If You Go Down to the Woods Today... [Tsuji & Brandon]

“Gah, there’s a lot of trees here.”

Brandon wipes some sweat as he runs through a forested path. Kent recommended this area to jog through, and seeing that he had some free time, he took him up on that offer. Unfortunately, Kent wasn’t able to handle the intense workout and soon stayed behind, eating the food they brought along. Grumbling, Brandon jogged alone, finding himself immersed in the outdoors. The it was a bit underwhelming in Brandon’s eyes.

As he runs ahead, he glances over to the side. He’s seen some small animals there and there, but this one took the cake. A bird was appearing to be following him, so he had a sort of spectator to his training. Personally, Brandon didn’t mind it at first, but now it’s getting annoying. He didn’t mind people glaring at him jogging, but you can’t predict what a bird would do. They’re sort of like the wild cards of the wild and-

Brandon stopped in his tracks, and the bird flew on ahead. Leaning on a tree was...a bear. Brandon looked at it with a dazed look. The only times he has ever seen a bear up close was at the zoo. Did Kent knew about bears living up here. Well whatever, as long as he doesn’t disturb it, there shouldn’t be any trouble.

The bird returned to annoy Brandon. Trying to shoo the bird away, he managed to slap it only for it to hit the bear. “Oh no.”

Brandon stares dumbfounded at the talking bear. Why was there a talking bear? It doesn’t make sense, especially for someone simpleminded as Brandon. Staring with an intense glare, Brandon freezes up, determining the course of action to take.

Was it possible to attempt to converse with a talking bear? It knew how to speak Japanese, and it has a name, so clearly it has intelligence. The issue is whether or not it shared the same
morals as humans. Does it understand the morality that every being follows, that there are those who break it for their twisted means? Or does it follow Bear Morality (tm), the line of thinking that many bears follow and obey? These are important questions to ponder about

Also wouldn’t it like bite someone’s head off? Like, jeez, look at it, it’s big! On its 4 legs, it s barely near Brandon’s size. Now imagine him standing on 2 legs. That’s horrifying. He can walk up to the bear and he would pale in comparison to its height.

Brandon puts up his fists with a worried face. “I-I, Uh...stand back! I’m not afraid to, uh, fight back!” Brandon has fought many foes, but he has never fought against a bear. He has nothing to compare to, not even quirk users who can transform into a bear! “S-so, get back!”

"Haaah...haaah...alright let's not do anything hasty..."

Brandon moves away from the bear, who has now admitted to be a quirk user. Well, there goes the thing about bear morality. But now he's coming towards him, and the fear of life returns to Brandon immediately. He's way bigger than he imagined to be, and he can't read his expression well. His words suggest he's nice, but his face? He still looks like a bear. There's no changing that, and there's no way to remove the mental image of a roaring bear from Brandon's mind.

He calmly puts down his fists, and attempts to calm himself down. Get too angry or agitated and his quirk would activate, scaring the bear into doing something irrational and harming him. "Look I- I didn't mean to harm it but it kept surrounding me and try to pick my eye out! You understand, right?" Brandon nervously smiles at the bear. "Uh, hey! Maybe we can get this bird nursed up or something?" He attempts to divert any attempts at angering the bear, plus he felt a little bad for the bird even if it was its fault for bugging him. Nevertheless, Brandon remained on his toes. If the bear attempts any move, he can't hold himself back to retaliate in response. Brandon nervously smiles.

The bear extends his hand. Brandon begins to sweat nervously. There's no telling what could happen next. He could attempt to give him a handshake only for the bear to immediately tear off his arm. Or he could grab on to it and bite his head off clean. Or even worse, he could rip apart his tendons and ruin his arms forever. The sweat feels like its pouring out of his body, and slight steam begins to come out of his emerging vents.

"Ah-ahahhaha...sure man...u-um...it's um, Brandon. I-Its nice to meat-meet, i mean meet you, uh, Tsuji." He extends his hand for the handshake. What he experienced was a strong and nearly bone crushing handshake, but it wasn't bad either. It was between "pleasant" and "oh god please this hurts so much make it stop." Brandon has never shaken hands before with a bear, so this is an interesting first experience. It doesn't erase away the pain however.

The handshake lasted for what felt like an eternity, so Brandon was a bit relieved when they stopped. caressing his hand due to how sore it was, Brandon grabs his back and looks back at the bear. "You, um, lead the way I guess. I have to meet up with my friend though so if you don't mind I would like to at least let him know."

"You, uh, come here usually? Weird..." Brandon looks at him grabbing a jacket from the tree. So that was his, then. He didn't expect it to belong to him. "Is that jacket, like, stretchy or something?" Brandon quietly asks as he calms down, the steam slowly decreasing from his body. He then sighs and grabs for his phone, only to realize something. "Aw crap. I forgot the phone back at the pitstop. I'm going to have to tell him myself." Brandon looks at Tsuji with a slanted smile.

"Hey, um, do you wanna come with me to the car? I'm guessing its hard for you to get to one place to another without attracting some, uh, unwanted attention, especially for someone your size." He still didn't know how old this guy was. He sounded young, but at the same time he has met some people whose voices didn't match their appearances. "So, uh, you seem pretty big for your age." Brandon attempts to ease into the subject without agitating him. "Im guessing like you grew pretty big during your high school days. Thats what happened to my muscles" Brandon flaunts his arms, not realizing that he barely has any noticeable muscles on them. "Bet you were the talk of the class."

"UA? 15?" Brandon was shocked. To think he almost threw up hands with a 15 year old. To think he almost picked a fight with another student. "I know someone from UA! I train her from time to time, she's pretty good at fighting. Makes sense though, I AM helping her." He proclaims, almost bragging. He looks at Tsuji, still holding the bear in his paws. "Oh, right, yeah the bird. Yeah don't worry, we drove on a small car that was loaned from our boss, so we should get there in time. Though, can ya omit the part of me, ya know, smacking it?" He sheepishly requests, shoving his hands in his pockets in a "sorry i messed up" kind of mood.

Noticing a smile from him (or at least he thinks it's a smile. It's hard to tell with bears), Brandon returns one and shows him where Kent is. The vents on his skin have retracted, and his inner temperature has cooled down. For the moment, Brandon has successfully stopped himself from fighting with a bear, and also from fighting with another kid. For Brandon, this is a personal achievement. Maybe he can convince the be- kid to train under him. He wouldn't mind practicing with someone with a bear quirk, it sounds exciting.