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Darkest Before Dawn - 102
🕑 Added 2025-04-03 17:53:22 +0000 UTCChapter 102
“Really going all in for it, huh?” Minoru commented the day after his club was… Well, officially a thing, he supposed.
“Yep,” Kazuki replied as casually as he could manage. However, he was a little concerned with his friends’ reactions. They’d never been all that gung-ho about his “agency” group, but now that it was a recognized club, they were feeling… weird. Not necessarily bad, but certainly negative enough for him to pick up on it.
It was some kind of strange mix between uncomfortable and angry and sad? It was a combination that Kazuki didn’t think he’d met all that much. Or, at least, one that he hadn’t dealt with enough to quite name right off the bat. Maybe it was a little arrogant of him to think he could recognize most negative emotions, but he thought it was somewhat justified himself. He had been exposed to plenty of mixes.
Ever since he’d come out of juvie though, it was like the world was loving throwing him curve balls in that regard.
Evidently, he’d seen nothing yet.
“We’re kind of excited. Or, the Management Team is. They have a ton of ideas,” he added, plastering a slight smile on his face. He hoped Pharos wouldn’t become a problem with his friends. He didn’t begrudge them the fact that they didn’t want to join, but still. It’d have been nice, for sure, but it wasn’t like it wasn’t fine if they didn’t want to deal with the extra work. It was part of the reason why UA’s clubs didn’t have an abundance of hero students, and those that did were fairly laidback ones. UA was hardcore enough for them on its own without adding a demanding club on top of that.
Kazuki kind of needed to go super extra hardcore on things. Chikuchi too, he supposed, since she wanted to push herself all the way to the Hero course. Neito had kind of been dragged along with them and Mei, he supposed, but Kazuki was pretty sure he had something to prove just like he did, just that it was to himself.
“Anything interesting?” Toru asked, all curiosity and no negativity whatsoever, which Kazuki appreciated.
“Futo threw out the idea of making Grimm plushies,” he commented with a wry smile on his face while all the girls seemed to perk up or twitch at the idea. Yeah, Chikuchi had reacted the same way. Now, he wondered, if he knew Toru and Mina well enough, then he expected one or both of them would-
“That’d be so cute!” Mina exclaimed, just like he thought. “Can I get one?”
“If you can afford one,” he replied with a shrug. Granted, he could do the friend thing and give them for free… But the club kind of needed funds and a lot of them if they wanted to have it properly set up. Maybe, if they pushed through to second and third year, then they could relax a little. However, to build the foundation they’d need, there was no way they could afford to throw money out there. “Shouldn’t be too expensive.”
“You can’t give us some for free~?” Toru asked and the shifting of her floating clothes made him think she was making puppy dog eyes at him. Thank God she was invisible, because if he put that next to Mina’s, it’d have been devastating. “Come on~”
“Sorry, not up to me. It’s a club thing, so I’d feel bad if I took away from everyone else,” he replied and he meant that too. Granted, he imagined he could get away with a few if he really wanted, but he didn’t want to. Pharos was a project that he wanted to take seriously. Not only would it be great to prepare for the future, but it’d also be great for his immediate future and developing his image.
“You suck,” Mina grumbled.
“So, you’ll be a lot busier with that, huh?” Momo asked, and she was probably the one that felt the worst about the whole thing. Kazuki didn’t even need his sense to tell him that, considering how she was shifting on her seat and looking down while glancing his way. He almost expected her lip to tremble or her eyes to water a little.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
He still needed to address that though, but he was pretty sure he knew what the problem was about.
“Probably, but it’s not like we won’t hang out anymore, guys,” he commented, rather intently since Momo tended to be delicate in matters regarding friendship. Probably the most of them all, he’d guess. She tended to be afraid of losing friends and it kind of reminded Kazuki of his early days, when he’d just been waiting for the other shoe to drop. She needn’t have worried though, considering her situation was nothing like his. “How about we go somewhere this afternoon? I’ll drop by with the club to check on things, but there shouldn’t be that much for me to do. I should be able to leave somewhat early.”
“That’d be grand,” Momo said, a shy smile on her face, as if she were afraid to get excited. Maybe she was having an especially bad day? All the more reason to hang out. She always cheered up considerably when they spent time just doing friend things.
“Well, you guys know you’re always welcome to drop by at the store,” Kyoka commented, pushing away her lunch tray. Speaking of, he should focus on his own food a bit or he’d run out of time. “Dad said he’d need a hand for a bit, so I’ll be leaving early in the training session. If you don’t want to, just message me what you wanna do. I should be free by the time everyone’s done.”
“Nah, we can go there, right, guys?” Toru asked and everyone gave their affirmative response in their own way.
“Sure, maybe we’ll be lucky and that girl with the huge-” Minoru started, getting smacked instantly by Momo and Kyoka. “-personality-,” he said, even though everyone knew better than to believe that’s where he had been going. “-will be around too.”
“Maybe you should learn an instrument, have something to talk about with her,” Kazuki suggested, only half-seriously. His friend seemed to actually consider that though, which was… yeah. Nothing wrong with Minoru wanting to learn to play music, but he really needed other sources of motivation, honestly.
[}-o-{]
[Chikuchi Togeike]
“But if I could tweak this one watch a little-”
“For the last time, Mei,” Neito said, almost like all the words were a sigh, which was kind of impressive. “I really don’t need more explosive watches. I think having five kinds of them is quite enough, you know?” the boy added with a wry smile. His question flew over the tinkerer’s head immediately however, just as expected.
“Ok, but this one would be different-”
“That’s what you said about the other five, and I’m not gonna lie, you were right, but I think I need one or two watches that are, you know, not explosive,” Neito replied, groaning and dragging a hand over his face. Better him than Chikuchi though, that was for sure.
Not that she was in a much better situation.
“So, this is kind of important. We know Sleight will have a more independent, not-sidekick kind of image with the team,” Futo said, pulling her attention back to him. She was getting image counseling with him, after all.
Somehow, the topic was still Neito, funnily enough, and it was made even funnier by the not-sidekick label. The two of them were Kazuki’s sidekicks, after all. There was no way around it, no matter how much Neito tried to paint himself differently. Even the approach didn’t really make it seem actually not-sidekick and he’d happily agreed to that. It was just a role where he’d be more likely to act independently in the case that they had to separate, leading his own teams if neither Kazuki nor Chikuchi were around – provided they gathered more heroes – and freely arguing with Kazuki if it came to that.
Not that Kazuki was happy with that “agreement”, not really. He didn’t want to be placed in a position where he’d have power over others to the point that they couldn’t argue against him, but… Well, he couldn’t be a spearhead if anyone could talk back to him because they felt like it. Anyone lower than Chikuchi and Neito would be expected to, at least, be respectful if they wanted to disagree with his approaches and plans, but only if the matter was really important.
To hear Futo say it, people wouldn’t see him as an authority if anyone could just walk all over him.
Back to the topic at hand, Chikuchi guessed Neito was more of a third-in-command than anything else, probably. Not that the boy himself would be happy with that label, but that was the truth of the matter. Maybe once he calmed down a little more, he would be happy with it. Chikuchi hoped so. That way she wouldn’t need to hear his speeches about how good he was and how he didn’t deserve to be a sidekick, even though nobody was forcing him to be one. He was the one that stayed, after all.
All his complaints always sounded kind of half-hearted to her too, so there was that.
“I wanted to discuss your approach though,” Futo continued, snapping her back to the present. “Do you want to go for a more standard second-in-command look, with authority but one step below Beacon-” Right, and Futo also liked to use their hero names during that kind of talks, said it helped get into the scenarios he presented, or so he said. “-, or you could go for something more… Well, the word usually used for it is a secretarial role. Deferential to the leader all the way until they are not there. Alternatively, there’s the option for something more like what Neito is doing, more conflicting, being a leader in his own right but still grudgingly deferring to the leader if it’s necessary.”
“Uh… the standard one sounds good?” she answered unsure. She didn’t think she had it in her to argue as much as Neito did, after all. Maybe it was, as Futo likely expected, the word “secretarial” that put her off the other path. Then again, she wasn’t that much under Kazuki’s thumb, or she didn’t think so.
“That works,” Futo agreed easily, nodding and scribbling a little on his notebook before flipping the pages a little. Sometimes, it made Chikuchi think she was in front of a psychologist. Seeing him – or any of the other Management Team members – writing down something right after she spoke made her nervous in a way she couldn’t quite explain. “So-”
“Did I miss something?” Kazuki said as he arrived, walking through the door and cracking his neck. He’d barely gotten the words out before Mei almost literally teleported in front of him, notebook in hand and already pointing at a drawing in it. The boy just gave her an amused smile and started listening to what she was quickly telling him. Chikuchi only caught some stray words, considering they were on the other side of the room and Mei was speaking too fast and not loud enough. “I think that’s enough explosions, Mei,” the head man told her and for once Chikuchi was sure the talk about explosions would end. “Neito does need other things. Although, maybe you can work something out that’s like an explosion?” he suggested, ever the mediator, searching for a middle ground.
Truly, Chikuchi doubted anyone would ever have to go against his authority, considering he always gave opportunity for people to speak their minds anyway.
“You’re the best, Boss!”
“So I am,” Kazuki mumbled, watching the tinkerer rush away immediately. Then he glanced towards Komako and Ronaudo and seemed to think better of the idea of getting involved in that. Smart of him, all those numbers had made her head spin when she’d asked. “Not talking Mei out of explosions, Chikuchi?” he asked, mock-disappointed. “What kind of second-in-command are you?”
“The kind that knows she’ll only listen to sense when it comes from you. Don’t know how you do it, honestly,” She replied, not the smallest bit offended by this fact. “You’re late.”
“And I’ll be leaving early. Sorry, guys,” he said, looking truly apologetic, which made her roll her eyes.
“Boss, you’re always early and leave last,” she pointed out and she wasn’t even exaggerating. She didn’t remember a time when he’d left before anyone. He’d been late once or twice, but he’d been earlier more often than any of them, that was for sure. “We’ll be fine without you to keep the peace… probably.”
“Thanks and I’m counting on you to at least try,” he commented wryly. “Say, I dropped by to check if you guys needed something, but I see everything’s fine. Can you keep this though?” he asked, passing her a notebook with a marker in the middle of its pages. “The marker is a page where I wrote down some ideas. You know? Stuff I wanted to share with everyone, but you all seem busy. So, you can leave that for later.”
“Uh, sure, I can do that,” Chikuchi replied hesitantly, taking the offered item and opening it to check.
“Anything I should know?”
“I don’t think so? Neito’s still talking about watch ideas with Mei, obviously, and Komako and Ronaudo are… still brainstorming club ideas for when everyone’s back after the break. Futo and I are talking about my public image and behavior around the team,” she dutifully answered, wondering if there was anything else that she should tell Kazuki. She didn’t think so, but… Well, there were a few things, but she was saving those as a surprise, of course. “And that’s about it.”
“You won’t miss me then,” Kazuki said jokingly. “Well, keep up the good work. I’ll be leaving extra early, seeing as I’m not needed for much. I’m told I’ve been neglecting my friends,” he explained with a somewhat guilty expression.
“Have fun. I’ll send you a message or give you a call if we need anything.”
“Please do,” he told her, looking very grateful, which made her feel kind of… Either way, she liked being useful and being part of the club. Hell she was second-in-command in that club, when she wasn’t even part of the Hero course. It felt like a privilege and one that she never wanted to take for granted. “See you around then, help her for me, yeah?” he added towards Futo, who quickly nodded.
After trading a few more words with everyone else then, Kazuki left.
Then Chikuchi looked Futo and Futo looked at Chikuchi.
And then she sighed, reading the words written all over the boy’s face.
“Yes, note me down for that secretarial approach,” she grumbled under her breath. She guessed it was a role that fit her well enough. She still hated that it was called secretarial of all things. There had to be a better way to label it, right?
And Futo didn’t need to be that happy with her coming around either.
[}-o-{]
[Kyoka Jiro]
She’d never get tired of listening to Kazuki play the violin.
He was no master, of course, and she’d heard some of those, considering her hobbies and her parents’, but there was something very… Plus Ultra – maybe she was spending too much time at UA or something, because she couldn’t come up with a better descriptor – about having a friend be that talented with an instrument. She was, predictably, usually the best within her friend group growing up and that was fine, but it was nice to have someone else that was good too. She didn’t think Kazuki was better than her, but then, the violin was much harder to play than anything she’d learned and Kazuki hadn’t been able to play for years.
So, in a way, she considered him an equal of sorts – maybe even better than her, in terms of talent –, and it was amazing.
Kyoka knew that was partly the reason why her father was so enthusiastic to have Kazuki around too. Not only did it give him some good music to hear, which was always a plus, but it’d also made Kyoka happy. Her father could be silly like that, but she appreciated that, a lot. So, she tried not to pay him too much mind when he sent his proud, happy father looks her way.
“Amazing!” said man exclaimed when Kazuki finished playing. Was it exaggerated a little, yes, but only a little. “You really should play for an audience somewhere, Kazuki. People would pay to hear you play, I’m sure.”
“Thanks, sir. I appreciate the praise,” her friend replied and there was no hiding the slight shift in his voice from the usual. Kyoka could almost hear his hesitation, the pessimistic thoughts whispering in the back of his mind. She knew him and his voice well by then, after all. “Maybe someday,” Kazuki said, lying through his teeth.
Well, maybe that was too harsh of her to say.
Lately, her friend had been doing considerably better than before, she knew. Where before it had been painfully obvious that his pessimism overwhelmed him almost at every turn, now there was only the slightest shift and sometimes not at all. Her friend was learning that not everything was going to go badly for him and she couldn’t be happier. She knew enough to know that he deserved some happiness and optimism.
“I could help there, if you want to,” Momo offered, almost jumping on the chance to be helpful and get closer to her crush. Or, at least that’s what it sounded like to Kyoka. It was a lot less obvious people that couldn’t read inflections like she could, but judging by the way Minoru looked at her, Kyoka was pretty sure it was almost as obvious for him too. “My parents know a lot of people, and I know for a fact that any of them would appreciate your performances in one of their parties or galas.”
“I… That’s very kind of you, Momo, really, but I don’t think I’m quite-” Kazuki started, but Kyoka was already rolling her eyes midway through, knowing where he was going. Fortunately, she didn’t need to intervene, because if she did, she’d have smacked him like he was Minoru. Toru had that covered though, it seemed.
“Stop right there,” the invisible girl told the boy, poking his cheek as if to show her displeasure. “We’ve been over this, young man.”
“Yeah? I get it, alright? I’m good. I’m not saying I am not. I just think that the parties and galas of people Momo’s parents are friends with might be a bit much,” the boy defended himself and he was very good at acting, because Kyoka couldn’t see any lying going on. Now, hearing, that was a different story, but there was only the smallest wavering there. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass them in front of their friends. They already barely tolerate me.”
“They are a lot more welcoming these days, I’ll have you know,” Momo said, not really succeeding at putting on a strong front. Instead, she crumbled like a house of cards when Kazuki turned her way. “And I do believe you’re good enough, but maybe you could play for my parents. My father probably would have a better idea. I was just suggesting…” she explained, before trailing off at the end in a nervous mumbling that’d have made Midoriya… more nervous.
“And I appreciate it. If you think that and your father agrees… I guess it would be nice to play for an audience of people that don’t have to give me compliments,” Kazuki commented wryly only to receive unimpressed looks from everyone around.
[}-o-{]
[Kazuki Endo]
“So, are you nervous?” Hina asked him and he appreciated the fact that she didn’t sound concerned or anything. It was a casual question, as if there were nothing to actually be nervous about but she had to ask for the sake of politeness. That was not the case, not at all, but it was nice of her to try and play it off like that.
“Yes,” he answered bluntly, going straight for it. Because there was no use in lying. “A lot,” he added, for the sake of being as clear as possible.
“It’ll be fine, I promise,” Hina told him and he wished he had that kind of confidence in himself. “You aced the audition-” He wondered about that, actually. He knew he’d passed, but aced was a strong word. “-and they practically jumped on your application. You’ll do great. Just gotta relax and do your best.”
“It’s easier said than done,” he said with a sigh. “But I’ll be fine. I just gotta channel the right mix of emotions. Should at least be enough to get through it.”
“Try not to rely on it too much, Kazuki. I’d much rather you be able to enjoy yourself,” Hina told him, her voice taking a more sad tone. “If you’re channeling emotions, that won’t be possible.”
“I think not screwing up is more important, at least for the first few days.”
“Kazukiiiii~”
“Fine,” he sighed, deflating and leaning against his chair. “I’ll try. If I don’t think it’ll work out though, then I’ll do it my way,” he said, running a hand through his hair and focusing on the sound of the water coming from his aquarium. “I want this to go well.”
“And I want you to enjoy yourself. It won’t be worth it if you’re miserable, Kazuki,” the heroine told him and he knew she was right. He really did know she was, but… Well, it was getting more and more frightening the closer things were.
And now that he was going to go on a weekend trip to start working on the movie?
Boy did he not feel ready.
Especially considering that they were speeding things up because of the other trips he had to go on in the near future. Lots of trips in Kazuki’s schedule, actually, which was kind of odd. For some reason, nobody seemed to think he’d be able to leave the school trip for a day or two in order to participate in the filming process. He wasn’t sure why that was, but the fact of the matter was that he’d have to go and get started as soon as possible, which was that very weekend, the very next day. He wasn’t the main character, of course, but he was important enough that they couldn’t afford to cut him that much slack in absences.
He wasn’t that grateful for the big role anymore, to be quite honest, but those might be his nerves speaking. He knew it was a big favor that Hina had done for him, but maybe it’d have been easier if he got to start with a smaller thing. At least then, if he messed up, he wouldn’t have felt that bad. Alas, no use crying over spilled milk.
He’d just have suck it up.
“Kazuki?”
“Sorry, I just… I want to do well,” he mumbled, feeling as if he were getting smaller the more he thought about it. “I guess the pessimism I wasn’t feeling so far came back with a vengeance,” he commented with bitter humor. With as well as he’d felt the entire week, he should have known he’d crash at some point.
“None of that. You’ll be fine. Come on,” Hina told him and he felt bad for the tinge of worry that he heard in her voice. Kazuki didn’t want her to feel bad. He just couldn’t help how he felt. “Come on, do your routine with me, yeah? It must be your Quirk messing with you again,” she added, her voice turning soft and he closed his eyes almost instantly.
Slowly, he went through the routine that he’d worked out with Inui to get his mind under control and try to push away the influence of his Quirk’s emotions. Slowly, he evened his breathing, relaxed his previously tense muscles and tried to separate what he felt from what his Quirk fed him.
“Thanks, I needed that.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m here for you if you need me,” Hina told him and he closed his eyes again.
He really needed to do something about that greedy voice at the back of his mind.
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How’s it going?
Well, a little more progress on certain sides, especially the social ones. And I know that’s not something that some people care a lot about. There’s also some people that don’t really care about the acting side of things either, but…
Alright, so, maybe it wasn’t a great chapter, but I like it. That’s a fairly rare occurrence, as you all should know by now if you’ve been reading my author notes. Thus, in the spirit of not pulling a Kazuki, I’ll be happy with it all the same.
I do hope you enjoyed the chapter as much as I did though.
Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ
Random Question: What’s the last favor you did for a family member? I’ve been watching over my grandmother these days. She had an accident at the end of last year and… Yeah, she’s not doing so good. So, we prefer to have someone with her at all times if possible.
See you.
