"I-Is t-this a d-date?"
Simple questions required simple answers. But for this time, Felix thought a little bit about the answer he would give to Kaoruko. A date, huh? Despite the constant rain that fell on their umbrella as they headed to a mall, in the eyes of the passers-by, the two of them look like a couple.
"Mmh… No matter how you look at it, yeah, it's most likely some kind of date." Felix replied by looking at Kaoruko as she walked down the street close to him to take shelter under the umbrella. "If I'm not mistaken, you should be glad, right?"
"Well… I accepted your offer, but..."
"You were the one who acted all excited back then, and now you seem to freak out. What's the matter?"
"That's because all these people look at us…"
"Pardon…?" inquired Felix with a dumbfounded face. "Nope, you're not shy. I don't believe in that at all. Just as a reminder, your heroine costume is like, two or three pieces of fabric attached to each other that let half of your breasts appear to the sight of everyone, and same for your hips."
"This is work… I need my skin to create bubbles. And small and little-known heroines with a lame quirk like me need to use their feminine assets to attract attention. That's the only thing I can show to gain a little more money and don't end up in my parent's house again..."
"Lame quirk? Your quirk is way better than you can imagine."
Their last sentences sent them both into a phase of thinking and reflection as they entered the mall... "Use their feminine assets to attract some attention," just like this new heroine, Mt. Lady. Out of trust, Felix showed the letter to Kaoruko to find a solution together. That was also part of why she was with him even after breakfast and lunch. They weren't sure of what she planned to do on Monday with him, but the giant lady probably wanted to use Felix for her own purposes; if not, she had almost no logical reason to blackmail him.
Plus, on second thought, judging by how the Hero Commission perceived him as a result of the recent event, and in addition to joining forces with Recovery Girl, they might penalize him in one way or another, like taking a share of his salary or by simply preventing him from meeting new heroes and heroines, thus slowing down his progress. Only speculation, of course. However, prevention is better than cure.
Better talk with her and see how it unfolds… Since she already had a taste of Felix quirk and will therefore not let herself be approached by Felix, moreover, in addition to being clever, she seemed to have an uncommon willpower managing to counteract the number of hormones and pheromones he sent into her.
Rumi had an initially overcharged sexuality because of her quirk. Kaoruko had an overdeveloped sense of smell, making them both more sensitive to Felix even without him having to use his quirk, but this wasn't the case with this woman. Since then, he got fortunate with the ladies he met, but not this time.
—I need to think about a plan B just in case.
After wandering for an hour in the mall, listening to Kaoruko and her need for soap and good-smelling stuff, he finally bought her a whole set of everything she dreamed of owning during the last ten minutes while window-shopping. It's not as if soap and essential oil were costly anyway, plus, his salary just arrived the day earlier, despite the rather small quantity, with almost no loan to pay, using his money was the right thing to do. Yet, he was still surprised that Kaoruko didn't care that much about clothes and manga since that's one of the main things Japanese women like the most. An agreeable surprise.
But what about buying other smelly things for her quirk to level-up in some way? From what Felix knew about her abilities, the worst fragrances she smelled on purpose to power-up her quirk are garlic and sulfur. But what about gas, for example? For the gas to smell, it needs to be there, inside the bubble. So if she creates bubbles with gas inside and makes them burst, followed by a single spark or flame, she can create a potent and concentrated blast. By releasing large clouds of essential oil through her bubbles, she can make her opponents' eyes sting and have trouble breathing, causing them to cough non-stop in a somewhat large area, like 30 feet away from her with just a few bubbles. And if she trains enough, what about some bubbles with an ultra-concentrated marijuana fragrance in them? Cool ass power. Who wouldn't dream of beating enemies by getting them high?
—Jesus, so much potential. If she can make giant bubbles and in great quantity, this is insane. I can't believe she's like a side-character in the hero society…
If they were here, that was also for that, to pick up or create some fragrance for Kaoruko. Since he promised her he would make her stronger and help her achieve her dream; it was only natural for him to do that, even if she must smell a bunch of fucking disgusting and horrible things for that to happen. Thanks to his pass given by the President of the commission, he could access most of the material in some specialized stores, even the hidden ones allowing him to find this kind of stuff.
The store was a DIY one, with departments devoted to more scientific aspects, such as astronomy or chemistry. Felix chose vials and other scientific materials he would need to try an idea he had in mind. However, the second thing he was looking for could not be found on any shelf-
"Searching for something, Mister?! My eyes don't deceive me, I know you are searching for something!! I can help for sure!!! For sure!!!!"
As he was alone on the shelf while Kaoruko was busy looking at the furniture at the entrance, a feminine, cheerful, and almost too excited voice took him out of his thoughts. The girl who spoke to him was young, a few years younger than him at least, but her feminine charms already appearing with fervor; hard not to lay eyes on it by mistake given the size of her badongas.
"So, what do you want? Search? Look for? Are interested in?!" the pink-haired girl with dreadlocks asked as she got closer to Felix, seeing that she had his attention. Her yellow eyes with a kind of cross in them suddenly focused on him with excitation like a cat ready to jump on its prey. "Microscope? Bunsen burners, maybe? Magnetic stirrer? Distillation glassware kit? Ultra-precise digital thermometer?! Pipette kit and universal cone? Distiller? Demineralizer? Rotary Evaporator? Incubator? Vacuum pump?! Electric autoclave? Mini-centrifuge? Thermostatic water bath? Chemical compounds...!?"
Now, the girl's face was way much closer to his, but she was even smaller than Rumi, so that wasn't an issue. Felix smiled while thinking about this: small women are wild.
"...Relax, you need some oxygen," answered Felix while smiling. "So… are you working here-"
"I can create all of that! At a fair price! I'm like, totally pumped up today! Just ask me!"
"Yeah, I can see that, but-"
"I can craft anything, I'm quite the inventor, you know, since I was four years old, to be precise-"
"You're annoy-"
"Here's the list of what I can-"
"CAN I fucking talk? You're loud and annoying. I'm not going to buy anything if you continue."
"Ah...!"
Her smile disappeared after she heard, "I'm not gonna buy anything.", her face switched from a happy and enthusiastic expression to one of pensiveness, her hand on her mouth. But at least Felix understood what she wanted: money.
She scratched her head, moving her dreadlocks in all directions while walking in circles, eyes widened, faced with a situation to which she couldn't find a proper solution. All the people she approached before just left without speaking to her, too cornered and embarrassed by her greedy words to act accordingly. And now this dude answered her and asked her to shut the fuck up… She tried to create structured plans in her mind, mathematical formulas, efficiently solving equations hoping it would help her find the right words, but none of her efforts were rewarded by an adequate response.
"Sorry! Sorry! I'm the daughter of the store owner, in some way! I finished my shift, and so I try to sell my own things!"
"In some wa-"
"I can reduce the price of my babies by 10% for the inconvenience if you want!"
"...Your babies?" asked Felix by raising an eyebrow, a fake and tense smile appearing on his face as he controlled his nerves by figuring out that she wouldn't stop interrupting and gluing him until she got an answer.
"My little babies gadgets and inventions, of course! That's how babies are made, after all!"
"Well, I'm not so sure about that. You should have listened less in math courses and more in life-science ones."
"So I was right! You're a scientist or something like that?! So are you interested in my babies?!"
"...'Kay… What do you sell?"
Felix's words provoked a strong reaction in her; a smile close to madness appeared on her face before suddenly turning around and contracting her pupils towards a bag at the other end of the shelf. Judging by its dilapidated and dirty appearance, this bag shouldn't have been there. She grabbed Felix by the arm and rushed towards the bag, being very careful not to be seen by the store's other employees. The girl tried to lift it, but Felix had to help her remove the different things inside to prevent her from putting on some kind of exoskeleton hidden under the shelf.
Three strange tools, but the most interesting was a microscope created with rusty parts; however, Felix could see how each piece was polished. The object's steampunk style didn't detract from the fact that it was a high-quality microscope, probably way better than the one the Hero Commission gave him. If he wanted to work with his adaptable hormones and gain money, thanks to that, he needed better equipment; he needed to see and isolated his hormones. After using it, he acknowledged that it wasn't junk; the zoom was probably the most incredible thing he ever saw in the field of microscopes in his whole life. He could see every detail of his finger without any problem and this, with one of the shortest and smallest lense. On top of that, there seemed to be some gadgets on the sides, impossible to know their specific us, though.
One thing was sure; this object was large and heavy.
"That's some good shit, not gonna lie," he affirmed after turning to a happy and proud pink haired-girl. "Don't know how you created a thing like that at your age, but this is excellent."
"Microscopes are exactly like my eyes, so crafting this kind of baby is always easy and thrilling! It's like crafting a part of me! The one who got this microscope has my eyes!"
"Stop merchandising. I'm already interested." Felix sighed with an amused smirk. "So, how much for this?"
"Well! I made this baby out of junk! So, only ¥42.000!"
"Out of junk? I can't even imagine with the right equipment then. So, ¥42.000, that's like $400..." Felix mumbled by putting his hand on his chin. "Did you forget the 10% discount from earlier?"
"...Absolutely not! This will be at ¥38700 instead! If I'm not mistaken, it's $340! Fair price, to be honest." she said while furrowing her eyebrows, trying at the same time to hide her frustration behind her smile. "I'm the one who proposed the discount after all!"
"And if I take the whole bag?"
Her eyes suddenly became even more radiant, her smile revealed her teeth, and she came almost too close to Felix's face, which was still leaning towards the microscope.
"It's ¥66150 or $630 with the discount. The whole bag is ¥73500 worth if you doubt me." the girl began, her eyes locked on his, zooming more and more on his irises. "The other two tools are tests, babies I created for fun, but they proved to be more useful and robust than I expected, so I thought I would sell them! I'm so glad I met your wallet today! The first one is a net thrower; it can throw two in a row; each net weighs 4 kilos, but the guns can shoot a net with 8 kilos, four metal weights of 2 kilos on each side! The second one is a propulsion hammer I used to destroy wooden planks when I was a little girl. I upgraded it several times; now it's able to bend steel as long as it has some fuel inside; it's already loaded if you wonder!"
"You really are passionate about what you do, huh?" he said by stepping away from her a little to prevent the other clients who passed by from believing in an illicit relationship... well, thanks to his hormones, he seemed a little younger than he is and since the arrival of quirks it was complicated to judge people by their appearances, but you never know. "I can understand that. Since I have money, I might as well take advantage of it to make a group purchase. And then I would never have been able to carry the microscope without that bag you have with you. It's so fucking heavy."
"The disadvantage of building with materials rescued from the landfill! Ahah!" she paused and looked around her before doing something that almost shocked Felix, she whispered. "Hey… pay me here; my stepfather works at the cash register; I'll drop this off to your girlfriend who's waiting for you at the entrance while you buy the chemicals you seemed to be looking for."
"Got it. Guess everyone saw us from afar because of her blue skin." Felix sighed, giving all the cash she needed. Almost everything is purchased with cash in Japan, and that's a fucking pain.
"Here, my card!" she jubilated as she looked at the money in her hand. "I hope we will continue to do business together!"
"Why not." he finally concluded with a sigh, looking at the same time at her business card. "Hatsume Mei. I'm not going to complain; a good microscope like this with several lense would cost at least $1000."
After all this conversation, he looked up at Mei with her exoskeleton, giving the bag to an incredulous Kaoruko before departing with all her equipment through the hallway. A strange girl. Who loves money a lot. And invention even more.
Without wasting any more time and with two-thirds of his money left over, he went to get the different chemicals he would need to do his tests and work with Recovery Girl. He still couldn't afford all the materials that Mei had listed during their encounters, but he had to prioritize some things to progress in fits and starts. Only in this way could he make money without being dependent on the Hero Commission; if there was an enemy in his life right now, it was the shadow of the vultures flying over his head.
They would try to manipulate him again as soon as they saw the real effects of his "doping". In itself, the "doping" he was bringing to people was constant; in other words, more than doping, it was a 100% safe upgrade of the body and its entire metabolism. Many people are willing to pay a lot for this.
Maybe even some jealous or ambitious heroes.
"Um… Felix, what the fuck is that bag, its gross, dirty, and impossible to carry." Kaoruko complained as she tried to pull up the bag, just being able to drag it on the floor. "A girl brought this to me saying that you had bought it from her."
"Yeah, we made a deal, so I got everything she had in this bag," he explained, pulling the bag on his shoulder; he tilted a little to the side because of the weight but managed to stay stable. "Yeah, 100 pounds maybe… that's hella heavy for just three items."
"So what did you buy apart from these pieces of junk?" she asked with a playful smile and a mischievous look.
"Only chemicals, but you know, I'm gonna train you with your quirk soon. Maybe even training with you and Rumi, if we can."
"It's like saying I'm lame." she pouted as they walked through the large hallway of the mall.
"Truth can hurt." he joked, knowing already how she would react. As soon as she began punching, he apologized with a laugh, tapping her shoulder. "I don't know who taught you how to use your body and quirk against villains, but I'm sure if you follow the same course as me, you could actually be a fucking bulldozer."
"Yeah, yeah, try to make up for it by flattering me." she continued to sulk before sighing, admitting that there was some truth in Felix's words. "To tell the truth, my family is quite poor, so in order to try to pursue my dream of becoming as strong as Wash and make money to help the poor afterward, I had to enter low-cost heroes high school. As a result, education and classes were also at a very low level… That is also why Nighteye sometimes wants to fire me..."
"Heh? He wants to do that?"
"It's not his fault; this is just that there are so much better heroes than me… And I sometimes do stupid things or didn't catch in time robber and everything… So yeah, I accept your proposition." she affirmed with a confident expression that even surprised Felix. "We just need to follow the plans we made together for Monday. I know Mt. Lady is quite sharp and rational thanks to the information given by the Hero Network, so you might talk some sense into her like I said before," she concluded with a peaceful gaze, a soothing sight. "I'm looking forward to the future that awaits us."