[A week later]
(*POV: Jack)
After the whole fiasco with the kidnappers, my mom didn't scold me as much as I expected. She was obviously worried, but she supported me and said I did the right thing. The only part I didn't enjoy was when my mom found out I planned to meet this girl, so she didn't stop teasing me about having a little girlfriend the whole week. Finally, I managed to iron out all the details of my meeting with Mei. She seemed even more excited than me, I think because she wanted to show me all her inventions. We agreed that I would go to her family's mechanic shop. I wasn't too surprised since she seemed more knowledgeable about engineering than anything else. My mom drove me there, and before she left, she teased me with, "Have a nice date with Mei!" I got embarrassed and quickly shooed her away before anyone else heard her nonsense. She just laughed and drove off to work.
I tried knocking on the front door, but nobody answered. I checked, and it was open, so I went inside the shop. I didn't see anyone—just half-finished car frames and various power tools scattered about. Suddenly, I heard a noise and called out, "Is anybody here? Mei, it's me, Jack! I came just as promised!" but got no answer. I decided to check out the noise to find someone. As I approached the door where the sounds were coming from, it burst open, and I saw a flying projectile heading straight toward me. I didn't have time to do anything but brace for impact. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, though I ended up lying on the floor, covered in dust and grime, a bit rattled. I didn't feel any significant pain, so I tried to get up, but then I noticed a weight lying on top of me—it was none other than my resident inventor and troublemaker, Mei. She seemed to be in a similarly dazed state as I was, so she hadn't noticed me yet. I saw some minor cuts and bruises on her arms and face, so I tried to move her off of me to check her wounds and help treat them. She subconsciously held onto me and didn't want to be removed. When she finally came to her senses, she beamed at me and said, "That was the nicest landing I ever had after an accident. I see you were right—I won't regret partnering up with you anytime soon." Then she got up and helped me to my feet by pulling my arm. Next, she hugged me as a greeting and started showing me around her little part of the workshop.
"Baby Number 1 are these goggles. I made them specifically so I could use my quirk for longer periods of time, but I plan to add new features because I want to use them in different environments and to see the potential hazards around my workshop. You wouldn't believe how many gases and other substances are out there that you can't see without equipment, and you only feel their effects when it's too late." With that grim reminder, I became a little more cautious around her.
"That being said, this is Baby Number 2. I made it when I was six so I could—"
And that's how our whole morning went—me listening to her and asking questions about her inventions. It was surprisingly fun, and she didn't bore me at all. I can see that she's really passionate about her craft.
It was lunchtime, and we left Mei's workshop to eat. This probably wouldn't have happened if it were her decision, but Mrs. Hatsume came in and dragged Mei away, signaling to me to follow them. Outside the room, I saw the whole staff hard at work on different machines, mostly cars. Then a loud whistle sounded throughout the workshop, probably the signal for lunch break, because they started putting away their tools and leaving the shop.
Our group arrived at a door that led to a stairway, which brought us up to a normal-looking apartment. When we went inside, I instinctively started taking off my shoes, but Mrs. Hatsume stopped me, saying it wasn't necessary. I didn't understand, but I did as I was told. I guess living above a busy workshop makes cleaning up nearly impossible. We arrived at the dining room, where I saw Mei's dad and someone I could only assume was her older sister. They were still in their mechanic jumpsuits, with what I could see were at least somewhat washed hands. I asked where the bathroom was so I could clean my hands, but before I could get an answer, Mei grabbed my hand and dragged me there. We both washed our hands, but Mei seemed a bit grumpy about being interrupted, so I tried to lighten the mood.
"Don't be sad, I'm here all day—we can still nerd out after lunch." She brightened up a little at that.
When we came back, I saw her dad throwing accusatory glares at me like I had done something wrong. I didn't understand, but I got a bit tense. His wife noticed, though, and gave him a smack on the back of the head.
"Stop scaring the poor boy, you big oaf!" she said, crossing her arms.
"But he's taking away my little princess!" Mei blushed up a storm at her dad's almost-shouted exclamation. She glanced at me, and when our eyes met, she just looked away, blushing even more. 'Huh, must be from the awkwardness of the situation.'
"He's not taking anyone away, and even if he is, it's not your decision—it's Mei's. Only she gets a say in who's good for her." Mei started sinking into her chair, her hands on her face, nearly under the table, when her sister spoke up.
"All right, you two, that's enough! Don't you see you're putting her in an embarrassing situation right in front of her new—and need I remind you, only—friend?" That last bit surprised me because I thought Mei, with how kind and outgoing she seemed, had tons of friends.
After the "adults" calmed down and returned to their seats, their attention quickly turned toward me. Mei was still dying of shame but grabbed my hand for some moral support. It didn't help much, though, as her dad's glare intensified, while her mother's eyes lit up with joy.
I sighed, thinking, 'This is going to be a really long lunch for me.'
The questions weren't as bad as I expected. Her parents were mostly curious about my general views on things, likely trying to gauge my personality and intentions with Mei. After I answered them and they seemed satisfied, her sister finally spoke up. She was mostly curious about my future plans, my quirk, and other mundane things, like how I spend my free time.
So I began explaining: "Well, I want to be a hero in the future. Ever since I helped an old friend out of a tough situation, and when he called me a hero, it felt right, like the title was meant for me. Now, there's a new idea that sounds great, and I want to achieve it with Mei. When we finish UA, we plan to start a company for support equipment manufacturing and development." They just smiled at the first part of my explanation, but they were shocked when I told them about our plan with Mei.
Mei beamed with pride, looking at me with happiness—and something else I couldn't quite place. Even her father gave me a begrudging thumbs up, her mom teared up, and her sister just nodded with a noticeable smile, one reminiscent of Mei's, after I went ahead and told them about my quirk.
"My quirk is called Hyperion. It allows me to summon humanoid puppet-like things into existence and command them as I see fit in exchange for my stamina and some water. They are mostly a blank slate, but if I name them, they become almost identical to any normal human. My power also comes with a seemingly infinitely large vault-like structure in me that I can send non-living things into and out of. It takes a lot of stamina to do at first, and it exponentially grows in cost the bigger the size or the amount of the object, but if I manage to pull through and put them in my vault, then my body adapts to them, and I can take them out and back into me with almost no stamina cost." When I zoned back in and came out of my tirade, I saw everyone making the same face as Mei when I told this to her.
She just elbowed my side and said, "See, I told you your quirk is insane and super unscientific."
When the grown-ups pulled themselves together, they started asking questions:
"What do you mean, an infinite space? How do you know that, and is there anything in it naturally?"
"What is the limit of your quirk? Is there any other side effects of your quirk, like a timer or max number of objects?"
"How can you just create people? What can they do by themselves? Is there a way to change their body structure, gender, or hell, do they even have quirks? And if not, can you give it to them?"
I was a bit stunned at these questions, and even Mei seemed to think about it.
When they calmed down, I tried to answer them to the best of my abilities:
"First of all, I think it's infinite and not at the same time. It's more along the line of a non-linear structure; it expands and shrinks for the most optimal state for me. When I sent two of my puppets on scavenged bikes to explore the place in two different directions, they had vastly different experiences. One just continued looping back to the beginning every time he went too far, and the other one I haven't seen since the beginning. I could summon him to the real world to get his report, but I want to see how this will end for him. From what I've seen, there are no real structures there, only a giant arch that stretches on in the sky with no real end. The sky there is purple or neon blue, depending on the real world's day and night cycle. And the ground is a mix between gray and green. Wilhelm took some photos when I sent him in there, and it truly looks mystical." I handed Mei my phone, and she took it with an eager smile that I had never seen before, even when she talked to me about her babies.
"Finally, I was so curious about it ever since you mentioned it! Now, let's see here..." She suddenly fell silent, and her eyes almost popped out of her head. Then all of a sudden, she started cackling madly so hard that she fell out of her chair and almost knocked her half-eaten food off the table. It honestly scared me and her family. I was thinking, what could have made her react this way? I suddenly had a feeling and sweatdropped. "Mei, is this about the sun behind Wilhelm and the puppets in the photo?" She just stopped laughing and glared at me like I had killed her most beloved pet.
"Sun? SUN! You call that thing a sun?! It's a supermassive black hole, for fuck's sake! It makes no sense! Why is the gravity normal there? Why aren't they being torn to shreds?! What about the cosmic radiation that it should produce?! Again, your quirk makes absolutely no sense!" At that, her parents, who were rushing to check on her, stopped dead in their tracks and looked at me like I was some kind of anomaly. Even her usually calm sister choked on her water after the declaration. All three of them quickly rushed to check out the photo on my phone and fell into shocked silence again. When everyone managed to calm down after I promised to send them a few dozen copies of the images.
"You just can't keep this big of a secret from me! This is like the first time someone managed to take such a high-resolution image of a real black hole ever, and this was done with a simple cell phone! Ugh, I feel like I will have a headache every time you reveal something new about your quirk." She just massaged her forehead and leaned back in the chair. "When we have enough resources, we need to investigate it. We could have one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in the past couple of centuries, even if we just keep examining it. Not to mention all the tests we could run through it." Mei was almost salivating just thinking about the endless possibilities. Then she turned to me with a hungry look in her eyes that locked on me suddenly. "I've decided we will stick together forever. This is not a proposition; this is a declaration, so keep it in your mind! You will be my partner forever and even beyond that!" She was so sincere that I couldn't help but blush up a storm. Even her family seemed shocked by her conviction.
I knew at that moment that I had gained a friend for life and a partner who would be with me no matter what happens to us or even the world itself.