Spring Boy And Summer Girl
One of Shiketsu's gyms, 2 years ago.
Classes had ended for the day. The school still hadn't cleared them for internships.
So, after a few evacuation drills in LocaLoca's class, Kalianne was blowing off steam by exercising and listening to music.
"... anne"
"Hm?"
She took off one earbud—
"Kalianne."
And turned her head towards the blue-haired boy standing to her right.
"Oh, Yuusei," she greeted, turning off the treadmill and hopping off. "What's up?"
He tossed her a water bottle that she easily caught. "I just finished meeting some of our precious juniors at 1-D."
Yuusei was her vice rep last year. However, their class rep had been from abroad, so when her exchange program ended, Yuusei took the position. He took it upon himself to be more of a model student for their teachers and juniors, which he called his sense of responsibility, while she preferred 'masochist tendencies'.
"So that's why you look more tired than me," she realized, twisting off the cap. "First impressions?"
She took slow sips off the bottle, and he took a thinking pose, tapping his chin with a finger.
"They're... lively. There are fewer troublemakers than in our class, but I'd say they make up for quantity with quality. I did my best to advise them on Shiketsu's curveballs, but I don't think they understood most of it."
She bopped his arm with the empty bottle, bringing him out of his pondering.
"You can't expect a bunch of bright-eyed first-years to take all that in." Even if they were already a few weeks into their first semester. "I know I wouldn't."
He looked annoyed by the comparison. "You were nowhere as lax as you think you were one year ago."
She crossed her arms.
"Yuusei... If you were one year older than me, and I was in that class when you introduced yourself... do you think I would have paid attention to even half of what you said?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
No hesitation, huh.
"That's pretty biased of you! But I can't say I hate it..."
He took the bottle from her hand and offered her a towel, which she wiped her face with.
"Still... how many high-quality troublemakers are we talking about here? Should I start feeling bad for Rosethorn?"
"Three or four. And well... one of them took my quirk, so probably yes?"
Kalianne laughed, then stilled as his words settled in.
"Wait, what?"
"It's Quirk Tag. She got Chromatic Dragon, and I can touch her to get it back or swap quirks with someone else."
"... Yuusei, what the fuck? I'm pretty sure that's a crime she committed on you!" she shouted, grabbing his arms. "Shouldn't you get the faculty on this?"
He held her shoulders, trying to placate her. "I was half-joking. She did touch me without any warning, but I could have gotten it back if I wanted to. She didn't swipe me and run away or anything like that."
"Bad joke. Be better," Kalianne ordered, slapping his bicep.
"Anyway, I kept it because I had some ideas for it, and—"
"Aha!" she exclaimed, feeling a smug grin creep up her face. "Ideas, huh?! I see how it is~"
"I haven't even finished."
"Don't give me that. You came straight to me, huh?" she teased, pinching his cheek. "Look at you, all eager to have a fire quirk~!"
He looked away from her, cheeks reddening slightly. "If you don't want to, it's fine—"
"What? No, no, I wanna see it, too!" she assured, grabbing his shoulders. "You just gotta tag me for it."
"... What."
"It's Quirk Tag, right?" she asked rhetorically, stepping back to do some light stretches. "So you have to catch me. I won't even ask for a headstart!"
"Kalianne, why are you so..."
He muffled a sigh with his hand, giving up on what he was about to say. "Fine. When do we start?"
"Now!"
She patted his cheek playfully and dashed away—
Three steps in, she froze, feeling her arms were far lighter than a second ago.
"..."
Yuusei casually caught up to her. "Yeah. I was also surprised at how quick it is."
"But you didn't even tag me!"
"Touching my cheek was enough skin-to-skin contact."
Her face contorted in disgust.
"That...! That quirk name is such false advertisement..." she moaned, throwing her head back.
Yuusei examined his newfound flamethrower arms with a clinical eye. He aimed at a wall and... nothing.
Ah... how could she explain what came to her in instinct...?
"You use it by—"
He clasped his hands together and spread them out in a net of flames.
That... That was one of Endeavor's super moves. She knew because she spent hours practicing her own version.
"The hell?"
"Quirk Tag gives information on how the previous wielder used it," he explained, making a fire puppet to play with his fire strings. "I simply miscalculated the charge time earlier."
"... so... ripping off my super-moves, are we?" she challenged, one foot tapping on the ground.
For the sake of her agenda, Kalianne wouldn't tell him she'd ripped off someone else.
"Yes."
He punctuated that statement with a fire arrow launched at a wall.
"Get your own material!"
She wanted to see him flounder a bit. Was that too much to ask?
He paused, letting the fire fade away while he thought of something.
Then—
Chu~
He put a hand under his chin, blowing a kiss and emitting heart-shaped flames from his palm.
Kalianne fake-swooned, cackling all the way.
"I'm—hahaha...!"
Yuusei watched her break down in laughter again with a fond smile.
"Hah... I'm so telling everyone in class about this..." she finally got the words out, gasping for breath.
"No one will ever believe you," he told her, and the truth in that statement wiped the smile from her face.
"I'll get a telepath to broadcast these memories somehow," she swore, clenching a fist with determination.
Yuusei hummed. According to class 1-D, there was a girl in their class who could make Kalianne's quest a lot easier. Their class rep, Katsuragi. She wasn't there at the time he met them, but he trusted their judgment of her quirk.
"Good luck with that."
However, he didn't want to give his friend any ammo to work with, so he didn't mention her.
The two walked away from the exercise equipment, and Kalianne hopped on his back. He tried to shake her off, but it was clear his heart wasn't in it.
"Piggyback ride," she said, trying to wrap her legs around his torso.
"You're getting sweat all over my uniform..." he complained.
She clung to him harder. "I just ran a marathon! And someone took my quirk, so I can't fly! The least you can do is help me out."
"A marathon," he repeated, incredulous. Kalianne was glad he focused on that instead of pointing out that she challenged him to a game of tag right after said marathon.
"Well, half an hour at 40 kilometers per hour... so a half marathon—"
"I'm thankful I didn't have to play tag with you."
"Hehehe! I would've gone easy on you..."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, maybe I wouldn't," she admitted. "But I'd make it competitive! Keep myself juuust out of reach..."
"You're making it worse."
She kept snickering as they left Shiketsu's underground training facility. At this point, Yuusei had given up on throwing her off, his arms supporting her legs.
"We have to talk more about that super-move you did."
"Please don't call it that."
"I'm serious. If I were a villain, it would have defeated me instantly."
"You can put that to the test when internships start."
"Nah. If I did it, it wouldn't be as powerful. With you, it has that... what do they call it?"
She snapped her fingers repeatedly, trying to summon the term before pointing at his face.
"Gap moe!"
He rolled his eyes, not believing her.
"... You're wrong," he said, glancing at her from the corner of his vision. "This sort of thing suits you better."
Kalianne hummed, considering it...
She poked his cheek. "Only one way to find out. Gimme my quirk."
"Only the original owner can reverse the tag. You have to take it back."
"Ah... okay..."
She grabbed his face and focused on claiming what belonged to her.
A familiar weight returned inside her arms, and she reached away from him, weaving a stream of flames with her left hand.
She grinned bashfully. "Is it weird that I feel so relieved? We didn't even switch that long."
"... No. They're Individualities, after all."
She shrugged, letting the flames fade away. "I'll take your word for it."
Nearing the main school building, Kalianne tapped his shoulder. "It's time."
He rolled his eyes at the dramatic statement but crouched all the same, letting her climb off.
She rolled her neck and hopped twice, preparing herself—
"Really?" Yuusei asked, but she ignored him. She needed maximum concentration to surpass him.
Kalianne made a show of it, twirling around and posing with one foot off the ground before—
Chu~
Blowing a fiery kiss.
Click.
"H-Hey!"
Unlike her, he had his phone ready for it.
"It really does look better on you. See?" He showed the picture to her. "You made it your own."
"Gimme that!" she demanded, swiping his phone.
"Huh... it actually looks nice," she praised seconds before deleting it. Yuusei looked almost mournfully at the screen as she returned it.
"Don't give me that pouty look. I didn't get a pic, so you don't get one either. Unless...?"
"I'm not doing it again," he cut off her idea.
"Well, I am, so you don't have to mope. This is the stuff fanbases are made of."
"Do you really want those kinds of fans...? Think about what happened with LocaLoca-sensei last year."
Kalianne recalled the incident with the stalker in the teacher's lounge.
"... good point," she conceded, wincing. "By the way... how are you gonna deal with hero training for the next days? Swap with a classmate and hope for the best?"
"Not quite. I have more quirks I want to try out. Their owners won't mind, either."
"Hoh? Go on, I'm curious."
"You'll find out in due time."
[Spring Boy And Summer Girl]
On the second day of Quirk Tag, Yuusei came into class with blue scales covering his arms, a tail swaying behind him, and a pair of horns. However, they weren't the thick, curved ones from his quirk. These were more like antlers.
The eastern depiction of a dragon mixed with a human form.
His mother's power. Or grandfather's. Kalianne would ask him later.
"So you went from one dragon quirk to another?" she said, walking up to him as he took his seat. "That's lame... no offense to your family," she added.
"None taken. You're right that it's a boring choice, but I wanted to experience the differences between draconic mutation and transformation."
She bent over his desk, hands under her chin. "And what's the verdict?"
"It's rather pleasant. The power I had to carefully calculate when and where to summon is now a constant in every inch of my body. Although..."
He flicked a finger, and his claw extended.
"Compared to my fully transformed self, it's definitely a downgrade in raw strength. Also, I never thought I'd say this... but I miss the size changes."
The classmate sitting behind him snorted.
"Growing up, I found them cumbersome, but now, I'm too accustomed to being able to change my height and reach at will."
"What about your wings?"
"They had an undeniable allure, but floating without them is more convenient. A lot smoother, too... yes, I'd say this form trades firepower for mobility."
"Hmmm...."
She leaned back, looking him up and down for a second time, then walking around his desk for more angles.
"I think I'm gonna miss the size changes too," she mused, stopping behind him to measure the width of his shoulders. "For flying. It'll take some time to adjust when I'm riding—"
"Could you two not do this so early?" their homeroom teacher begged as he entered the classroom. "Morning."
"G-Good morning, Skycarver-sensei! We're talking about our combo moves!"
"Uh-huh."
[Spring Boy And Summer Girl]
On the third day of Quirk Tag, Kalianne beelined for Yuusei as soon as she entered the classroom.
He no longer looked like a dragon, but that was expected. His mother had asked for her quirk back during yesterday's lunch break. In her words, she had missed it more than she'd anticipated.
"What you got today?"
"My father's quirk."
"Which is...?"
He raised two fingers and frowned in concentration.
Bzzt...
Tiny sparks rapidly flickered around his digits, struggling to stay alive.
"... A bit weak, isn't it?"
Then again, it made sense. Unlike his mother, who dropped out of hero school, his father never had to push his quirk's limits.
"How are you gonna handle yourself during battle training?"
"It gets stronger depending on my cardiac cycle. So I won't have to worry..."
He trailed off, noticing the smirk on her face.
"So I just need to get your heart racing to make it stronger?"
"You can try. You might get tased, though," he warned. "Father told me it was a real problem for him during puberty."
"Ah, but you have his accumulated experience," she pointed out. "Besides, I don't mind if it makes my spine tingle a bit—"
"It all goes in one ear and out in the other with you two, huh?" Skycarver mused, lumbering to his desk like a soldier leaving a warzone. "Morning."
"Sensei! It was about our quirks again!"
"Fool me once..."
[Spring Boy And Summer Girl]
On the fifth day of Quirk Tag, Kalianne came up to him in the club room reserved for class rep meetings.
"Yuusei."
He looked up from the stack of papers on his desk, tilting his head and waiting for her to continue.
"Hm...?"
"Should I be worried that you don't seem to miss your quirk at all?"
Everyone he tagged had asked for theirs after a few minutes or hours. Yet here he was, showing no signs of wanting to do the same.
"Is that how you see it? For me, it's only a matter of time until Umai gets bored of it and reverses everything. So I'm making the most of it."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about!" she accused, pointing at him. "You're basically saying your quirk is boring."
"It isn't. But think about how many quirks she must have used throughout her life. I'm not egotistical enough to think a simple transformation-type will hold her attention for long."
"Ah... that makes some sense... but we're talking about how you—"
"It's also May..." he muttered to himself, so faint she almost didn't hear it.
"What happens in May?"
He blinked, frowning at her as if saying, you heard that?
"Nothing," he voiced, and she rolled her eyes. "I'm not unhappy with my quirk, Kalianne. I simply wanted to know how much it meant to me."
He looked out the window. "There was a real worry in my family on whether I'd inherit my father's quirk instead of my mother's. Cases of arranged marriages within the branch families constantly pop up as they try to maintain the dragon's power. Our elders were even worried about Orochi because her quirk was an anomaly... it was all so bizarre to me. But I couldn't exactly judge them for it because I was born blessed."
He sighed, smiling self-consciously. "That's why I entered this game of tag. After experimenting with your and my parent's powers, I wanted to see if I would still be Yuusei Atsushi without a dragon quirk."
"Of course, you're still you, dummy," she insisted, clasping his hand with both of hers. "No need to get all philosophical."
He hummed in agreement, turning his eyes back to her. "Mostly, yeah."
"Mostly?" she repeated, baffled. "How did you change at all?"
"I'm less... hungry? Greedy...?"
He winced, shaking his head. "Never mind, you're right. I'm being nonsensical."
"I figured," she deadpanned. "Honestly, all this class rep paperwork is starting to mess with your head..."
"Haha... you may be right about that too—"
He cut himself off, blinking in surprise and looking down at his hand between hers.
"Hm."
He pulled his arm away, and the limb suddenly grew in size, straining his uniform's sleeve.
"See?" he said, examining his claw with a small smile. "You had no reason to worry."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she waved him off. "Now, what was that about May—"
"Yuusei-senpai~!" a girl with orange hair interrupted with a sing-song voice, taking one step inside the room. "I left you a gift—Ah. You already saw it."
"Umai," he greeted, turning off his quirk. "Had your fun?"
"Yeah! And thanks for being such a good sport about it. Mio kept badgering me about what you'd do to me after you left our classroom, but I knew you were chill," she claimed, giving him a thumbs up.
His smile widened slightly. "Rosethorn did ask me if you were causing trouble, but I assured her it was all consen—"
"Get back here, Umai!" a voice shouted down the hall.
The blue-haired boy huffed in amusement. "I see. You triggered the reversal after spotting something more interesting."
"You know me so well already, senpai... but that's my cue to leave. If you ever wanna play Quirk Tag again, you have my number~!"
With a wink and a peace sign thrown at him, Umai made a tactical retreat. "Bye, Yuusei-senpai, Ponytail-senpai!"
"Ponytail-senpai...?" Kalianne echoed, scowling.
"You never introduced yourself," Yuusei pointed out.
"Because she ignored me until the last second? Also, you never told me you two were this chummy. What's up with that?"
"Didn't you hear her? Apparently, I'm a chill senpai."
Kalianne groaned, and he patted her shoulder.
"There, there. It's still early in the year. You'll get your chance to show off to our juniors."
"This is so not about that..."