That dream again
Little Suguru sat on his bed groggily, the night's lingering dream still weighing on his mind.
What does it mean? Who is that old man? Why does everything feel so high up in that dream?
"Hooooooaam~"
But then he remembered that he's a seven year old boy who'd rather go back to sleep than think back about a night's dream; going to school is THAT tiring enough already, and he just barely started it.
"Suguru! Breakfast's ready!"
But mama didn't raise a slacker.
..or she thinks she didn't, so off he goes now.
"Coming!"
The aroma coming from the kitchen was already making his empty stomach rumble in anticipation, the memory of last night's soba dinner heightened his hunger even more at the thought.
But first, a good shower to erase the calamity that is his bed hair is in order.
He really needs to ask his parents to cut it soon.
One short shower later.
"Did you finish your homework last night Suguru?" Ōshiro asked his son.
A flash of pride shine from his smile as he confidently answered his father.
"I finished it! And I still sleep before ten!"
What a truly gifted child he's blessed with, in fact Ōshiro was so confident with Suguru's work that he wanted to immediately see it for himself and praise any correct answer he saw.
And sometimes foreshadowing is relatively obvious.
"Can I see it?"
"-uhh.. hehe~"
And one quick read later.
"...Suguru 77+33 is 110, not 100"
"Heh?! That doesn't make sense!"
Such a gifted child indeed.
"Sigh.. I know buddy"
While math wasn't exactly his strongest subject, it is true that Wataru Suguru has always been intellectually and emotionally more developed than his peers, whether it'd be kindergarten then or elementary school now, he's always been able to quickly end up at the top of his class.
But Suguru had bigger fish to fry than parental expectations, like the big piece of katsu that's hovering just inches from his mouth taunting him to take a bite.
His will was no match and he gave in, with the added casualty of a big chunk of rice from his bowl.
"Mm~ mewish!"
The entire sequence of biting, chewing, and swallowing didn't even reach three seconds.
His father was always left flabbergasted by his sheer eating etiquette.
"Maybe your quirk IS super eating?"
"Papaa!"
Little Suguru had a simple opinion on that thought, super eating is not a cool quirk, unless you get some kind of power after eating it or something like his cousin does, but if not, it's not cool.
"Oh don't listen to papa, I'm sure your quirk is gonna be super cool" Chī, the sunshine that she is, pats Suguru's head comfortingly.
That's right, despite already reaching the age of seven, Suguru still hasn't awakened his quirk.
He still remembers clearly the first time he went to a quirk specialist doctor back then.
༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻
A few weeks after his fourth birthday, his parents took him to a quirk specialist doctor for a check up.
They conducted the standard tests for quirk assessment and assignment, physical examination, skeletal radiograph, and even inquired about his family's quirk development.
Ōshiro's quirk is called "Snake Jaw", it allows him to open his mouth up to 27 cm and swallow most things whole.
Classified as a Mutant-type because it caused his lower and upper jaw to not actually be directly connected to the skull, although it doesn't really shows making him look relatively normal when his jaw isn't stretched open, it is an almost direct inheritance from a persistent line of serpent-like quirks from his father's family line.
While Chī's quirk is called "Taste Hitchhiker ", classified as an Emitter-type quirk it allowed her to alter the chemical compounds of objects that entered her mouth changing their taste to some extent.
Strangely it has a weird side effect of making her unable to stand the taste of bitter in any way or capacity.
But even after all that and some other questioning, they still haven't managed to find any concrete guesses on what his quirk could possibly be.
That's when the idea of quirklessness got silently entertained in the parents' mind, but while adults may stay silent and try to find alternatives, compromises, or anything that would keep their child's dream of being a hero alive.
Suguru meanwhile had a whole other horrifying realisation.
"Waaa~ah! I don't wanna be a monkey!" Suguru has a weird habit of calling things or people he doesn't like monkey.
His parents are still working on that.
"A-ah it doesn't actually mean you're quirkless yet young Suguru! You see, people have these things called Quirk Factors, they're like uuh- things like your dad's jaw or your mom's tongue, these are things that allowed someone's quirk to operate, you probably also have it"
You normally can't expect much from a four year old already crying to listen to much, but Suguru, just hearing that possibility that he wasn't going to be quirkless is enough to turn that frown around.
"R-Really?"
And that's when the radiograph results come in from the lab, containing three slides of X-ray photographs.
The results look promising enough for him to stop crying entirely.
In one of the slides, it shows an X-ray of Suguru's foot.
"As you can see Suguru's pinky toe only has a singular joint, with the middle and distal phalanges being fused together now, see? This is a very common tell whether someone was born with a Quirk or not.
And not only that, we also found something interesting on his mouth, please take a look here"
And in another slide, a view of Suguru's lower jaw, specifically the part where lower jaw met the skull.
"Young Suguru seems to have inherited some of his father's Quirk Factor, his lower jaw, while shaped like normal, is connected to his skull via a quadrate bone the same way Mr Wataru's does"
The doctor began explaining the list of possible mutations, inheritance, and maybe a different type of quirk altogether because the chances are there.
And so they come home from the appointment not really empty handed, but not with what they wished for either.
༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻
Meanwhile at Makuhari Higashi Elementary School.
A small collective of kids had gathered around Suguru like birds around a feeder as he told his tale of discovering his mystery quirk, and his journey to the quirk specialist doctor.
"Ooh~ so that's what happened there" One of his classmates asks.
"Huh? You never go to the quirk doctor?"
"I have! But my parents said I slept through almost all of it because I overused my quirk that day"
"Heh? So lame!"
Break hour, the only moments of elementary school that're stuck to my memory.
A rough circle of young boys are eating their lunch together beside the school field, their chatter loud and changing in topic as they eat, talk, and laugh at the same time.
While in the middle of a topic, a stray idea came to the mind of a boy.
"Oh, do you guys want to go to a park this weekend?"
"Which one?"
"Seaside! Let's play there!"
"Isn't it a bit far?"
"Eh? But my parents said it's close? Only ten minutes with car"
"That's for you! My house is closer to the city than the sea"
"Same, but I do like the beach there, I want to go"
"What about you, Suguru?"
Suguru, who has been quiet since finishing telling his story was suddenly asked about for his opinion, thank you random extroverted kid that wants him to be included.
"Me? Well, I-"
A flash of memory suddenly came.
A beach, he was.. playing there? An unbuttoned shirt with flowers on it, watching, someone else was playing in the water.
A girl and.. a guy.
Am I.. at the beach? Who are those two?
"-guru. Suguru!"
A shaking vision, someone had finally broke him out of his stun by shaking his shoulder.
"Uh, sorry what is it?"
"Mou~! How did you spaced out? We're talking to you. We wanna go to the seaside park this weekend, are you joining?"
Seaside.. beach
Perhaps it was because of that, why Suguru felt an unnatural pull towards the idea.
"I'll go, I want to go to the beach!" He exclaimed.
"Yey!"
"See? Even Suguru joined in, let's go"
"Fine I'll ask my parents"
And so, the group of friends celebrated their upcoming trip to the park as their lunch hour continues on.
"What are you kids doing outside?! The bell rang ten minutes ago!"
Before his friends could even notice one of their teacher standing there Suguru was already running away the moment he saw a glimpse of her.
"It's Miss Haru, run!"
"Suguru wait for us!"
And so, their lunch hour ended 10 minutes ago.
༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻
Saturday, Makuhari Seaside Park, parking space.
Chī and Ōshiro is picking up their luggage from the car's garage.
"Don't forget to come back for lunch Suguru, we'll be at the park centre with other parents if you need anything, now go to your friends, don't make them wait too long" She reminds Suguru.
"I'll come back for lunch mama!"
And off he go running away now, passing by trees, ponds, chairs, and other structures as he does.
With the sea air rushing past filling his nose with its recognisable smell, his steps carrying him to the meeting place they've agreed on beforehand, a fountain surrounded by seats where six of his friends now wait.
"Ha, Suguru! Over here!" Wave one of them.
He went over unhurriedly, his energy seemingly unaffected by the running he just did as he quickly approaches the group in skips.
And the boys played their games in glee as the sun peeks around its cloudy cover, the never ending blue sky stretching so vast the boys thought it would go on forever.
But it didn't.
The beach water has already turned orange when they got there along with the rest of the evening sky.
"Is it okay to go sightseeing?"
"It was ■■■'s idea. I suppose it's his way of showing compassion to ■■"
More glimpse and voices, unfamiliar names, familiar sounds.
They were running away, hiding, buying time, from who? For who?
"Suguru!" A woman voice called out.
Someone is calling him, another memory?
He wasn't sure at the moment, everything felt hazy, he could barely feel the water going past his knee.
"Suguru?!" But then something suddenly enveloped his being, holding him in place as something like an explosion of water erupted in front of him.
"Mama?" It was, a hug? Mama is hugging him, but she doesn't look happy, worried?
"Are you okay?" But it wasn't his mom who asked.
Instead, it was Suguru himself, worrying about his mother before even she could do the same.
Chī looked at her son shocked just for a moment, she had run up to him when one of his friends suddenly came to her and said that he was crying while looking across the sea and walking towards it.
She ran as fast as her legs could take her, adrenaline fuelling her every frame as her imagination ran wild with worrying possibilities.
And the moment she found him, he was almost waist deep into the water, slowly stepping further away, and when she saw that wave racing towards him she lost all restraint.
The wave crashed on her back with great force trying to push her along but her hold on Suguru couldn't be shaken.
And when he ask her if SHE was okay, with tears still streaming down his little face she realised that while his tears were pouring, he wasn't crying, he looked more like confused than sad.
The tears stop the moment she brings him out of the water, and since that day his parents has been a little reluctant in going to beaches in general.
But if Suguru had to rate today's activity..
Today was so fun~!
Perhaps finally looking more at those memories gives him a sense of ease, or maybe it's just getting hugged and being extra pampered by his parents is.
But his dream that night has expanded somehow, showing him more than the usual glimpses.
He finally know where that beach is.
Okinawa.
༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻
"BWAHAHAHA SEA CUCUMBER!"
"GROSS! SO GROSS!"
Two figures standing on the shallow water, one tall and one short, laughing at a weird slimy creature that one of them holds in their hand.
He was.. watching not far away, someone else was standing beside him.
"Is it okay to go sightseeing...?" The figure beside him asked.
"It was ■■■'s idea. I suppose it's his way of showing compassion to ■■" He replied.
"But it's almost time. ■■■!! Let's get going!"
They're supposed to go somewhere, but he didn't know where yet.
"Oh, it's time already?" The tall figure asked.
"Suguru, how about we leave tomorrow morning instead? The weather is great."
And he agreed apparently, because the visions that he sees after that are all exciting adventures.
He's rowing a small boat on a river surrounded by a wall of roots.
He's eating noodles in a restaurant with a beautiful view of the sea.
He's visiting an ancient temple with funny lion statues.
He's walking beside a giant aquarium with fishes bigger than anything he ever seen.
Such a good dream.
Or maybe a memory? He didn't know.
[BEEP] [BEEP] click
That dream again.
Suguru blink his eyes awake, his hand still sitting on top of the alarm he just turned off.
What time is it?
He sat on his bed, still trying to rub the sleep off his face when he looked at his nightstand.
06:00
Seven hours until the Funabashi Aeon Mall incident.
༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻
Ahh~ classic cliffhanger
I always wanted to do that.
As you guessed it, next few chaps are gonna be some good old "character development"
See you again next chapter 👋