how long has it been? minutes. hours.
heâs a mosaic of colors, partly concrete and partly brick, partly worn, discarded cardboard, partly the darkness that clings to the corners of this dead end.
âhelp,â rasps the woman on the ground in front of him. her eyes flutter erratically, unfocused, almost enough to convince him that she doesnât know heâs there.
he knows that she knows. he had met her gaze when he turned the corner and held her gaze while thatâ that thing, that person?, whatever had slinked out of the shadows and blurred past them with inhuman speed, knocking jaehan aside but leaving an inexplicable redness that bloomed over the womanâs chest. the first help me had left her mouth then, a cry as she crumpled to the sidewalk with her arms curled uselessly around her own torso, and jaehan hadâ is still frozen, staring at the floor of his bedroom and his brotherâs dark eyes and feeling a scream clawing its away up his throatâ
âhelp,â his brother pleads.
jaehan lurches to his feet, his stomach churning with the movement, and oh fuck heâs going to be sick. âplease,â the voice cries plaintively after him.
he stumbles towards what he thinks is the street corner, swiping the back of his wrist hard across his eyes and wondering why the red wonât go away. âsomeone,â he croaks, far too lowly to actually be heard, but itâs a miracle that he slams into another body on the sidewalk after all. their face is hazy, recognition just beyond his reach; he can only hope theyâre a hero. âhelp.â he parrots the womanâs plea, grasping the personâs sleeve and pulling desperately in the direction of the dead end. âthereâs s- somethingâ someoneâs really hurt th- there, you have to help them, please!â
it was rather incredible, he thought, how villains existed in daily lives, on the streets, amongst peers, and yet the moment the announcement of some low grade ragtag made it out, it sent the whole city went into a state of panic. jasper didnât like this situation one bit -- it meant more overwork for him and that was not something he desired.
it wasnât rare for him to be out in the field while on the job, but if he could pick, he would much rather work from the confinements of his desk and then go out when he felt like socialising or observing. keep work and fun apart. but he supposed that when you worked as a hero, you had to go out and about every so often to get a feeling of things and be able to act in the moment.Â
especially when the moment decided to catch up to you.
some entity came charging at him, and had it not been for the words of plea, jasper might have gone immediately to self defense -- he assumed it was a quirk, but the way this guyâs skin and clothes were shifting to keep up with the surroundings was kind of unsettling a sight when it came towards you at full speed. either way, there was only one thing he could react to, and that was the single word âhelpâ.Â
jasper could feel his glance harden as he placed a hand at the (what he assumed from the voice) guyâs shoulder in an attempt to calm him down, especially since it seemed like he was so distressed that his quirk was running rampant (another presumption -- of course there was a chance this was the standard but he somehow doubted it.) âslow down there,â he spoke, âtake a breath and show me the way. i canât have you fainting on me when someone is in danger, now, can i?â