[Mei Hatsume's Pov ]
Watching the suddenly deflated boy clutching his broken headphones tightly in his hands, Mei realized that testing her baby at her relatives' house had not been a good idea. But she had wanted to test it so badly. She had only just finished building it, and then she had to go visit her relatives in Musutafu. Her mother had threatened to cut off her funding for three months if she ignored their invitation again.
It did not matter. Once she got into U.A.'s support course, she would be able to use the school's resources and workshops. Then she would not have to beg her parents for money. For now, she needed to figure out why her baby had lost control.
The launch and the first minute of flight had gone smoothly. But then one of the rotors started slowing down, and the baby began to tilt to one side. Her attempt to land it without any damage had failed.
One possible cause was a problem with the wiring. Some of the conductors she had used came from a different supplier because the usual one had been out of stock at the time. Another possible cause could be desynchronization between the motors. Maybe she should use turbines instead of rotors next time. Or maybe two parallel systems to keep the baby airborne in case one system failed.
She quickly pulled out her notebook and started jotting down ideas.
"You are going to buy new headphones of the exact same brand and model."
The dark haired boy said something.
"Huh? Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about upgrading my baby. Did you say something?"
She put on a guilty expression, trying to figure out how to smooth things over so her parents would not hear about this incident.
"You are going to buy new headphones of the exact same brand and model."
He said it without looking up from the headphones in his hands, but for some reason, Mei began to feel a strange pressure. Still, he was not calling the police, just asking her to buy new headphones. That was fine. She just needed to confirm.
"So you are not going to report this to the police? If that is the case, I will buy them. How much do they cost?"
The dark haired boy, with a gloomy, almost visible aura around him, opened his mouth and said the price.
Mei nearly choked.
How much? That was the price of a car. Not even a cheap one. She had spent less money on all the parts for her babies over the years. She blurted out involuntarily:
"What kind of headphones cost that much?"
The boy mechanically took out his smartphone, quickly typed something with one hand while holding the headphones with the other, and showed her a website for some company displaying the same headphones. He scrolled down to the price. Sweat began to trickle down her neck.
"Well, you see, I do not have that kind of money right now…"
His face suddenly appeared just inches from hers. A shadow fell over the upper part of his face, but his rather eerie yet strangely beautiful red eyes stared directly into hers.
"You will pay for them one way or another."
He said it like a verdict. His eyes, unblinking, kept staring into hers. Mei swallowed hard. She quickly looked around, searching for a way out of this situation, and to avoid meeting his suddenly intense gaze.
"How can they charge that much for a pair of headphones? I could make so many of my babies for that price. Or headphones. That is it. Let me fix these."
He slowly turned his head toward where her baby had exploded, then looked back at her with a skeptical expression.
"Do not get the wrong idea. That was just a prototype. Failures are a normal part of being a new inventor. They push us to improve. So do not worry. I will take care of them. I will get them working again. I might even upgrade them."
She spoke quickly, gesturing with her hands, trying to smile like one of those PR people trying to sell a new product to an audience. His oppressive presence lessened slightly, and he asked:
"When can you fix them?"
She replied before he could change his mind:
"I need to study the headphone's internal design first. That means taking them apart. Do you still have the documentation and manuals for them? Then I need to order materials from suppliers. Then the actual repair work. And right now, I am staying with my relatives. My main tools are at home, in Kyoto. So you will have to wait anywhere from two weeks to a month before I can fix them. Though, if I get lucky, I could do it faster. Also…"
As she listed off conditions, his right eye began to twitch. He raised a hand to stop her and said with a sigh:
"I have tools and materials. I have experimented with devices containing speakers before. So I can provide them for you to use, but you will have to work in my apartment, in a designated room. And if you cannot fix them, you will deeply regret it."
His tone was threatening. But Mei was no longer paying attention to that. Her eyes burned with curiosity.
[End Pov Mei Hatsume]
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I did not know whether to laugh or cry. The cost of the headphones was not a problem for me, not after all my adventures in the criminal underworld. I would not have even known what to do with all that money, since I had more than enough for my needs, and I only kept stealing for the "art" of it and to hone my infiltration and disguise skills.
But Giran had happily helped me get rid of my excess cash. That stingy bastard. And besides, I had bought several spare pairs of headphones in case the old ones broke. Paranoia is everything.
It was funny to see her face when we got to my apartment and I pulled out one spare pair, casually showing her the others. The tools were in my workshop, which was just a converted room. It contained legal and non lethal equipment.
One might wonder why I was bothering with this Mei girl. I could have called the police, and then Mei and her family would have been forced to pay me for the damage to my property and for the attempted attack on my health. I could have done that. But I felt sorry for this unusual, smiling girl.
It was clear that the amount of money was huge for her family, and this incident would have gone on her record, potentially closing the doors of many higher education institutions to her. I just could not bring myself to ruin her life like that.
My hand would not hesitate to kill heroes, villains, or police officers. They knew what they were getting into. If my life were threatened, I might kill a bystander. But I try not to. Even when I killed Omnipresent, taking his family hostage was a last resort.
One might think I was noble and not a bad person. That was utter nonsense. I just did not want to become like those scumbags from Haijima, who also did not care about the broken, stolen lives of others. And I was afraid of becoming a complete psychopath, a rabid beast with no principles or limits. Maybe that would make me strong, but it would not be me anymore. It would be a completely unprincipled, sadistic bastard drunk on his own ego, or a man with cold eyes indifferently and rationally watching children suffer.
So could I just let the girl go if I felt sorry for her?
Let someone who had broken MY FIRST HEADPHONES go unpunished? Not a chance. I wanted moral compensation in the form of her suffering and anxiety while she tried to fix the situation. When she started making excuses about materials and tools, I offered to use mine. I had been thinking about making a device to intercept police frequencies anyway, and I wanted to work with devices of that type.
As I walked home with her, I thought about how I would put psychological pressure on her while she tried to fix the headphones, and then, at the very end, I would graciously forgive her.
But as I answered the dozens of questions from the girl with pink hair that slightly resembled dreadlocks, and tried to stop her from coming up with ideas that would lead to something explosive, one persistent thought ran through my head.
Was this punishment for her, or for me?