Chapter 66: Adolescence - 20
In the end, Isshun spared The Crawler from an impromptu fan meeting.
Adjusting his hat, he searched for the location of Hopper’s Cafe.
’Not far... That’s good then.’
--<>--
Jingle~
Isshun entered Hopper’s Cafe, which seemed... empty. Besides a group of young girls in a corner near the kitchen and two delinquent-looking boys wearing a similar uniform to his, though theirs looked a bit lower in quality.
"Welcome...? How many people are with you today... young lady?"
An adult man of average height with a goatee and a butler’s outfit greeted Isshun with a confused look.
"One," Isshun said, before correcting the man. "And I’m a boy."
"Oh, uh..." The man’s expression grew awkward, and he led him into the cafe.
Isshun watched through his Domain as the man dropped off the menu and walked to another adult man who looked like his sibling, who immediately teased him.
"Pfft—imagine mistaking a dude for a girl! He’s wearing a gakuran, you idiot."
"Hey! What if it were a tomboy! You can’t even fault me for that!"
Isshun ignored their conversation and looked over the other employees instead.
A man who looked like a praying mantis, a boy who looked like an eel, and a buff human octopus. Though he was being generous, calling that an octopus.
Or was he being generous...?
"Mrroww~"
He glanced down to see a white cat with blue eyes looking up at him.
He turned his body toward the cat, extending an arm to it.
The cat walked closer, taking a small sniff of his fingers, and jumped up into his lap.
"...Hmm."
Despite not caring much about household pets or animals in general, even Isshun fell victim to cats, and he found himself relaxing into the moment.
Giving a small scratch to the cat’s chin, he watched amusedly as the cat purred, relaxing into his lap.
After ordering a warm latte, he took a picture of the latte art and then took a selfie with the white cat in his lap.
Still petting the cat, his eyes wandered between the three mutant Quirk users with curiosity. Seeing people who were this far from a human appearance was pretty rare.
Personally, Isshun didn’t care much about Mutant Quirks. They were all people with Quirks anyway.
He could have been one of them.
’Though... were Quirks supposed to change the natural biology of humans to this extent...?’
At least, throughout Isshun’s arguably short life, the only other thing that looked remarkably similar to them was that skinwalker-looking person back in Nejire’s hometown.
That praying mantis-looking person...
"What are you looking at?"
Seemed to have noticed his gaze, and fixed Isshun with a glare that would probably look intimidating to the average person.
Isshun didn’t care. Instead, he was more curious about something else.
After all, suddenly seeing specimens—wait, that sounded quite morbid, even for him. Correction: suddenly seeing similar victims of a situation he had researched a while back was quite the coincidence.
Just because he was anonymous for almost all of his activities didn’t mean he was scared of anyone or anything. It was simply too bothersome.
But when something—or someone—piqued his curiosity, even someone as uninterested as Shunkan Isshun would move.
"You. Are you bioengineered?"
That skinwalker-looking thing back then was also probably bioengineered, now that he was looking at it from a more educated point of view.
And after that day, he studied anatomy and biology to a satisfactory extent, just to prevent something like that from happening again, not that he ever got to use that information.
The praying mantis frowned, moved closer to Isshun, and looked down at him with skepticism.
"...What’s a bioengineered? You calling me a freak?"
Kamachi Kirihito might be a reformed villain, but that didn’t mean he was about to take some disrespect in the same cafe that he managed, even if it was by a little kid.
Isshun paused at that answer before shaking his head.
"It’s not an insult, sir."
He paused in thought.
How should he describe it in a way that would make sense?
"Were you born looking this way? Or did something change you later?"
He asked, taking a sip of his latte.
"Hah? You think I want to look like this?" Kirihito started to say more, but two people held him back, one of whom was the brother who greeted him at the entrance.
"Kamiyan, calm down! He’s just a kid." The bald one tried to calm the praying mantis down.
"Yeah! Deal with it for a few minutes..." The one who mistook Isshun for a girl looked at him with a mix of apology and accusation.
Kirihito might have been a bit hot-headed, but he wasn’t rude to children for no reason. He believed Isshun had probably said something unintentionally rude.
"Um... customer? May I ask what you said to our manager that got such a reaction out of him?"
"Is your friend here bioengineered?" Isshun asked.
Now, Hotta Jiro and Hotta Ichiro might not have been the sharpest tools in the shed, but those words sounded a bit familiar.
"Bioengineered?" The two brothers looked at each other in confusion.
Isshun sighed.
"Has this person had experiments done on him?"
The two brothers looked at each other again, and a look of understanding passed between them.
"Experiments?" The praying mantis seemed to know that word too, and his annoyance turned into confusion, then suspicion.
’I’m impressed at the variety of emotions a guy with a face like that can have.’ Isshun offhandedly thought.
"How did you know?"
--<>--
"Like a spinning compass of justice!"
"The Compass Kid is never lost!"
An unathletic-looking man spun around before pointing in an irrelevant direction.
"I suppose that’s what you’d call my catchphrase..."
Compass Kid trailed off before talking about his own circumstances. Beside him stood an unassuming man wearing a hat and a trench coat, a kind smile on his face.
But behind that kind smile was the mastermind behind the Bee☆Pop terrorist attack.
’It’s been a while, and it’s even time for my own Pro Hero debut!’
He hadn’t participated much in Bee☆Pop’s debut day, half because it wasn’t the best time, and half to make sure anomalies wouldn’t occur the first time.
’All Might didn’t come, and no signs of Blink moving either...’
If nothing too anomalous happened today, then today would be the perfect day to debut as the High-Speed Hero: O’Clock II.
Though he did have contingency plans for both All Might’s and Blink’s appearances.
"—But just once, before I hang up the cape for good, I’m hoping my kids will get to see their old dad looking cool."
BOOOOOM!
--<>--
"So you’re telling me that you... studied biology?"
Hotta Jiro asked, now sitting across from Isshun with his brother, Hotta Ichiro, and the praying mantis person, Kamachi Kirihito.
While the unusual group did get some looks from the few people in the cafe, Isshun remained casual about it.
"Are you some kind of villain?"
Ichiro asked. Seeing as it wasn’t every day that someone came into the store interested in the employees, and how old the kid looked only made it even more suspicious.
Isshun shook his head.
"Of course not. I found out because my Quirk told me that there was something wrong with Mr...."
"Kamachi." Jiro helpfully added.
"Mr. Kamachi here." Isshun finished.
"That so? Then what’s your Quirk supposed to be?" Kirihito asked, still not convinced.
Isshun hummed in thought before just giving his classic answer.
"Math."
--<>--
A/N: Okay yeah Isshun is actually the bane of my existence. ALSO IM SO SORRY I LIED. This isn’t the action Chapter... my apologies. DEFINITELY TOMORROW(the day of the bonus Chapter). Like, there’s even a cliffhanger so NO WAY there isn’t any action next Chapter, trust, please.
It’s a... white day miracle?
Also, i hope illiterate people don’t start complaining on why isshun is half-exposing himself. Let’s say the stuff at nejire’s childhood home influenced him a little(a lot). Though i completely forgot about that arc until now.
3500PS - Not Complete
Comments