The Otaku Inventor (One Punch Man fanfic)

Flashback Pt. 1

~? POV~

Tacchan and the others were holding me down again. He was the 'hero' and I was the 'monster'.

'Why does the hero always have to win?!'

"Hey," A girl's voice sounded and they stopped. "You shouldn't be doing that." Her voice sounded almost robotic.

"Doing what? We're just playing a game," Tacchan said.

"You're hurting him. And he's bleeding. If you don't stop, I will tell your teachers."

"Tch. Let's just go."

They let go of me and left, letting me get a look at the girl who stopped them. She had long red hair, deep green eyes, and wore shorts and a long-sleeved shirt, despite it being a hot summer.

~?? POV~

"Are you okay? Can you get up?" I asked with an outstretched hand.

"Uh, yeah..." The boy with grayish-white wolf-like hair and yellow eyes hesitantly grabbed my hand and I pulled him up gently.

"I'm glad you're okay." A ghost of a smile made its way onto my face. "We should go to the nurse's office though so we can clean those scratches."

"O-okay."

I started leading the way to the nurse's office with the wolf-like boy following. We got there not long after and the nurse wasn't there, so I grabbed the necessary stuff and sat down with him.

"By the way, my name's Isayo. What's yours?" I asked while cleaning his scratches.

"It's Garou..."

"Do they do that a lot?"

"Huh- Oh... Yeah... They always make me be the monster and they hold me down 'cause they say that the hero always wins..." He looked at the floor as I started bandaging his cuts.

"I don't understand why that's even a rule. Not all heroes are strong and not all monsters are weak. Honestly, why do people always tell kids that the hero will save the day when the monster already destroyed it? Monsters almost always have the upper hand in a battle, but the hero always wins. Even if they're really hurt. Monsters are a lot better because they're already there before the hero even hears about it."

He then looked up at me with wide eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"No-nothing! You're just the first one to not call me weird. You even think the same thing..." He fiddled with his newly bandaged fingers as he sheepishly looked down again.

"Do you want to be friends?" The question just flew out of my mouth before I could even think about it and he looked at me with wide eyes again. "I'm not very good with people, so I'm usually just by myself. It's okay if you don't want to though."

"I- I will!" He hastily nodded with a big smile.

It was my turn to go wide-eyed before I turned my attention back to his bandages. "And... bandaging process complete!" I clapped my hands together and had a very small satisfied smile.

"Thanks!" He had a big toothy grin now.

~~~~~~

The next day at school, I sat at my usual tree.

'Garou's class should be coming out here soon. I wonder if he'll actually come find me. ... It's better to not get my hopes up.'

Just as I was having my doubts, I saw Garou coming towards me.

"Hey, Isayo!" He said happily with a big wave.

"Oh, hey, Garou," I said in my usual manner as he sat down next to me.