Smoke And Mirrors (BNHA x Male OC)

24: Fix It

Taiya was the last to receive his instructions on the first day of real training. 

The teacher just looked him up and down and sighed. 

"Take this." He said, handing the boy a strange device. "Its a gps locator set to lead you towards the main building. You'll need it.". 

"Why do I need it, sir?" The boy asked, confused. 

"Because your task for this trip is to better connect with your animal form. You're free to do this in the main area with everyone else, but I thought I was being considerate giving you the chance to do this in the woods alone." Aizawa explained. 

Taiya nodded slowly, not quite processing the task set before him. 

"Come back for lunch, make sure you're wearing sunscreen and have enough water with you.". 

He just double checked that he had a full water bottle in his small bag and trudged off into the woods. 

In the end, he only walked for about 10 minutes, but by then he couldn't hear the explosions or commotion coming from the rest of his class, so he figured it was as good a spot at any. 

His animal form....right. 

Easier said than done. 

See, Enomoto Taiya was a big fan of a concept called 'repression'. He repressed things. He didn't like to think about them, didn't like to feel them. Conceal don't feel, as Elsa once said. 

So asking him to go out into the woods and...be alone with himself...not a great idea. 

Living a busy life he never really got to just sit alone with his thoughts. The thoughts hadn't even really started yet and he could already tell he didn't like them. 

'I wonder if the other cast members for this thing are doing something similar' He thought. Okay. Not a bad place to start. 'Would they make Naita Ryou teach classes? Maybe they made him go to teacher's college to actually get a teaching degree? Who knows.'.

'What about Kusumoto? The person playing my mom' He wondered, 'How would she prepare? A daycare? Babysitting? She seems nice on camera. Maybe she's like me though, she could be an asshole. Or a drug addict. Wait-I'm not a drug addict. Am I? God what if I am? There was that one period of like 3 months last year where I...but that doesn't make me a drug addict. Does it?'. 

 Groaning the boy shook his head and sat down on the forest floor, leaning his back against a tree. 

For most people, being lost in thought was a slow stream of consciousness. For Taiya, it was a chaotic dialogue more akin to that of a gossip magazine than a real human brain. 

'Am I even a real human though?' Taiya wondered. He stared down at his hands and watched as they seemed to glitch. That's what he called it when he morphed them in and out from normal humans to deformed claws. 

See, he knew he was human. He had the photos from the hospital to prove it. 

But he was also part of the rare percentile of people that develop their quirk at birth or within the first six months of life. So for as long as he could remember he had been a cat too. 

It made him feel strange. Hence why he sometimes thought he wasn't completely human. Some of his habits were definitely more snow-leopard like than human. His sleeping habits, the fact he'd wake up randomly at dawn with a burst of energy then tank around noon. At first he had wondered if there was something wrong with him, but after falling asleep under that tree and waking up with his ears and tail out, he realized exactly what the problem was. 

At the same time, there was one aspect of being part cat that he wanted more of. 

Snow leopards could eat one large prey animal and not have to eat for up to two weeks after. He had no such luck, at least in human form. He was a normal snow leopard in that form, so he probably could go two weeks without eating if he maintained that form. 

But how would he even live in that form for two weeks? Like, where would he pee? 

See, the thoughts are back again. 

He hadn't even accomplished anything yet. 

Something twitched in the bush and Taiya immediately shot up. 

Maybe that was where he should start. With instincts. 

And maybe catching that bird. 

Taiya extended his claws and dug them into a tree before realizing he was still in shoes. Quickly he took off his shoes and socks, leaving them at the bottom of the tree and extending his claws there too to give him a better grip. 

He didn't know which was worse. The 'cat boy' form as he had dubbed it in his mind, or the full leopard form. 

...

The catboy was worse. After the whole thing with the purple boy he was more embarrassed by the ears and tail on their own than the whole thing. 

While he brooded about it, the bird flew away. Huffing, Taiya dropped down to the ground, landing on the compacted dirt with a thud. 

There was a gnawing feeling in his stomach that he recognized easily as hunger. But he didn't want to go back to the main camp and get food. 

Maybe it would be better if he just...ate something out here? 

No, no, no. Eating raw, wild animals was bad. It was a no-no. He could never. 

The media would have a field day if they heard about this. 

But the media wasn't here. 

'Fuck it' He thought, trying to remember the last time he had fully transformed. It had been...years probably? Not since he got so stressed he nearly transformed involuntarily. 

Before he could back out of it he started taking off his clothes. Once he was naked in the woods he felt like the pressure to grow fur would increase exponentially.

And he was right, once he was in his underwear the teen decided, fuck it, and just let the sensation of using his quirk overcome him. Not before hiding his clothes, gps and shoes, of course. It would be weird if someone found those. 

Having four legs was interesting. A little hard to figure out at first, the first few steps were always pins and needles. 

But after a few steps the teen remembered why he missed it sometimes. Stalking around the forest floor, even if he wasn't really built for forests, was fucking amazing. 

Bright green eyes blinked through white eyelashes at their surroundings. Taiya only waited a moment to get adjusted before he took off into the woods. 

He could hear every sound, smell every scent. It was amazing and freeing. He never worried about his body in this form, or how pretty he was, because no one ever saw it. It didn't matter. 

Maybe he'd enjoy this after all. 

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Welcome to our first look at Taiya's leopard form. 

You're all probably thinking: That was a little anticlimactic and bland for something so hyped up. 

And you're right. 

You should be suspicious of that. Pro tip with my fics, when something seems boring, its usually way too important. Maybe I just spoiled part of the next chapter for myself, who knows. 

But the point is, Taiya's actually pretty chill about being in leopard form. He enjoys it. He just never wants to be in that form around other people because he's desperate to be seen as human. 

Really everything he does is in an effort to seem human. All the scandals, all the fighting, he just wants to be seen as normal, but the world wont give him that. Hence why his quirk was ignored by him and everyone around him for so long. 

Anyways stay tuned!