Set Your Sights on Sunny Days (Mosa)(SF)(Saga)

FOR AS EXUBERANT AS KENJI was in the moment, Mosa was ever the cool cucumber, casually explaining that every club would be hosting a stand. A Cooking Club, a Sports Club, a Robotics Club… and most importantly, the tourney.

“I’m excited for all of it, but especially the tourney, yeah!” the boy avowed, “It’s not every day you get to see someone kicking as—kicking butt with their Quirk!”

Kenji made a few cartoonish karate chops at the air, as if demonstrating how someone would kick butt with their quirk. Through his visits with Mosa, and the periodic visits from Kasumi, Kenji was learning to choose his words a little more carefully. He slipped-up sometimes, particularly when he was this excited, but he was making a genuine effort to not cuss around Mosa, even if Kasumi wasn’t there. He really was trying.

He also tried to be cool about the whole thing. It was just a festival. Plenty of schools held them. But… he couldn’t help it!!

Mosa redirected the conversation as they continued to patrol the parking lot for a spot, inquiring about the tour. It had been Mosa’s idea to meet with Tsuchiya for a tour in the first place… so he was partly to thank for enabling Kenji to get there in the first place.

“It was good,” Kenji answered sincerely, managing to sit still in his seat for just a moment, “Tsuchiya-san showed me all over campus. The classrooms, the gym—I liked the gym the best—“

Of course he liked the gym the best.

“I applied to go here,” he confessed. Had he told Mosa that, yet? He probably had. But maybe he hadn’t, “I uh… think it’d be good for me? Maybe it could, uh… keep me out of trouble.”

Kenji chuckled, as if he’d been caught in the act of causing the trouble of which he spoke. Both Mosa and he were well-acquainted with his penchant for mischief.

“That’s what Utari-san said, anyways,” Kenji went-on, “They said it would give me an… outlet?”

Though if anyone was being real with themselves, simply attending a hero school wouldn’t be enough to quell Kenji’s hell-raising ways. It would take so much more than that.

The teen spied an open spot between two vehicles, and pointed towards it, “There’s a space!”

Mosa Ganbaroshi

ooc notes:

KENJI ARCHED A BROW AT MOSA'S APOLOGY, his confusion clear.

“That’s okay,” he assured Mosa, “I’m not really sporty either. I mean, I skateboard and climb things, but like… I don’t play sports. And I lose most of the fights I get into.”

Kenji rubbed the back of his head bashfully, and rubbed the stitches leftover from his fight with Daisuke. He couldn’t keep his dumb mouth shut, and he couldn’t put his money where his mouth was.

He continued to watch Mosa as the man reacted to Kenji’s announcements, the child’s confusion clear. Was it so strange that he had applied to go to U.A.? No, it wasn’t that-- he wanted to help? The teen’s expression pinched. Was that something that normal parents did with their kids? Helped them with their apps? Utari-san had helped Kenji some, quite a bit actually, but… why did Mosa care?

The teen unbuckled his seatbelt, and roused himself from the car once it was shut-off. He straightened his shirt and his cargo shorts, and trotted around the back to wait for Mosa, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Food maybe?” the boy chirped, “Or I dunno. Let’s see what they have.”

He didn’t know what to expect, having never been to a high school festival (particularly one of this magnitude).

“Did you go to the sports fest last year?” Kenji asked.

“I watched it on t.v. Some of it anyways.”

He did his best to keep pace with Mosa, but excitement propelled him ahead. As such, Kenji sort of bobbled ahead and then stopped to wait for his chaperone to catch-up.

Mosa Ganbaroshi

ooc notes:

THE TEEN WOULD BASHFULLY RUB the back of his head at Mosa's admission that he'd rather Kenji not fight. Kenji would rather people not pick fights with him! It wasn't like Kenji was asking people to be assholes towards him! Or quirkers! But when they were he'd solve the issue with his fists! Or, at least... try to. He'd solve issues if he actually won fights... maybe.

The man's retort about Kenji needing to watch his figure brought a sharp sound of protest from the boy, a groan of, "Augh, Mosa!"

He walked backwards for a few strides, extending his arms just to protest, "Look at me! If the wind blows too much it'll blow me away!"

He wasn't wrong. Though he wasn't necessarily as gaunt as when he'd first been whisked into the orphanage, he was still just as spindly as ever. Kenji was the kind of kid that old women looked at with kindly eyes and said, "Eat more, sweetie. You're nothing but skin and bones," while piling another serving onto his plate.

Which was fine, because Kenji was always hungry-- hopefully that meant that a growth spurt was imminent.

Kenji was quiet as Mosa explained that the fights held no interest for him. Why not? Watching people kick-ass with their quirks was so cool! Therein lay the difference between Kenji and his chaperone-- while Mosa saw, and was understandably concerned by, fights between children-- Kenji saw people who were free to use their quirks how they wanted. He saw freedom. And goddamn, he wanted it, so badly.

"I think it's really cool," Kenji confirmed, as the resident "young" perspective. They left the parkiing lot, which was little more than spray-painted lines painted on the field, and crossed into the grounds proper, where the festivities were being held.

Although Kenji dutifully remained near Mosa, his eyes tried to crane around the various booths and through the gathered crowd, and he clenched his fists with the restrained excitement. Mosa seemed to be concocting an idea of what to checkout first, so the boy did his best to listen.

"Fighting the bad guys," Kenji insisted. Of course that was what interested him the most-- it involved fighting.

ft. mosa ganbaroshi

ooc notes:

KENJI GROANED AT THE PLAY-ON-WORDS, giving a perfunctory eyeroll. No, anything but puns! But his smile stayed, despite his apparent exasperation at Mosa’s droll wordplay. It was how fathers were supposed to be—not that… not that Mosa was his father, but, it was undeniable that he occupied a very paternal role in more ways than one. He was a counselor and a priest, both very paternal professions—and he had a kid. So at least Mosa was stereotypically fatherly in the sense that he made awful jokes, too.

“Yeah! To the sports booth!” Kenji agreed, at Mosa’s proposal to try the sports club’s booth. The scrawny little redhead might not look like much, in terms of athletic prowess. But what he lacked in physicality, he made-up for in raw enthusiasm.

Mosa didn’t seem satisfied with the teen’s answer, about beating-up the bad guys being the main appeal of being a hero. Perhaps the quip was dismissive, given the teens excitement. He didn’t want to think of the hard questions.

“I mean… that was right after…” the teen paused. It still hurt to go there. His smile faltered slightly, his gaze cutting sideways, “…right after Charles got arrested.”

Charles—his caretaker—the first dad-like figure in a long time, or perhaps ever, to enter into Kenji’s life. Their living situation wasn’t perfect—several meetings with the social worker had made that abundantly clear to the boy—but Charles was the first person who’d really reached for Kenji when he started to slip through the cracks. And that made him alright in Kenji’s book.

“So of course I felt like giving-up. He was all I had.”

Literally. He lost Charles and was put in an orphanage. He’d lost everything.

He shrugged his shoulders, sighing heavily.

“Heroes are just like… really cool, you know? People look-up to them… because they catch people who fall through the cracks, and… and… protect people from bad guys… protect people who can’t protect themselves,” Kenji verbally staggered through a more thoughtful response. On a surface-level, it was a very simplistic way of thinking. Mosa could probably see the deeper truths roiling just beneath the surface, though—by now, Mosa probably knew about Kenji’s lack of stability in his biological family, his history with Charles. He probably knew that Kenji’s whole life had contained its fair share of “people who fell through the cracks” and “people who couldn’t protect themselves”. So the child was clearly speaking from the heart.

“I wanna be someone who’s strong enough to… protect people, and catch them... someone who can like… fight the bad guys and win, who people think is really cool and stuff,” Kenji finally confessed, his excitement brimming once again. So it was more than just kicking-ass—there was a vein of altruism there, of wanting to protect people, the way he’d been protected, and of wanting to be admired and noticed, something that the teen had never really received in his childhood.

Kenji had played right into Mosa’s quest for a deeper answer, and was completely unaware of that fact.

ft. mosa ganbaroshi

ooc notes:

IT WAS ALL PRETTY PATHETIC, when one got to the bottom of it, wasn’t it? Deep down, Kenji just wanted to be liked by people. His parents, his peers, had systematically and routinely been proving that he wasn’t worth giving attention or time to, and in-turn Kenji acted-out, refusing to be ignored, indignant that anyone would try to sweep him under the rug or call him weak.

Okay, so… he was still pretty weak. But he had spirit, was a whole hell of a lot more than a lot of other people could say!

The redheaded teen was so worried that Mosa would think his reply was stupid—but Mosa actually lauded it. It sounded noble. It was like why Mosa had wanted to be a psychiatrist, and a priest.

Kenji’s gaze had fixed itself on the ground as he’d made his unwieldy confession. But when Mosa avowed that he was one in the same, the redhead quirked a lopsided smile, and glanced at him. It was exactly the kind of encouragement he needed.

The direction of the conversation flipped again—Kenji thought for sure that Mosa would start talking about his experience as a priest or as a psychiatrist, but no—it went back to Kenji.

A heavy hand settled on Kenji’s shoulder, and the teen stiffened. Was he in trouble? He was in trouble, wasn’t he? Preemptive scolding for future mischief?

Kenji’s eyes darted sideways—but what followed was surprising. Mosa wanted Kenji to remember that everyone was here to help him, including himself.

Kenji rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’ll try to,” he said, rather noncommittally, “I think I’ll be mostly okay, right? It’s just like high school but with super-powered kids, right?”

That’s what Tsuchiya-san had said, anyways. Or maybe he was misremembering. Besides, if other kids were strong enough to go to hero-school and not need babysitting, why was he any different? Kenji could handle it!

It was the sort of stubborn refusal of help common in one who’d been self-sufficient (in their own mind) for so long.

This was too weird. But Kenji let himself be anchored down by Mosa’s heavy hand.

“If I have any issues, I’ll come to you,” Kenji swore, finally yielding, “I’ll probably come to you even if I’m not having issues.”

Mosa knew the most about Kenji’s business. He knew Kenji from the days when Charles was still watching him, and he knew Kenji now, while he was still in the orphanage.

“So uh,” Kenji trailed, casually dropping his shoulder so as to slide Mosa’s off of it. Hey, at least he hadn’t winced away—“Let’s do this... Sports Fest thing, yeah?”

At Mosa’s agreement, the teen would turn and start eagerly striding towards the stalls, the sights and scents and sounds of merriment dilating before them, and then swallowing them whole.

Languages from all over the world drew them into the fold—there were people laughing and shouting—a cry of jubilation at a carnival game—foods sizzling and scent unfurling on tendrils of smoke—children, parents, the elderly—a swathe of languages were being spoken amidst them all—

Kenji did his best to stay focused, but with the whirl of excitement around him it was difficult not to get a little starry-eyed. They were looking for the Sports Club’s tent first, though—that was the agreement.

Over the tops of other peoples’ heads, Kenji could barely see the hand-drawn wooden sign for the sports club. Because he was so short, though, it was impossible to make-out the activity.

“Over there!” Kenji called-out, pointing in the direction of the booth, before insisting, “Mosa, come on!”

He was eager, but so much so that he was going to ditch his chaperone. And that… had to count for something, honestly.

With such an immense crowd, though, it was difficult for someone as diminutive as Kenji to really navigate his way to the desired booth. Mosa’s vantage point was far better-suited for the task.

ft. mosa ganbaroshi

ooc notes:

THE TEEN HESITATED WHEN MOSA insisted that he wasn’t very interesting to hang around with. Oh. Well. That… wasn’t the point? Mosa was one of very few people that had showed a vested interest in the teen—he’d brought-up U.A. after their first happenstance meeting in the park, taken him home for dinner when reconnecting at the orphanage, brought him to tour the U.A. campus in the throes of a pretty hopeless time in Kenji’s life. Mosa seemed like the kind of person who cared about how Kenji was doing, the kind of person who’d be okay with the periodic casual visit. But… perhaps Kenji was wrong?

“I do like some manga?” Kenji offered, doing his best to put-on a hopeful tone.

The two broke into the crowd, and the redhead was nearly washed away by the much-taller festivalgoers. Perhaps it was reflexive, but in the chaos, Mosa made a grab for the young teen’s hand. Kenji stiffened marginally, but allowed himself to be led, surprised (and admittedly embarrassed) to be led-along in such a fashion, and so suddenly.

He’s used to having a little kid along with him, the teen reminded himself, doing his best to squelch-out the odd expression that was creeping across his face. Don’t hold it against him, Kenji continued thinking to himself.

They arrived to the Sports Club tent without issue. Once there, Kenji freed himself from Mosa’s hand, straining to see what the sport was. Regardless of the objective of the game, which Kenji didn’t admittedly recognize at a glance, the teen would proclaim, “Yeah, of course-! Looks fun!”

Mosa insisted that he wasn’t very athletic, which prompted a teasing protest from the teen, “Ah, come on! The point isn’t to be athletic! It’s to have fun!”

He wouldn’t persist if his chaperone continued to be unenthusiastic about joining—but Kenji didn’t want to be partaking in all the Festival had to offer while Mosa just sat by and watched. Where was the fun in that?

The redhead craned his neck to try and see the booth more clearly, standing on tiptoes.

Mosa casually sprung the question of Kenji’s living situation, mentioning the dorms as a distinct possibility.

“I aiming to move-in to the dorms, yeah,” Kenji confirmed, sinking back onto the flats of his feet. He pushed a hand up under his knit-cap, itching his head, “Commuting from the orphanage sounds like a pain—or if I get put in a home? Forget about it.”

There had been murmurs of moving him back into the foster system rather than the orphanage—it was more restrictive, and there were less little kids. Or something like that. Kenji straightened his hat, sighing with determination.

“Besides! It’s harder to ditch school if you live at school, right?”

In his defense, he’d been at an all-time low when he’d been ditching school, but Kenji wasn’t necessarily wrong. Finally, the unusual duo arrived at the booth, and they were greeted by a rather boisterous spokesperson who welcomed them on the behalf of the Sports Club.

“H-hey!” Kenji greeted, “I would like to try, uh… whatever… you have going-on here?”

ft. mosa ganbaroshi

ooc notes: