Just deserts: Revised edition

Park, Musutafu.

Nanami Kureta was my very first friend and, for a long time afterwards, my only one—we had met for the first time at this very park when she had come up and spoken to me without any kind of hesitation. Nanami had planted her hands on her hips and then asked if she could use the swings—of which there were two, and where I only occupied one—I had thought the request was odd at the time, considering she could have taken the other one that was free and because I had no personal ownership over the public playground, so she had not needed to seek permission from me.

I had nodded to her request, left the swings entirely for her to use, and then sought out the flying fox—only, Nanami had then decided she wanted to use the flying fox as well. So once again I left her there by herself, returning to my previous location at the swings, not realising that Nanami hadn't really wanted the swings, nor had she wanted the flying fox, what she had wanted, was to play with me.

That would mark the very first time that I made Nanami cry—but I didn't even know her name then, so I liked to think it didn't count. I didn't really know how to deal with her at the time, nor did I know how to make her stop crying, but she promised to stop if I played with her—and so I had. Somehow, in the aftermath of that day, Aunt Hayami seemed to develop a particular interest in going to that specific park. The frequency at which I encountered Nanami Kureta would continue to grow until we were there almost every other day, and then after that, Hiroshi and Kana Kureta would even start to appear at Aunt Hayami's house—I wasn't sure whenexactly it had happened, but at some point, I began to look forward to it.

"It's not fair," Nanami complained, kicking at the bark. "I'm two years older."

I was almost positive that Nanami wasn't talking about her age specifically but rather the unfairness of having someone two years her junior unlocking his quirk when she hadn't had quite the same results—it was a common theme, and as we grew older, I would come to learn that Nanami could be very impatient.

"You will get your own soon," I said before pausing. "Although it is possible you won't get one at all."

Nanami's face scrunched up in a very familiar way, and I stared at her, realising in the aftermath that I had once again said something to upset her.

"I'll absolutely get one." Nanami managed, "It will be something amazing, too, like flying horses."

"I think so, too," I said with great care. "But what's amazing about that?"

Did she want to become a flying horse? Maybe she wanted to make flying horses? Or perhaps she just wanted the power to command a flying horse should she come across it. I wondered why she wouldn't want a creature that already possessed the ability to fly.

"Um—well, horses don't usually fly, right?" Nanami said, waving her arms about, "So it would be pretty cool if they suddenly started zooming around in the air."

I tried hard to picture it, but I couldn't quite see the magic that she could, so instead, I turned my attention down to my hand. I generated some sand from my palm, compressing it down into the shape of what I thought a horse might look like—and then I tried again until I had something that didn'tlook like a blob with four sticking out of it—once I was sure she would associate my creation with the horse it was intended to be, I sent it limping forward through the air.

"See?" Nanami said, clearly excited by the construct. "But, Hisoka, you didn't give it wings."

Was it supposed to have wings? I'd never seen a horse with wings, and I doubted a horse could lift itself off the ground even if it did have them. The weight and shape would make that impossible, wouldn't it? I focused a bit more, adding two vague wing shapes to strike up out of its back—the winged blob gave a flap of its great sandy tentacles and then exploded.

"Oh," Nanami managed.

Recognising the signs immediately, I took action to safeguard my promise to Uncle Sajin before I could break it once again—I leaned all the way in, just like Doctor Mimi had, and covered my mouth with my hand.

"I'm not very good yet, so I'll make sure to practice it for next time," I said at a completely normal volume. "Okay, Nanami?"

Nanami's smile brightened at the promise, and I nodded at my success—I wasn't sure why it had worked, but there were some things that adults did that were just like that, and by mimicking them, I had found a way to harness it for myself. Happiness restored, Nanami returned to destroying the general area and sent another splash of bark flying with her shoe.

"Everyone else in my class has one already," Nanami started and then frowned. "Haru made fun of me too—he's such a jerk."

Haru was a villain in training from her class, or so I had gathered from how Nanami spoke of him. Many of her stories involved the other boy saying something wrong and making her cry. At first, I had felt a kind of distant kinship with the other boy, considering just how often I seemed to accomplish the same thing by accident. But the more I heard about him, the more I realised that we weren't really alike at all, and I was starting to think the reason she kept bringing it up was because she wanted me to do something—I just wasn't sure what it was.

"Do you want me to make him stop?" I asked.

I'd heard how many times Haru had been in trouble, and it was very clear that the teachers had spoken to him before, but nothing that had been tried so far seemed to have worked. Maybe if I tried hard enough, I could find something that would work.

"No way." Nanami laughed, "He'd beat you up for sure."

I wasn't really sure what that meant or if Haru was the type of person who would do it, but Nanami knew both of us, so I could probably take her word for it.

"Okay, Nanami." I agreed.

Instead of soothing her—like I had thought it would—my agreement seemed to have the opposite effect.

"Hey, don't give up so quickly," Nanami said, planting her hands on her hips. "You're supposed to say you'll beat him up for picking on me anyway."

"Oh," I said, "Do you want me to beat Haru up for you?"

"I don't want you to beat him up because I asked you to, dummy," Nanami said, crossing her arms. "I want you to want to beat him up because he's mean to me."

The way she said it made me think she was repeating something she'd heard from someone else back to me. I thought about what she was asking, trying to figure out what she actually wanted me to do. I didn't really want to beat Haru up, partly because I still wasn't sure what that was but mostly because I didn't really want anything at all—with perhaps the singular exception of making sure Nanami didn't cry. I didn't get what she was telling me, not really, but I thought that maybeshe wanted me to take action without being asked to do it first. Whatever good Nanami found in that, I wasn't sure, but I suppose I didn't really need to know in order to do what she wanted. Everybody had such strange rules they wanted me to follow. It seemed like every single day, I would uncover a new one. Sometimes, it was just so hard to keep track of them all, but I thought I might be getting better at it—besides, Nanami was my friend, and Uncle Sajin told me I had to protect those.

"I'll do it properly from now on," I said, "Promise."

Nanami's smile was radiant.