Fun runs and other stories to not tell your teacher [Kanna]

Well, this was undignified.

Empty and broken beer bottles, ripped up candy bar wrappers, and general filth were all across the area around the American’s feet. Up close, the boy was pleased to see that the bastard had a thin layer of blood all over his face due to the elbow that he had gotten in earlier. Alex sure as hell didn’t win the fight, but at least it was arguable who looked worse off from the conflict itself at this point, and that was enough for him. This would make one hell of a story once he got the hell out of dodge and back to the school, it was the type of roughshod shit that you saw in movies or something. God, he was cool sometimes.

This entire thing was pretty avoidable, really. He should have just turned back around the damned corner when he was a scruffy looking little shit looking to start something with a foreigner. He should have just avoided and ignored the abuse, but for better or worse Alex wasn’t one to back down from most challenges. He was already lost and frustrated, so he just snapped with the provocation and started hitting the dude after the first shove. How was he supposed to know that the scrawny fuck had friends right nearby – especially a giant dude who could absorb materials or someshit?

Perhaps a pre-emptive strike was not the wisest course of action when faced with two backup buddies, but what the hell else was he supposed to do? They were very clearly going to attack, so he just threw the first one. It was all justifiable, and when big dude started using his quirk and the first guy picked up a bat Alex ran the hell away. He wasn’t looking to be involved in a goddamn murder scene, especially not as the victim. Throwing obstacles in the way made the other two fuck off, but the big guy was still very angry about the gash on his forehead and the blood in his mouth.

Back to the present, though, the big dude singled out a cute blonde girl that in any other situation Alex would no doubt be ogling. Dude looked like a wreck with the blood all over his face, but the girl was ice cold in a way that honestly even creeped the American out. The blonde girl covered for him not once, but twice and soon the goon was off to the races and running out of the alley and back into the street to try and catch his nonexistent prey that he believed was only a few feet above him. Tough luck for the big bruiser.

The American counted in his head to five before dropping the cloak and snaking over towards the corner between the alley and the street to take a peek over to make sure the big fucker wasn’t coming back anytime soon. He didn’t bother to even try to hide his presence from the girl or any of the partygoers, because that was wasted effort at this point and his legs ached like nobody’s business. He had power, sure, but he didn’t have the stamina of a goddamned marathon runner or anything. He wiped the bloodstained drool off his mouth and jaw with the back of his good left hand as he visually confirmed the big guy sprinting down the street as fast as his tree trunks for legs would take him.

Good. That meant he was safe, for the moment. That eliminated his first problem of being pursued by an extremely large and angry man. With any luck, the police would pick up such an obviously bloody and violent man before he rounded back – or at the very least, he would be long gone. The second problem, though, was still an issue. The problem, of course, being the fact that he was hopelessly lost and had no idea where he was. It was odd, really, because his phone never used to die that quickly before. It used to be able to last the entire day no sweat, but today he barely even used the damn thing and it seemed to eat through its power at a rate that he only used to get when he watched a bunch of videos on the damn thing. It was infuriating, and something he couldn’t really plan in advance against.

Well, the blonde helped him once, so why not twice? He turned back and revealed his front more fully, and quite frankly despite how bad the other guy looked it wasn’t like the American was much better. His jeans were tattered and dirtied past the point of being considered disgusting, and the blood oozing from his mouth and having to be wiped away every so often was still very much present. The back of his right hand was covered in now dried blood as well, with the back of his left covered in a partially dried mixture of saliva and blood from his mouth.

His walk towards the girl, however, was one of complete and utter confidence. The incident had done absolutely nothing to shatter the American’s extremely high opinion of himself, it seemed. In his mind, he had won that encounter on three to one odds like a goddamned champion and had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. There was absolutely no flicker of recognition in the boy’s red gaze as it locked with the blonde’s green eyes and he started to talk in a tone more suited for discussing last week’s football game than one suited for thanking your savior from being pummeled to death.

”Thanks for the save there, darlin’. Any way you could point me in the way of the nearest train station? My phone died and I’m dead lost, I’m afraid. Kinda embarrassing, really.” he said, and as he talked his eyes noticeably shifted to surveying the crowd behind the girl and the doorway that she had come from. His adrenalin rush might be dying down, but he wasn’t treating this like a picnic and was still scanning for threats and even toned down his usual flirting on account of the fact he looked like he had just arisen as a zombie from a gutter or something and probably smelled like it too on account of all the sweat that almost went through his clothes at this point. Nothing a shower and a change of clothes couldn’t fix, obviously, but he didn’t exactly have those tools on hand at the moment and wasn’t going to sprint back to Tokyo to talk to some random girl again afterwards no matter how cute she was. That was too much effort, even for him.

The American’s face froze for just a second when he was called by his name. He wouldn’t have walked up if he knew the girl actually knew him, fuck. This was weird, because if she knew him then he should know her… right? Alex didn’t exactly have the best memory in the world, but he considered himself somewhat of an encyclopedia for certain things that he cared to remember. One of the things that he cared quite a bit to remember was a mental catalogue of every attractive woman at U.A., so it was really weird that he didn’t remember this girl. He knew he probably had never talked to her before, but that didn’t stop him from remembering people like Akane that he had also never had a conversation with. It wasn't like he didn't want to, it was just that he never had the opportunity what with her sitting across the room basically from him and being so damn aloof and cold all the time. It wasn't his fault, really, and he would totally get the courage to talk to her at the next full class event!

He was thinking to hard to register the words that were coming out of the girl’s mouth until she called him out for not knowing who she was. ”Of course I know who you are,” he retorted, but without the bite of someone who was actually insulted or telling the truth. Blonde girl, green eyes, slender… Come on, Alex! If cute girls were a subject in school, that was the one area he would get an A in! Where was she from? Looking like she did, there was no way he didn’t gawk at her before. But when? That was an important distinction, and one that he needed to find out. He had a thing for blondes, so it was impossible that he shouldn't know at least what class she was in. Like 1-A had that Jasmine girl who was basically a marble statue and the other blondes in that class were...

”You’re 1-A.” he said suddenly with complete certainty. ”I don’t think we’ve ever talked before, so I don’t know your name, but you’re 1-A.” he continued, notably without the feeling of accomplishment or smugness that would have normally accompanied such a statement. He was too tired and too embarrassed that a fellow classmate was able to see and thus probably tattle on his unique little adventure tonight. It wasn’t a sure thing, but Class 1-A at U.A. definitely had a certain complexion and reputation, and that reputation wasn’t exactly always sterling. Especially not after the shit storm that occurred over that music night that Rin planned to get more attention from the rest of class. Disgusting, really, inviting the public for an event only made to showcase that the girl had no idea how to let people down except extremely meanly and in public. It was almost psychotic, really, that anyone would do anything like that on purpose. For better or for worse, that extreme propensity for sadism was really the general view of the class due to the actions of a few. Sad.

When the girl offered to let him use her phone, Alex dipped his head slightly in thanks. Such gestures were out of character for the boy, but then again he didn’t often find himself in situations where he was forced so far out of his element and essentially helpless. Left to his own devices, he would wander around Tokyo for at least the rest of the night if not for more than that – relegated to trying to find a public restroom every so often and trying to convince store owners to let him use the damn thing even when covered in absolute filth. Being spared from that fate was enough to let him give at least a small concession in body language to communicate thanks.

”I would appreciate that very much, thank you.” he said, in a tone of genuine thanks that was also very much unlike him. ”Who do I have to thank for such boundless generosity?” he continued, his flippant tone from earlier replaced with one of careful neutrality. He had every motivation in the world to seem as thankful and noncontroversial as he possibly could be at the moment – and he certainly was thankful! But it also served his best interest to be as… well, not himself as possible for the moment until he was the hell out of Tokyo and back to the safe haven of campus. Where he could get a nice shower and change of clothes and where he could try and pretend this night just didn't happen and get away from these filthy side alleys once and for all. He was a city boy, sure, but not this part of the city.

When the girl mentioned the possibility of the thug coming back all pissed, the mask of civility slipped off for just a second out of pure force of habit. ”Of course he’s not gonna be happy,” the delinquent all but scoffed, posturing. ”You see the blood running down his face? I’d be mad too.” It was almost instinctive, the need to preen and make himself look better despite the fact that he had been the one running away. A way to save face, a way to avoid embarrassment. It was a reaction like clockwork, and immensely predictable to anyone who had been around teenage boys with the almost all-encompassing need to puff out their chests to look better in every way than they actually were. It wasn’t running away, it was a tactical retreat that showed his smarts and thinking under pressure. He may be filthy and bleeding from his mouth in a disgusting saliva foam almost, but the other guy was hurt more visibly because of all the blood so obviously Alex had won the fight! For every perceived failure, there was a real or imagined counterbalance that somehow negated it entirely. Primitive, sure, but oh so very real to protect the most fragile construct in all of the world – male ego.

Well, the girl certainly wasn’t winning any awards for her winning personality or any popularity contests by treating people like that. In this situation and in this time, though, the delinquent saw her bluntness and lack of time wasting to be very valuable and very appreciated. He briefly wondered what the hell the girl’s upbringing was to be so blasé about the entire situation, but quickly decided that it wasn’t relevant at this time and he would ask after he was back on campus and not before. Whatever the case may be, whether she was a delinquent or she just had something mentally wrong with her didn’t matter at this point. She was helping him, and going out of her way to help him and he was not going to piss her off or make her regret doing that by asking stupid questions. If she wanted to move things along briskly, that was fine with him and probably the smartest course of action anyway given that there was a roaming brute who wanted to maim or kill the American somewhere very close by.

The posturing stopped when Kanna brought up, correctly, that if they stood around waiting there bad things were going to happen. It would be stupid of them sit there and assuage the delinquent’s ego at the risk of the safety of both themselves and the others in the area, and for all of his bluster Alex was willing to follow directions when he perceived those directions to be correct. He didn’t say anything, but he followed the directions that were given to him to the best of his ability. This entire night was still like a blur to him, honestly, and almost seemed like a dream more than anything else. The exertion of the running was finally starting to get to him, and a wave of exhaustion soon settled over the delinquent as the rush of adrenalin wore off completely. He had been running far beyond his limits for a very long time running purely on that adrenalin, and while he could still force himself to walk it was definitely less than his normal speed of doing so due to the strain and exhaustion wave.

Getting through a crowd was not one of the skills that the American had acquired over the years, mostly because he could count the number of times on his hand he was ever in the middle of a crowd like this. He struggled to make it through the crowd, because every movement seemed to be countered by the mass of people that seemed to just overpower his attempt to push back unless he literally tried to knock people over, which he simply wasn’t willing to do. The girl, Kanna, ended up grabbing him by the wrist and basically forcing her way through somehow through the crowd without being knocked over. It didn’t make sense, really, because she didn’t seem to be stronger than him and he definitely weighed more than her. Was there some sort of trick to being able to magically walk through crowds like this or something? They sure as hell didn’t move over for him, but it seemed like they did for Kanna. Was this just one of those things that just happened if you were a pretty girl or something? How could they even tell in a crowd this big, like really?

She asked him how he got into this fuckery, and since she had just likely saved his ass he felt the need to respond at least with a little bit of information. ”Foreign delinquent gets lost and wanders into wrong neighborhood. Group of local delinquents come out to harass the foreigner. Foreigner takes fight, but one of the local delinquents is a physically enhanced quirker. Foreigner runs across half of the damn city. That about sums it up.” he explained bluntly and plainly, not wanting to waste time on it any more than he absolutely needed to. It certainly wasn’t a point of pride for him, that was for sure. In his mind, the sooner he got out of this city and back onto the campus of U.A. High the better it would be for him. He decided to be adventurous today and forgot he didn’t have the greatest sense of direction. That combined with his innate stubbornness led to some poor decisions, and a series of those poor decisions led him here. Walking through the streets of Tokyo absolutely covered in filth. With everyone staring at him like he was an alien or something. Look at that, a white man covered in filth like a homeless person. He could imagine the insults that they were thinking but wouldn’t say because it would draw the attention of the hobo on the street, but for once he didn’t care.

Any other time, that would have bothered the delinquent quite a bit. Any other time, he might have felt embarrassed about something like this… but now he was still on the lookout for big and angry. If that dude came here and busted through, people could actually die and Alex would be forced to actually use his quirk for the first time of the night. That wasn’t a great thing, especially because quirk use was illegal and would probably get him expelled if he used it to combat a small time criminal that he himself provoked and admitted to provoking to another U.A. student… just now, actually, like a total dumbass.

Fuck.

Red eyes were peeled for any sudden movements or large and violent individuals, and his gaze in contrast to the blonde was focused on street level. He didn’t believe the man had enough agility to get to the rooftop, so he scanned the alleyways instead for any threat. Luckily for them, the big brute had a complete lack of stealth capability, so they would almost certainly hear him thundering down the road before they saw him. It was unimaginable to Alex that a guy like that would suddenly learn how to be crafty and silent, so he took that as a given. It looked like something was finally going to go right tonight and they would get to the train station without being fucked with anymore. Good news, for once.