Internship Prelude
1 Month Ago
Ryusei Sugiyama, HN Smokin’ Sexy, reclined in his shitty wooden chair in Aiko’s Hospital room. He’d been discharged days ago and was dressed in his street clothes. His bokken and katana were propped against his chair. An unlit cigarette hung from his mouth.
Aiko Aimi, HN Rosethorn, was sitting on her bed. The redhead, usually the consummate professional, wore the unkempt look of someone who hadn’t slept the night before. Her bright blue hospital gown was crumbled in several places, like she’d be tossing and turning all night. Ryusei hadn’t asked about her state. He didn’t have to. There was a storm brewing in the underworld and her idiotic students were standing in its eye. She probably hadn’t slept in days.
One of those idiots in particular was central to this conversation. Christopher Cain, HN Mirror Devil, was the cause of Aiko’s current Hospitalization.
“I’m a little surprised.” Ryusei finally said. “I thought I was getting your hard luck case?”
“She’s got her heart set on Akagi and… maybe it’ll be good for them both?”
“Hrm.” Ryusei chewed on his cigarette. He hadn’t really been looking to have an Intern this year anyway, so he wasn’t cut up about that. “We can hope.” But if he HAD to have one, the kid she was asking him to take in was at the very bottom of his list.
“I wouldn’t ask if I had someone I trusted more.” Aiko said.
“Don’t butter me up.” Ryusei grumbled. It’d work, didn’t mean he wanted her to do it. “I’m not really sold on the idea. I saw Cain at the tournament, the Hell can I teach someone with that kindof firepower? What about that other kid? Challenger?”
“Impakt.”
“Fuck, Yako?”
“I think Akagi too.”
“Ain’t she popular?”
Aiko smiled. “She’ll be surprised.”
Ryusei frowned. “What makes you think he’ll even pick me? He showed off a lot of firepower and the top pros are just vain enough to pick someone that can use their quirk. No offense.”
“None taken, but you let me worry about that.” Aiko affirmed.
Ryusei’s eyes narrowed, she was going to get the word out that Cain was off limits. “Why?”
“I just think you two--”
“No. I get that you’re a busy buddy--”
“I am not a--”
“I get that you think some kid that puts his life on the line trying to be a hero will bring back the spark of being a hero for me.”
“… well…” She wasn’t going to be able to deny that accusation.
“But why are you going so far? You could just recommend he take my offer.”
Rosethorn glowered. “Recent history has shown he doesn’t listen to me.”
Ryusei leaned forward. The way she said that. “… it’s not about me is it?”
Aiko looked Ryusei in the eye, it was a death glare he hadn’t seen from her in years, not since high school. ‘Wrong person to shoot that look at Aiko. It was Akagi AND I who weren’t scared remember?’
“It’s the kid ain’t it? Why?”
Aiko closed her eyes tightly. Something creeped into her voice that Ryusei wasn’t used to hearing from her. Worry? No, not so mild, it was fear. “Because he’s going to get himself killed if he’s not properly trained and you’re the only one I think will get through to him.”
Ryusei’s eyes narrowed. That wasn’t all there was to it was there? He could see it in her posture. In the way she tried to hide her eyes from him. There was something more to it.
if I had someone I trusted more.
She was already trusting Aikagi with her hard luck case, so she was giving Cain to him? Why? Because she really did think he was the only one that’d get through to Cain? Maybe, but that didn’t smell right. Aiko cared about her students but she didn’t usually go this far. Did he have potential? Did he remind her of herself? Did he remind her of someone else?
“Fine.” Ryusei conceded. He lit his cigarette. He seized the smoke with his quirk as it caressed the roof of his mouth and let it hang in a cloud around him. Whatever her reasons, he trusted Aiko enough to think they were good ones. “But you owe me.”
Aiko smiled. “Thanks Ryusei.” Maybe now she could get some sleep.
The final bell rang. Shiketsu opened its doors for the last time. Students filed out, determined to seize what reverie they could before the internships began. Before they got a taste of the professional world that awaited those talented enough to join it. Away from the deluge of students, in the cafeteria where they’d recently spent their free period was a group of 5 Shiketsu 1st years going over their internship offers. One was a freakishly tall woman, a sorely missed sight among her friends until just a few weeks ago. One was a boisterous young man with bleach blonde hair, a green dragon fussed with his hair. A third was almost a blurry androgynous young woman. The fourth was a stylish girl of Korean descent. She clung nearer the last figure, as if she was uncertain of how welcome she was in this group save for him. This last figure was a familiar dour young man. His brow was furrowed and whatever secrets his phone held, he was not pleased to learn them.
Christopher frowned. He held his phone in his hands. His email was opened. The mail was junkmail, some card delivery confirmations, and no new internship offers. He shouldn’t be surprised objectively, given his recent history of hospitalizations, heroes would guess that he’d participated in vigilantism, even if the cause of his hospitalizations had never really leaked. But… that just didn’t seem like it should be enough to dissuade them. Had he really done so poorly in the tournament? Given Sandatsu’s performance in subsequent rounds he thought heroes would overlook his defeat. He’d even gone so far as to rank 5th in the license exams. He really should be drowning in offers.
Christopher wasn’t. He only had the one offer. The one offer he’d almost rejected outright.
“I don’t know why people keep writing me.” Inigo opined. “I already accepted Popsy’s offer!” Gigan chirped in agreement as he transformed into a comb and began to run through the boy’s hair.
“I really wish you’d take one of your better offers.” Hoge grumbled. “You have two top 10 heroes to choose from.”
“There is NO better internship! Learning from the lady of colorful mayhem?! It’s a dream come true!” Gigan abandoned Inigo’s hair for a brief moment to change into a flag from his handle that read ‘Popsy for #1!”
“Chris? Can you help me go through my options?” Kaylee asked. She was staring at her school issued phone. The phone was comically tiny in her enormous hands. She seemed a little overwhelmed by the number of offers she’d gotten. Her stint in the hospital hadn’t affected her options.
“Yeah.” Chris answered absent-mindedly.
“I wish I needed help. I might HAVE to work with Rosethorn.” Faith whispered looking at her own email. “Some of these offers sound more like unpaid labor.”
“Isn’t that the definition of an internship?” Chris asked.
“Sure, but I want to learn something while I’m there, even if it’s just PR. You going to work for Rosethorn Chris?”
“…” He would, but she hadn’t offered. That… hurt. It hurt a lot. Christopher clamped down on his emotions as he felt the hurt start to turn into a sobbing fit. He was getting a lot better at controlling this.
“Come on!” Faith pleaded. “It’d be fun to work together!”
“I think I have to take this one.” Christopher answered. He showed Faith his phone with Smokin’ Sexy’s curt and informal offer displayed on the screen.
Faith tilted her head. “… Smokin’ Sexy? Who?”
“He’s an underground hero operating in the south side of Kyoto.” Christopher began. “I think it’ll be a good chance to get some dedicated training.” He lied.
“OH! Was he the guy that was putting on a tutu when we--” Kaylee began.
Christopher fixed her with a glare.
“… met in the gym?” Kaylee corrected herself.
“Yes.”
“A… tutu?” Faith’s face was unreadable.
“… why?” Hoge asked, uninvited.
“Something to do with his quirk?” Kaylee ventured.
“No. He was trying to cheer up Popsy.” Christopher answered. The truth was the best lie.
“My man!~” Inigo smiled. “Are they together?”
“Stop.” Hoge and Chris said at the same time.
“What?! It’s a real question! My clown queen needs--”
Hoge jabbed Inigo in the side.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“Your clown WHAT?”
Inigo’s face fell. He’d just called another woman his queen in front of his girlfriend. “… my…”
Inigo looked at Gigan. Gigan looked away.
Inigo looked at Kaylee. Kaylee returned her attention to her phone.
Inigo looked at Christopher, his last hope! Christopher turned his attention to Faith. His hope failed!
“traitors.” Inigo whispered.
“Rosethorn might be good for you honestly. If nothing else you can teach them something about social media.”
“I’d rather teach you to post SOMETHING.” Faith shot back.
“I’m not interesting enough to read about.”
“No-one’s THAT interesting, but you can share interesting things.” Faith explained.
“Well you see she’s obviously the clown of my queen-- I mean the clown in our--” Christopher tuned out Inigo’s apology. He was just going to keep digging himself a hole until he hit bedrock. Nothing novel about that.
“Like here.” Faith showed Christopher her Y Feed. “See how Max is just posting random stuff about heroes? It doesn’t really do numbers, but her audience expects it. It keeps them engaged with her. Then when something interesting happens.” She scrolled to a post about two weeks ago with nearly a million likes. It was… Faith and Christopher going on a date. Christopher blinked.
“Isn’t that--”
“See? The trick isn’t to be interesting every time, it’s to be consistent and keep the audience engaged enough that when something interesting DOES happen, you got an audience to tell about it.”
“No. I mean wasn’t that pos--”
“Here’s one of Hailey’s.” Faith showed Hailey talking about a fight she had with Hifumi. Christopher’s eyes drifted to the comments.
“… are those death threats?”
“Yeah, you got them too.”
“I—”
“They’re not serious probably.”
“Probably?”
“I mean… shit’s happened before but it’s rare.”
“Happened to whom? You?!”
“Nah, Hailey got stalked once, but Edie--”
“Faith!” Christopher interrupted.
“What?”
“Will hearing the whole story and not reporting it make me an accessory after the fact?”
“…”
“…”
“Anyway, while building an audience happens when you do something interesting, you have to make posting a habit so that people will make YOU a habit, you get what I’m saying?”
Christopher sighed. He did. There wasn’t a successful hero in memory who didn’t have an active social media account. Granted people like Rosethorn or Saurus had employees do it for them, but just starting out? You have to do social media…. Chris hated SM.
“Maybe I should just go Underground.” Christopher muttered. Smokin’ Sexy didn’t keep a professional Y account.
“Oh come on! It’s not THAT bad.” Faith’s phone dinged. Christopher glanced at Faith’s phone, a new reply showed at the top of her screen. It called her a cow.
Faith blinked at the message. Then glanced back at Christopher. Here she’d been trying to convince her boyfriend SM wasn’t a horrible investment in time (mostly so she could Y stalk him) and some jackass chose that moment to prove SM was a cesspool?
“Well, shit.”
“Bad timing.” Christopher agreed. “Do you have an SOP for trolls?”
“Not really, for this guy… let’s see.” Faith opened his profile. “Looks like the type to use the same password for everything.” Faith smiled widely.
“Faith…”
“What? It’s a public service! You really should use different passwords!” She opened her phone function and started to dial an employee extension for Y, “I’m just looking out for his online sec--”
“Ahem!” Hoge’s voice cut through their conversation like a knife. Faith blushed as she scrambled to put her phone away. Christopher blinked… he honestly forgot Hoge was there. He turned to regard the rest of the table.
Kaylee was still fumbling with her comically-tiny-in-her-hands phone. Inigo had a nice large red hand print on his cheek, he’d either put his foot in his mouth again or tried to touch Hoge in public. Hoge’s red face and Gigan shaking his head morosely eliminated neither possibility.
“Not to interrupt your plans to commit a felony.” Hoge managed evenly. Faith averted her eyes. “But the student council is starting soon and I believe you wanted to present the cheer club’s budget?”
“Oh! Right!” Faith stood quickly gathering her belongings. She gave Chris a peck on the cheek. “Bye!”
“Love you.”
Faith froze. Hoge and Inigo stared at Christopher in shock. Kaylee looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. Gigan held his claws over his mouth and turned a deep crimson. Christopher blinked then turned magenta. ‘OH God...’
“luvutoo!” Faith blurted before gathering her things and shooting away at lightning speed.
Christopher put his head in his hands. His cheeks were on fire. Fuck.
“I should be going as well.” Hoge muttered. Christopher could feel the second hand embarrassment rolling off of her.
“I love you Hoge!” Inigo cried.
“D-dumbass.” Hoge turned into a barely perceivable blur as she walked away.
“This is your fault Inigo.” Christopher muttered.
“Me?! What’d I do?”
“You’re a horrible influence.”
“I’m a great influence! Did you see how happy she looked?”
“Fuck you.”
“You okay Chris?” Kaylee asked.
“Yeah, just embarrassed. Not like it was--”
“No, I mean you’ve been off lately.”
“He’s in love!”
“Shut up Inigo.”
“See? Look at his face!”
“Hrm, maybe.” Kaylee tilted her head unconvinced. “It’s just ever since the Exam you’ve been… I dunno....”
Christopher avoided her eyes. If she knew something was wrong, then Inigo probably did too. There was a reason he was off, but he didn’t want to tell them. It’d get them too close to his other secret.
Christopher looked at Gigan. Did the dragon know? Gigan averted his eyes… yup, he knew, but from the look of concern on Inigo’s face, he hadn’t shared. Either that… or Inigo was a great liar.
“Internships.” Christopher whispered. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was part of it.
“Oh?”
“I wasn’t choosing Smokin’ Sexy because I want to work with him. He’s literally the only one that offered.”
“Fuuuuck.”
“That… makes no sense. Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess… I HAVE been hospitalized twice in three months, no reason officially given. It might smell like I’m hurting myself during training.” Christopher thought out loud.
“Wouldn’t that mean you’re working hard?”
“No, it… uh--”
“It’d mean he doesn’t know when to quit.” Inigo came to his rescue.
“Or that my quirk has a drawback that’d make me a liability.” Christopher averted his eyes. “Either way, it doesn’t look good.”
“Well all you need is one right?” Kaylee comforted.
“I guess.” Christopher sighed.
“And working with Popsy’s man will mean we get to work together!” Inigo shouted.
“I don’t think they’re actually together.”
“Even better! You and I can help make love bloom!” Inigo sparkled brightly. Stars danced from his smile. The stars bounced off of Christopher’s stone face. He looked at Kaylee. Kaylee looked at him. Her face was granite.
“On second thought, I’m going to skip internships.”
“Understandable.”
Squeak Gigan nodded his head solemnly.
“Ehhhhhhh?!”
Christopher plopped on his bed. He buried his head in his pillow. He sighed. He was home. Finally home, he released his held breath. He’d managed to make it another day without humiliating himself. Except for telling Faith how he felt… which he wasn’t exactly going to apologize for. Another day with his emotions running wild thanks to that damned--He felt a scratch at his subconscious.
“Fine, you can come out.”
The black dragon formed on Christopher’s shoulder. The little cretin mewled as it darted for the ceiling and flew in happy little rings.
“Why the Hell are you always in such a good mood?” Christopher grumbled. The black dragon pounced on his back.
“Ow.” Christopher rolled over, the dragon walked on his body like a lumberjack rolling a log until it sat on Christopher’s stomach. It tilted its head playfully.
Christopher frowned at it. He hadn’t had the heart to drop Inigo’s quirk since the license exam. He hadn’t wanted the experience to be relegated to mere lines on a piece of notebook paper, so he held on to Inigo’s quirk. At first he told himself he’d hold onto the memory until he could use Mio’s quirk to save it electronically. He did that. Then he told himself he’d hold onto Inigo’s quirk until he made sure the files survived dropping Mio’s quirk. They had. Now… now he didn’t know what he wanted to tell himself.
Christopher was out of excuses and left only with the truth. He didn’t want to forget his friend.
The dragon wagged its tail. Christopher sighed.
“If I’m keeping you I guess you need a name.”
The dragon perked up.
“Schwartz?”
The dragon clawed Christopher’s chest.
“OUCH! JUST SAY YOU DON’T LIKE IT!”
The dragon’s eyes narrowed. ‘I can’t talk.’
Christopher’s eyes narrowed more. “What’s wrong with Schwartz?”
The dragon took on the form of a ring with a cross beneath it. It was the symbol of femininity.
“… you’re a girl?”
The dragon transformed into a thumb’s up.
“… what the fuck. How? Gigan’s a boy right?”
The dragon nodded.
“… why?”
The dragon shrugged.
“Okay, fine. Whatever. You’re a girl and you want a girl’s name right?”
The dragon smiled.
Christopher looked at the dragon’s eyes. They were a deep dark red. “Aka?”
The dragon raised her claw ready to plunge it in Chris’s chest.
“OKAY NOT AKA NOT AKA!”
The dragon purred and licked her claws.
“Are you a dog or a cat?” Christopher mumbled. He let his head hit the pillow. The dragon held out a claw and tilted it side to side. ‘A bit of both?’
Christopher looked around his room, searching for an idea. His eyes fell on his mother’s box. The box he still hadn’t had the heart to open. He wanted to, he really did, but every time the thought struck him, he remembered how he used his mother’s memory against his father to stay in Shiketsu. It could never felt right to open it. What right did he have? When he needed to look at the letters on the side of that fucking box just to remember his mom’s name?
“Hitomi.” Christopher whispered.
The dragon squeaked. It soared towards the ceiling turning into a banner with the word ‘Hitomi’ scrawled across it.
Christopher jolted upwards. “What? No! I--” The dragon-- Hitomi didn’t listen. She kept soaring around, setting off tiny fireworks, exulting in her new name.
Christopher let himself fall back on his pillow with a sigh. “Y’know what? Fine. It’s yours. Not like she’s using it anymore.”