Zero - A Vigilante Deku Story

Chapter 5 - Catch me if you can.

A little explanation about the chapter: Zero suffers from selective mutism. This means that under certain circumstances he doesn't speak or only speaks a little. He therefore often uses sign language when he is stressed. This is then written in italics.

If I state something incorrect about sign language or the deaf community in general (Zero is not deaf, but well ... ), please let me know, so I can correct it. I don't want to offend. I just think sign language is really interesting and I'm still trying to find the time to learn at least a bit of it.

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POV Zero

The last few nights had been a little quieter. A fact which Zero was grateful for. Only once had he had an encounter with Hawks and Eraser, which he was able to escape quite quickly. It felt good to be able to do his work unhindered.

Maybe Zero really couldn't avoid being caught one day, but if he had his way, it would be a while before that happened.

He sat in his favorite café and worked on his laptop for his online course. He was a few modules ahead of the current course target and wanted to complete a few more today. This way, Zero had a buffer should he not be able to attend his online high school for a few days for whatever reason.

Sometimes he would get injured or one of his pursuers would get too close, in which case he would stay in his lair for a few days and only fly out at night.

Lost in thought, Zero wrote his essay. He skillfully blocked out the voices of the other guests. It was easy for him, even though it was busier than usual today. No wonder, for years he had done his best to block out the tantrums of a petulant manchild. So he was practically in training.

The little bell above the door rang as a new guest entered the café. Zero raised his head briefly to make sure there was no danger from the newcomer.

Eraserhead entered. He let his eyes wander around the room and lingered on him for a split second too long before turning to the counter. Immediately, Zero's paranoia set in. Why had the underground hero been looking at him? Had he found out who he was? But how? Zero hadn't revealed anything - at least not that he knew of.

The hero ordered an extra-large coffee and waited for his order at the counter. This reassured Zero a little. It meant he would be leaving in a moment and not sitting down.

...

Or not ...

Eraserhead took his cup and turned to the dining room. Again his eyes wandered around. Again, Zero had the feeling that he was watching him.

The young vigilante pretended to be completely absorbed in his essay and stared stubbornly at the screen of his laptop. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eraser approaching. His regular table was occupied. There were no other free tables here in the corner.

"Hello." The voice sounded a little raspy and definitely overtired.

Zero looked up and waved briefly.

"It's pretty full today. Mind if I sit down?"

The teenager swallowed his nervousness and shook his head. Then he moved aside a little to make room for the underground hero.

"You and I are here so often, but we've never said a word to each other. It's a bit strange, isn't it?" Eraser was unusually talkative.

Zero merely shrugged his shoulders.

The underground hero glanced at his screen. "Am I disturbing you? You're always sitting here with your laptop."

His pulse shot up. He wasn't even doing anything illegal right now. He wasn't doing something like this on his laptop anyway. Besides his courses, Zero only used it as a database in which he entered all the information which was useful to him as a vigilante. In the past, he had only used notebooks for this, but they had become too many at some point and it was too complicated to take them all with him when he moved house. Nowadays, he only ever had one with him, which he used to make notes in while he was on the move so that he could later enter them in the corresponding part of his database. When it was full and all the data had been transferred, he destroyed it. He didn't want his analyses and discoveries to fall into the wrong hands.