,” Mina mumbled, feeling like the group was much further away than it had been before. It was… a very sad realization. “Anyway, yeah, we can be on our way,” she replied, turning and walking beside Endo as they started moving through the halls of the school. “And I wanted to know… if we could hang out outside of class and training. Something like that.”

“Uh… I mean… Maybe?” he answered unsure, which made Mina feel like her heart fell apart. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to, seriously,” he added quickly, and it was then that Mina remembered he probably could pick up on all of her bad emotions. That just made her want to die of embarrassment, which didn’t help at all. “It’s just that… I’m kind of waiting to see how things go from now on. Going out after the Sports Festival was… nerve wracking. I want to see how things look for a bit before trying to show myself in public.”

That… was fair.

Now Mina was feeling guilty for being so self-centered that she had forgotten the entire situation that Endo was going through at the moment. He did have to deal with all that bad press about him for quite a while. Things had gotten much better through the last week, what with his work in Hosu, at the hospital with Uwabami and his latest super interview, but she imagined things were still quite hard.

And it was probably much worse than what she thought.

“Are you worrying about me?” Endo said, facing forward instead of at her as they walked. Despite what they were talking about though, Mina was surprised to see that he kept the smile on his face, even if it had dimmed quite a bit. “You shouldn’t. Somehow, I’m not worrying about it right now. Not much, at least. So… you worrying about it, it’s not necessary. I appreciate it though,” he told her, this time turning to look at her and smiling a little wider. “I guess you are still a friend, despite everything.”

“... Of course,” Mina replied, somehow finding her voice.

However, as she looked at Endo right then and there, she remembered something.

“I want to bring people hope, even in their darkest moment, so…”

The Disaster Hero: Beacon.

“You are amazing, Endo,” she said then, smiling back at him.

“Thanks. You are pretty great too,” he replied easily with a chuckle that made her feel even more sheepish. How did Hagakure, Yaoyorozu and Jiro deal with it every day? “And call me Kazuki, yeah? Call it a first step to being proper friends, yeah?” he asked her and she felt herself jump a little.

“O-Of course, En- I mean, um, Kazuki. You can call me… You can call me Mina then,” she stammered, feeling more embarrassed by the second. So much so that the last few words were barely more than a whisper.

“That’s a surprisingly cute reaction. How’d you manage to be more embarrassed than Momo?” Kazuki laughed and Mina squeaked.

What had Uwabami done to him?

[}-o-{]

[Kazuki Endo]

“They are taking their sweet time over there,” Minoru commented as they took their seats at the cafeteria.

“To be fair… there’s a lot to choose from and they like to mix up their choices,” Kazuki replied with a shrug. “They don’t pick the same things every other day like we do,” he added with a chuckle. Granted, his regular choices would be different from the ones he’d pick before the internship. He still had the notes on how and what to eat, after all.

“So glad I didn’t have to get stuck shopping with them,” Minoru commented and Kazuki felt his eye twitch.

“Thanks for reminding me. I gotta tell them to go again and bring you two with us,” he replied before grinning widely at the dread that spread through both boys. That’s what they got from throwing him to the wolves, the little shits. After Uwabami, he might not even suffer quite as much.

“I thought we were friends, Kazuki,” Minoru mumbled hollowly.

“I’m doing my friendly duty, as it were. I had to suffer, so, you will too,” he replied. “Besides, it has its perks.”

“Ohhh~ Like what, Ka-zu-ki~?” Toru asked, announcing the arrival of the girls. And, if her tone and question were anything to go by, then at least she’d heard what they were talking about.

“Like watching beautiful girls trying out all sorts of outfits,” he answered smoothly, pulling on all his training to remain calm even with the weirdest questions. God, he owed Uwabami a whole lot, evidently, just for that, nevermind the interviews.

“Man, that was smooth,” Minoru mumbled, eyes wide in awe. “Teach me your ways.”

“Be good and maybe I will, young one,” he shot back with a smug half-smile.

“Very smooth indeed,” Toru said, a little embarrassed and with an odd tinge in her voice. Served her right though, for trying to embarrass him. Maybe once he stopped being so on edge, she’d get to him once more. As it was, Kazuki was still very wound up with all the preparations he’d made for his interview.

It’d take a bit for him to be able to let go of that, he imagined.

“Why, thank you,” he replied with a wide grin. There were benefits to his previous worries, it seemed. That was nice, even if he never wanted to go through that again.

“Man, that’s weird,” Minoru commented, looking at him curiously.

“What is?”

“You being so… chipper? That’s not the word. Relaxed, I guess. You used to be a lot more… closed and sullen,” his vertically challenged friend commented, making him blink. Although, to be fair, he wasn’t really arguing that. The girls, for their part, felt like they definitely wanted to. “I’m happy for you though, don’t get me wrong. It’s just odd.”

“There was no need to point that out, Minoru,” Momo chastised him, the usual frown on her face.

“I don’t mind. I’m honestly just happy to be happy,” he told her with a chuckle, waving off her worries. “Knowing my luck, it’s not gonna last long,” Kazuki replied with a much more bitter chuckle. Even then, his mood didn’t lower all that much. Certainly not as much as Minoru’s. “I’m gonna enjoy it while it lasts.”

“That’s a good mindset,” Shoto commented somewhat flatly. “I’ve been feeling better than usual too,” the half and half boy added, although one wouldn’t know, considering he acted the same way as he always did. How sad was it, that even Kazuki didn’t notice that much of a difference?

“Happy for you, man,” Kazuki replied with a smile. “Things are looking up for us, huh?”

“Looks that way.”

“Well, if I can add my grain of sand,” Minoru started then, coughing behind his fist. “I wanted to invite you guys for dinner at my place, if you want. My mother insisted once I asked, by the way,” he explained and Kazuki blinked.

“Sure, I’ll help with the food again,” Kazuki answered immediately. Not like he had much else planned, really.

“I’ll have to check with my family, but there shouldn’t be any problems,” Shoto said, for his part.

From there, the girls seemed to be a little awkward as they gave negative answers, except Jiro who said she’d ask, but she seemed doubtful of those chances. From what he could read from their emotions, all of them felt bad for doing so. They seemed sincere when they said they regretted not being able to go, but it was what it was.

It was gonna be just the boys that night, it seemed… Well, and Minoru’s mother.

Sounded like fun, actually.

[}-o-{]

“Sorry for not coming yesterday,” was the first thing he said once he entered Inui’s office. “I know it was-”

“Endo,” the man interrupted, sounding amused. “You don’t have to apologize. These sessions aren’t mandatory.”

“Feels like they are, at this point,” Kazuki mumbled, leaning back on his seat and scratching the back of his neck. “I guess I got into the habit a little too much.”

“Looks like that. Nothing wrong with coming though, of course, but don’t feel obligated to do it. That’d likely just make you hate this place,” Inui commented calmly. “Now, anything you want to talk about? A lot of things have been happening in your life and I didn’t get to talk to you after your internship either,” the counselor inquired, making Kazuki take a moment to focus himself.

“Things are going well, actually,” he replied eventually with a smile. “I checked everything I could regarding my interview before coming here and I’ve been keeping track through my phone. I consulted with Uwabami too, when I could and she had a moment. I think it went… surprisingly well and she seems to agree, if without the surprising part,” he explained, feeling an odd mix of happiness, pride and nervousness.

“That’s great to hear,” Inui said, but there was obviously more going on in his mind. Kazuki could tell, because there was a tinge of apprehension there. “You’ve certainly changed your demeanor, I’m noticing.”

“Yeah,” Kazuki replied, a little awkwardly. “I’ve spent so much time and effort drilling Uwabami’s teachings into my brain that acting normal is weird right now. I’m hoping I can strike a balance soon. She warned us about acting our public personas too much.”

“That’s great to hear, because she warned us to keep an eye on you about that,” Inui admitted, making him blink. “She told us that you might act odd and out of character for a bit, since you did a lot of acting and behavior training. She also told us that if you seemed too out of character, we should be wary.”

“Of course she did,” Kazuki replied, a smile on his face. Maybe he should have felt annoyed that she meddled like that behind his back, or maybe he should have felt betrayed that she didn’t believe in him. He did feel those things, a little bit. However, what he felt the most was… happy that she cared. “Well, I’m trying to follow her advice, but do take care of me, Inui.”

“That’s what we are here for,” the counselor replied with a firm nod. “So, anything you want to talk about? Things seem to be going well for you. Nothing out of place?”

“As I said, the interview went well… And it’s great to be back with my friends and all. Even coming to class,” he answered with a chuckle, feeling lighter than he ever had before. “I feel like I can do everything. I won the Sports Festival and I did great in this super important interview. I learned lots of things, did good and… and improved.”

“... But?” Inui prodded and Kazuki laughed.

“But,” he replied, his smile straining into a brittle version of itself. “But I can’t shake this feeling. I can’t make it go away. I can’t stop thinking about it… that something will happen.”

“I guess that’s reasonable,” Inui told him, and Kazuki could feel the pity almost flooding off of the man. “You aren’t used to things going well for you.”

“You can say that again,” he said, chuckling once more, but there was no cheerfulness in it now. “Something will happen though. I’m sure of it. It’s always been like that. So, I’m expecting my mother to make another interview, or maybe there’ll be another villain attack. Hell, maybe one of my friends will betray me. Something will happen.”

“And why are you so sure?” Inui asked, making him rub his face.

“You are usually better at hearing than this, Inui. Haven’t you heard me? Something always happens,” he answered, but the counselor remained undeterred.

“The future isn’t set in stone, Endo. Just because it’s been like that in the past, doesn’t mean that it’ll happen again. Life is full of struggles and problems, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a peaceful moment in your life too. We often overlook them for the bad, but good times also happen. You can’t live in fear of things going awry or you’ll go insane,” Inui told him, but it seemed that Kazuki knew better, in this one instance.

“That’s where you are wrong, Inui,” he told the man, a smile on his face. “Living like this is what keeps me sane, because if I know it’s coming, it can’t affect me as much. So, I’ll be ready, the next time things go wrong,” he explained, leaning back on his seat.

“You are convinced of this,” Inui pointed out.

“I am.”

“Well… I have a theory, if you don’t mind me monologuing for a bit,” the counselor commented and Kazuki respected him too much not to at least hear him out. So, he just nodded, even as he readied himself to hear the usual thing he’d hear, normal hopeful, wishful, useless drivel. As if it were so easy to look at life positively. “Your Quirk feeds you negative emotions,” Inui started, which was… a bit of an unexpected point to go for. “And you’ve led a very tragic life so far. Both things led to you having a pessimistic outlook in life, which is understandable, sad but understandable. Now… Now, I think you’ve gotten used to processing those negative emotions through your pessimism, adapting those feelings with your own. Except, it doesn’t quite work well when you don’t have anything to feel bad about, right?”

Kazuki listened, slowly getting drawn in with every word. Why… Why did that make so much sense? No, he was wrong, right? Surely… It couldn’t be that. Life sucked, that was why he was pessimistic. He’d learned how to avoid his Quirk’s emotions…

Except, had he? Wasn’t he constantly struggling against them despite “knowing how to avoid them”? Wasn’t he constantly feeling their weight?

“Do you mind if I try something?” Inui asked, but Kazuki was too confused to process that. His mind was too busy to really care. He was trying to piece things together, find the argument. Inui was wrong, after all. He was right, he had to be…

“Sure,” he mumbled, bringing a hand up to rub his eyes and the bridge of his nose. The day had been going so well. Things were great even! Why was he… Why…?

Suddenly, his mind cleared. He was still confused, nervous and scared… but not quite as much. ‘What?’ he wondered, blinking. Then he realized what had changed.

He wasn’t feeling his Quirk.

“Why do you have to be such a problem child?” a new voice said, from the door, and Kazuki turned towards it with wide eyes. “I can’t even scold you about it, which makes it worse.”

“Aizawa?”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Man, writing Ashido’s PoV was awkward as fuck. I like how it turned out though. It wasn’t fun to write, but I thought it was fun when I read it. Hopefully you guys agree.

Now, I don’t know if I managed the last part well, honestly. I’m trying to tackle yet another issue with the negative empathy that Kazuki has, like I did with the identity crisis back in the day. Now, it’s more about how one can go about processing the feedback of bad emotions. I imagine one way would be through one’s own bad emotions. Except that things are now (for once) looking up for our boy, more than ever so far. That’s, ironically, the reason he’s very confused, to say the least.

I hope I managed to do a good job there, but I feel like I fell short… We’ll see, I guess.

I also hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Any plans for today? I’ll just write and procrastinate on other things, probably.

See you.