“Mr. Losehrein…” My hands trembled as I frantically searched my pants pockets for my phone, managing to take it out after a few tries. “Could y-“
The tall, muscular man in spandex before me put a finger to my face, cutting me off. “Sorry, but I do not pose for pictures. Feel free to take them from a distance.”
Then, the next second, he was hundreds of feet up in the air, probably heading to his agency. Only a faint trail of smoke following his flight track from the fire he put out remained as evidence that he had once stood in front of me.
I cleared my head with a few shakes and put away my phone. I wasn’t disappointed… No, I was undoubtedly very disappointed that I wouldn’t have the chance to frame a selfie with him on my bedroom wall. However, I knew that what he said would be his response. I knew, yet asked anyway, in the case that one of my heroes would, for whatever reason, be in the mood to allow me a single picture with him.
I coughed as the wind shifted, pushing smoke from the housefire in my direction. It was time for me to head home.
Immediately after opening the apartment door, two things hit me: the smell of a delicious, homecooked meal probably made up of rice and beef, and the voice of my mother.
“Did ya get the photo???” She excitedly yelled from the kitchen before even checking if the one entering was me.
“Unfortunately, no.” I replied, pulling off my shoes to leave by the doorway.
“That’s too bad, son. You’ll get it next time!” Her cheerful attitude never failed to brighten my mood.
I entered the kitchen to see my mother setting two plates onto the counter, steam still rising from them. She then washed her hands before taking a seat in front of a plate.
“Well, selfie or not, you’re just in time for lunch!”
I sat down beside her to also chow down, when my cat, Fofo, rubbed against my leg and meowed, begging for attention.
I smiled, then pointed a finger at the floor in front of him. Activating my quirk, a dot of light appeared in front of Fofo. When it got his attention, I wiggled the light across the room as though it were a small critter, and Fofo promptly chased it. Then I carefully used my left hand, which is my non-dominant one, to lift a spoonful of my meal into my mouth while still looking at my cat. It was tricky, but I had lots of practice, because Fofo most often bugged me to play with him during my mealtime.
After finishing my cat’s play session and my lunch, I went to my room and flopped down onto my bed.
- Was. Tired. The day before, I had been up all night following Losehrein’s location through the internet, knowing that he was on patrol. In the case that he had to stop a crime or help save people from an accident and was close enough, I would bolt from my apartment in his direction to wait for the incident to be solved before asking for a selfie—exactly what happened this morning.
However, the fire that he assisted in putting out was quite a few miles from my apartment block, so I had to run quite a ways. I justified the trip by telling myself that because the fire was so big, it would take long enough to put out that by the time the heroes and firemen did so, I’d have arrived.
“I was right, but no selfie. Ah well. There will be a next time.”
I sat up on the edge of my bed and looked at the wall it was situated next to. Plastered all over the wall were hundreds of pictures of different Heroes, the sizes of the pictures determined by how much that Hero meant to the family. And between all the photos, there was one detail in common—they were selfies.
Yet, only the biggest selfies were taken by me and had me in them. Those were closer to the center of my wall, all surrounding the largest selfie of them all…one of me and my father.
The idea to cover a wall in selfies was not mine.
The infatuation with Heroes was not mine.
My father, who was quirkless, died protecting civilians from a powerful villain while on duty as a police officer.
Most of those hundreds of selfies were of my father and his heroes.
Below the selfie of me and my father was a large, blank space that taunted me. The selfie to go there was of my father’s absolute favorite Hero, who coincidentally defeated the villain who killed him.
Even if he rejected me a second or third time, I would not give up. There would be a next time, because I will track his spandex-clad ass down as many times as I need to to fill that space on my wall.
