The Unfeasible Series

interlude: the visitor

A little less than a month had passed since Tsukauchi and Aizawa had met last. But the pro hero had finished reading the second book in the series: The Desire. This book focused more on the overpowering dream of becoming a person society accepts as well as on the child becoming deathly ill. And Aizawa agreed, the further he looked into the meaning behind the book, the darker it seemed to get. Surface level reading would never do the series justice, and yet, Aizawa found himself feeling as if he was reliving his own childhood through the eyes of a stranger--sure there were some minor differences between the two figures, but the emotions were ever symmetrical. 

It gave the man chills. Everything about this case was slowly weirding the adult out, and yet he found such feelings illogical, especially since the work was decreed realistic fiction. 

A bit too realistic of fiction. 

Aizawa was especially hooked when he  learning of the main character’s quirkless diagnosis. There had been a major buildup to the event, yet the breathtaking depiction of the child’s world crashing down was immaculate. 

The main character of the novel, who had yet to be named--in fact, none of the characters bore names, only key characteristics to differentiate between each other--had contracted a sickness. Over the course of the book, said sickness became increasingly worse. First, random bruises would develop, sometimes the child spoke of joint pain--yet it was all chalked up to growing pains or being too rough on the playground. Then it slowly advanced to chest pains and extremely sensitive skin. Then within a chapter, the child was seen getting worse in the middle of a random night, where he couldn’t breathe and was lethargic, unable to concentrate. Through the sickness, the child had been increasingly reliant on the idea of someone saving him, even though the thought remained illogical, even in the child’s viewpoint. And yet by the time the sickness took over, he was enamored with dreams of either being saved or becoming said savior. 

Towards the end of the book, the doctor finally finds a diagnosis for the child. A rare auto-immune disease only found linked with the chromosomes deciding quirk factors--meaning the disease was in direct correlation with quirklessness. 

The surprise and deep sadness of the mother and son had been what ended the second book. 

Aizawa shivered from his seat by the fire. His bones were cold, joints freezing as the winter season neared. But not only that, he had a feeling that something was about to happen--something big. He pulled a blanket from around the back of the couch and tucked his body under it, attempting to find more warmth than the fire was willing to give. A second thought of simply lighting himself aflame crossed his mind as a faster means to reach a decent temperature. 

It was a good thing that he didn’t have patrols today, or else he would be increasingly more worried about his bad gut feeling. At least this way, he would be killed in the comfort of his own home instead of on a random roof or in a random alleyway. A yawn forced its way through his jaw and mouth, eyes watering at the slight sting, he slumped into his seat further. Soon enough sleep overtook the exhausted hero. 

Unlike his usual light-sleeping tendencies, Aizawa was out like a light, brain so muddled that he passed out as is. His snores were matched by the sound of thick, frigid wind pushing against the walls of his home. The floorboards creaked as the ground shifted ever so slightly. The soft dripping of the tap left on--a habit Yamada had taught him to keep the pipes from bursting-- ricocheted off the walls. A soft scratching was heard from tree branches scraping against one another and raking across nearby buildings. 

The living room windows allowed for a brisk light to filter into the house, barely inches away from touching the recliner Aizawa was sleeping on. The hero was surrounded by darkness, facing parallel to the window as he lay comfily wrapped up. His soft breaths remained deep and unbothered, even as brisk footsteps approached his home. Darkness cascaded around the figure as he drew nearer. 

Dressed in black and wrapped up in a trenchcoat with a bright orange beanie and bulky red shoes, the figure took their thin fingers and rattled the door handle. It was locked. They looked up, inspecting the house around them, yet still somehow allowed the shadows of night time mold to their face, keeping their identity secret from any form of onlookers. 

A glint caught their eye, and swiftly the stranger whisked towards the glimmer. On the opposite side of the house, a window was seen. Wind blew stronger as if attempting to stop the trenchcoat-clad person from moving forward. They remained walking forward, eventually crossing the dark path and into the light cast from the neighbor's tall outdoor lamp. The inside curtains were open, draped in a fashion so as to let the midday light seep in, allowing a comforting amount of daylight to permeate the house. 

The blinds were broken in some areas, creating big holes to see into the house. The onlooker peered in through the blinds, taking note of the alight flame in the fireplace and the form of a knocked out man laying haphazardly on one of the chairs. A small smile flickered across the stranger's shadowed face. 

He brought up his gloved hand to the window, noticing how even then the warmth of his skin seeped out from underneath and warmed the window. Fog began to surround his handprint. He tapped his pointer finger on the glass a couple times before dropping his hand back to its place by his side. 

The light cascading into the house showed the onlooker’s form as he stood watching the sleeping hero’s chest rise and fall. And eventually, when the wind became too much, the stranger turned around and silently left the way he came, passing by the front door one final time.