[Samaritan]

Michael Faraday

Slowed by Politeness

Michael made his way through the festival. It was everything he imagined from the event and it was only just beginning. Rows upon rows of standings selling foods, novelties, souvenirs, experiences. Some were games and activities. Attractions and performances. And reaching for the larger buildings and designated areas were the Sports Festival competitions. Michael was thrilled to enter and compete in as many as he could. This was not only a great opportunity to really test their meddle in a variety of challenges, but this was a chance to showcase themselves and their talents for the world to see. For many of them with would be their introduction to the hero world, a possibility to be cherry-picked by agencies and revealed to the general public as a rising star.

Michael didn’t so much care for the glory and recognition as he wanted to really have fun and push himself to new and creative heights. He was not looking forward to some of the more aggressive competitions but he actually had a few friends that were already wanting to act as a team in events like the fighting tournaments. So he would take on even those challenges with a grain of salt, using it as an opportunity to defuse combat through minimal threat/damage contact. The other competitions sounded fun, some even were suppose to have balloons being used! He hadn’t looked much into what exactly was happening in them, but they had balloons! It was a no brainer for him to enter, right?

Aside from the competitions, Michael had agreed to assist a few of the vendor booths throughout the festival. Whether it was the Maid/Butler Cafe his class had organized or a few of the game booths that his friends were running, Michael was more than happy to help out any way he could. This did put a damper on free time, so he would need to move between festival activities and events rather quickly… the biggest issue with that was Michael’s overly polite nature.

Michael was kind of physically large and from all his training at UAU he had actually grown a deal more muscular and beefy in size. As polite as he was, this made transversing through crowds difficult. He didn’t want to be rude or intrusive, so he would gingerly weave himself around the throngs of people rather slowly as he did his best to not disturb anyone's personal space. A number of his friends did not like physical contact at least spontaneously, so to be as courteous as possible, Michael inconvenienced himself to make his way through the crowds to assure comfort. He would apologize despite not bumping into anyone as he would squeeze past others, but he also didn’t raise his voice so not to startle anyone. Even with the nearly doubled amount of time to get anyways, Michael was beaming with excitement and joy from the festival and all the people having a good time!

Notes & Tags: Yunagi Katahara

TLDR: Michael makes his ways through the festival as non-intrusively as possible while he checks out all the booths, events and happy people.

[Yunagi Katahara]

Suddenly, out of the maid cafe that Michael had passed by, the sound of plates crashing through the business could be heard from blocks down the way. Some long periods of shouting and and frantic speech later, it had calmed down enough, though not without its fallout. Out of the shadowed cafe interior came a purple blur that had managed to speed down the stairway on the side of the path way and into the crowd. The female had tripped on her way down and faceplanted in the middle of everybody present at the time. A UA staff member had come out and down the stairs while some of the other maids and servers inside poked their head out to see what was going on. "Yunagi!" She said nothing, tears streaming down her face while hiding the red mark on her forehead. The man offered out a hand to help her up. "I know I was harsh, but I can't keep affording new plates. I promised I would help you find a new station, so if you would just let me-" The girl picked herself up and dashed off down the way. Yunagi's balance was still upset by the black heels as part of her outfit. The run away had accidentally smacked into the side of Michael, which sent her down once more, only to be back up and sprinting away.

"Damn it, I thought I was being soft enough." The staff member said dejectedly. He looked up at the crowd gathering that was dispersing as just as quickly as it had formed around the cafe. A green haired student with pigtails and a pink version of the maid uniform would step out onto the deck. Her attire was littered with hearts and clattered with every step. "I have no idea why you'd hire the one student in the entire school who destroys things and can't control herself to boot. She spilled tea all over this outfit because of her stupid dust shit." The staff member shot her a look before giving a sigh and making his way back inside of the maid cafe.

If Michael were to follow the emotional maid, her path was fairly clear to follow. Turned heads and people staring in a direction everywhere, with murmurings going across the walkway. "Did you see that one maid almost run into the cotton candy cart? She looked like something was wrong." All of it culminating into Yunagi crouched down in the nearby alleyway between trailers and tents. "Ah-I'm sorry. Sorry." Around here, the many flyers and scattered debris in the alley had began to...smoke?! A thinly veiled steam was visible from them, though they never did catch on fire. Instead, the paper on the wall had began to disintegrate into a thinly veiled dust that stuck in the air around the girl. She hadn't noticed Michael and clutched her purple head, wincing to herself as she was pleading with nobody to cease whatever she was doing. "N-Not here, please not here. I can't get in trouble again..."

Samaritan

[Samaritan]

Michael Faraday

Reaching Out

Michael watched in surprise and confusion as the young woman ran from the school festival’s Maid cafe. Moments before there had been a cacophony of shattering ceramic plates that had caught his attention and caused him to rush towards the sound. He was worried someone had gotten hurt. He had witnessed the scene of the young woman being spoken too by the managing staff member and even heard the compassionless comments of their fellow classmates. Michael didn’t know the full context but that didn’t stop him from hurrying after the young woman.

Michael caught up as quickly as possible to the woman who had finally stopped to break down in an alleyway. She seemed so distraught as she apologized to the world around her, clearly overwhelmed. “Excuse me…” Michael said softly. “Are you okay?”

Michael had learned early on from a few of his more introverted friends, that while physical contact like a hug or a hand on the shoulder could be very grounding, he knew that it never helped to surprise someone by touching them non-consensually. He remained a few steps back but extended a hand down towards her gently, upturned for her to close the distance if she so chose to.

“I think I’ve seen you in a couple classes before but we’ve never gotten around to actually meeting. You’re Katahara-san, right? I’m Michael.” He tried to calm the situation down by trying to draw her attention away from her panic and to focus on something simple, like their names. Despite not having a face to help convey expression, Michael’s body language and tone did a great deal of the heavy lifting to come across as gentle concern.

Notes & Tags: Yunagi Katahara

TLDR: Michael hurried after Yunagi and tried to talk to her to help begin easing her panic attack

[Yunagi Katahara]

"Wh-Wha?" The sudden appearance of a voice around her had caught Yunagi off guard, as she spun around and came face-to-face with...a balloon man? Her eyes locked onto the shiny red air bubble for a moment, then trailed downwards to his human torso before rising back up with hesitation. "Oh. Sorry, I didn't see you..." He offered his hand out for her to take while she flinched at the movement offered and braced herself for a sudden pinch or poke that never came. She listened to the man's words as he introduced himself as Michael. She pursed her lips in thought, the dust particles still blowing in the alleyway while she slowly stuck out her hand in his own. "Yeah, I've seen you in class sometimes. It's nice to meet you, Michael. Sorry if I worried you..."

Yunagi tugged at her maid uniform some, the dark black base coat stained with some rather faded looking marks of various spilled drinks and more. It was embarrassing wearing this, feeling her legs catch the occasional breeze while talking to Michael. "I, um, worked at the maid cafe back there for a friend who called out sick. But just because of my quirk and its effects, it's been...hard." A single head cant was made to the dust inside of the alley, made up from the previous small materials around them that had once been fully recognizable items. Tiny white specks dotted the sea of lavender hair that went down to her midback while Yunagi bit her bottom lip in thought. "This whole hero thing is still pretty new to me. I just found out about my quirk a couple of months ago. I'm, ah, still working on control." A part of her envied the other people of the UAU. Just heroes who had their powers for years, if not decades, and could master them within seconds. And here she was, some fuck up who had the miracle of getting a quirk after 18 years of utter hell.

"What are you doing here, though? I would have figured somebody like you would be participating or something."

Samaritan

[Samaritan]

Michael Faraday

You’re Doing Great

Michael smiled imperceptibly behind his bright red latex head as the young woman took his hand. Michael gently helped lift her back to her feet, keeping a light hold of her hand while having his other held aloft behind her incase she fell again. While she didn’t appear to be injured, she was rather dirty from her apparent accidents at the cafe and now dust that wafted through the alleyway. “I have some free time before I’m needed to participate in a few things.” Michael assured her, right now, making sure she was okay was all that mattered.

“Quirks can be rather difficult to deal with, so I can only imagine how hard you’re having adjusting to something so new just as you are becoming an adult.” Michael ran his hand against his balloon head as if stroking through imaginary hair. “I was born with the rubbery aspect but being able to manipulate the gas inside me came later and being able to manipulate the rubber came even later then that. Each time felt so foreign, like I was using something that didn’t belong to me. It was terrifying to not feel like I could even trust my own body. But with hard work and support from my friends and family, I found out it was all me to begin with.”

Michael beamed warmly down to her, his body language having to charades his comforting smile. “You’re doing a great job.” Michael gave her hand he was holding a tender squeeze. His words were confident and sincere. They weren’t being said out of pity or just to make her feel better, Michael spoke with a genuine demeanor as what he said was unwavering fact. “You’re going through something brand new and you deserve so much credit for not only seeking to get better with your quirk but want to use it to become a hero. That’s amazing, but you don’t need to figure it out all at once. We can figure it out together.” While Michael’s words could make it seem like a more general ‘we’, like the school as a whole, he was fully willing to assist her himself.

“In the meantime, let’s enjoy ourselves a little. It is a festival after all. How about we grab some food and do a couple games before we head back to the cafe. I’ve got a shift there myself in a couple hours, so maybe we can work together. I feel kind of silly in the uniform; it doesn’t feel like it suits me very well. My head kind of takes away from the fancy clothes.” Michael chuckled softly. It was only now that Michael really had taken notice of her own uniform still being clung to by dust and stains from her accident. Even so it looked lovely on her, much more suited for such a cute outfit than he felt he was. “Are you feeling hungry at all? I saw a row of booths on the way over here with some delicious looking menus. My treat.”

Notes & Tags: Yunagi Katahara

TLDR: Michael comforter Yunagi and said they would figure it all out together. Michael offered, before his shift at the cafe, if she wanted to see the festival with him and get some food.