Worthless Necessity [HitoZuku]

Chapter 113 - You change it up

Midoriya yawned, and stretched, before he slipped on his shoes. He had already gotten permission from Nezu to leave the school, and he wanted to get back as soon as possible to work on other things. He had also left Reiko and Ryuto in his room; they were both still sleeping, and Midoriya didn't want to wake them up.

He only had another free day before the start of the hectic work studies, and he wanted to finish up as many of the gifts as possible. He had already finished the sketches for Thirteen, Snipe, Ectoplasm, Aizawa, and Yamada, and he was almost done with Inui and Kan's sketches; he left Yagi's for last, simply because he liked the other teachers better than Yagi, and because the hero was just ridiculously hard to sketch.

Midoriya made his way out of the dorms, and jogged out of UA, in the direction of the hardware store that was around fifteen minutes away from UA. The previous night, Midoriya had looked up the cage that Yaoyorozu had mentioned was beside the hardware store, and found an old-looking house that was wedged right between a large apartment building and the hardware store.

The cafe opened at seven in the morning, and Midoriya wanted to go check it out before it got too crowded; it didn't seem to stand out at all, but if it really was a cafe, there were bound to be a few regulars for it to still be in business.

Midoriya checked the road to ensure that there weren't any cars, before crossing it, and found himself right in front of the cafe that Yaoyorozu had mentioned. Hesitating slightly, Midoriya gently pushed the door open, the door creaking ever so slightly.

Looking around the inside of the brightly cafe, Midoriya noticed that there was an old man, looking to be about seventy years old, humming to himself as he boiled some water, and carefully made his way to the counter, making sure that he didn't bump into any of the tables and chairs. He accidentally stepped on a particularly squeak wooden plank, and the sound reverberated through the quiet cafe.

The old owner looked up, noticing Midoriya standing there awkwardly, having no idea what to do, and beckoned him towards the counter, smiling, "Ah... good morning, boy... it's rare to see teenagers here at this time, especially one as young as you. Even my regular patrons don't come around for another half an hour."

Midoriya wasn't too sure if the man knew sign language, and he hated to speak to people he didn't know. He did want to get back to the safety of the dorms as fast as possible, and he nodded in acknowledgment.

"Ah, a shy one, I see. No worries." The owner laughed amicably, "Are you looking for something in particular?"

Midoriya pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and scribbled on it in large, neat kanji, before handing the paper to the owner of the cafe. The owner gently took the paper from Midoriya's hands, and read it out, "Tea leaves for Golden Tips Imperial, huh? You seem more like a coffee person than a tea person."

Midoriya scribbled down another answer, and passed the paper back to the old owner.

"Christmas present, I see. Well... I do sell Golden Tips Imperial tea here, but I usually don't sell the tea leaves themselves."

Midoriya sighed internally. Well, he tried, maybe he should ask where the owner bought the tea leaves -

"Don't be dejected; I did say usually." The owner smiled at him, "We quirkless folks got to stick together, am I right?"

Midoriya's head snapped up, and he blinked at the old man in confusion.

"You're Midoriya Izuku, right? The famous quirkless kid that got into UA, and even managed to transfer into the hero course. Your name is all over the news for all sorts of exploits." The owner smiled kindly at the boy, "It's a great change compared to all the news we used to get involved us quirkless people; you have all poor quirkless children being abandoned, or abused, or committing suicide - it's really sad, you see. Back in my day, being quirkless wasn't as uncommon as it was now... so there are a lot of us that live to an old age, but in your generation... well... I'm sure you know better than me."