TWO YEARS LATER.
#
June twenty-sixth.
12:04 (PM).
Sticky.
Humid. Solid. Blistering. Unnatural...!
It was acknowledged by and, thus seemed to levy on all the senses: dense, palpable air so thick it seemed to generate a gravitational force of its own.
On this particular day, outside was a cinerary hell hole saved only for those with a predisposed propensity for death— Yes, death seemed to reign from the sky and rise from the ground, and crawl out of every crevice it could.
Water was in such awful scarcity, and there weren't any clouds nor high-rise structures to offer shade; one could feel every droplet navigate through and drip from every follicle and pore on their body.
Truthfully, all could be said in a word: it was unbearably hot.
This particular officer understood that more than anyone in this particular area, as he was the only one outside.
"Man, I could seriously die in this heat— couldn't I?"
He was drenched with perspiration; it was dense on his forehead, under his neck, spread over his arms and armpits, in the air gap between his glutes, and even inside of them.
To him, such perspiration did nothing more than make him smelly and grossly incumbent. He sat on a lawn chair in a patch of wild city grass a few paces from his official post: a small station box that promised a slow heat death such he foolishly enter and attempt to perform his more sedentary duties— paperwork.
He was in a slouching pose; his thighs and arms were maximally spread, staring upwards at the sun.
At first, he placed a magazine on his face, but the plastic started to irritate the skin over his eyelids. Then he shut his eyes with as much force as he could, and even that became tiring. Finally, he found that a mix of both techniques had been ultimately sufficient.
"LALA-LALALALALLALALA- WHOP- WHOPPPP."
The officer started making random noises, partly to keep himself awake, but mostly because he was bored.
"WEWOOWEOOWE-HELLL YEAH!!... Why am I even heeeere— 'Park! I want you on jigu-dae duty this month.' HELL YEAH! from traffic duty to local service, I'm sure moving up in the world! WHOP- WHOPPPP!" The officer animated: gesticulating his hands in a sarcastic manner.
The magazine dropped from his forehead.
"Ah! Shit..."
He bent down, picking it up from the wild grass and shaking all the blades and earth collected by all the forehead sweat on the magazine.
That little maneuver cost him tremendous exhaustion: every last apparatus in his body seemed to ache and groan; streams of droplets poured from every hole of any kind.
"Man... I'm going to quit this fucking job and go to Busan or something."
The officer had decided to try to get some sleep.
"Hello."
At first, the possibility didn't even register: that he was being greeted. He did not remove the magazine from his face.
"... Huh?"
"Hello, Officer."
"Um, how are you doing today?"
"I'm doing well, thank you for asking."
"Yeah, no problem... Sooo, how can I help you?"
"I would like you to help me find my mother."
"You lost her? She's probably back home then— right, yeah?"
"I don't remember exactly where we lived."
"Uh- fuck, what does he- I mean she look like?"
"I don't remember."
The officer knew, even from the start of the encounter, he did not have within him the inclination, the disposition, the patience, nor— this in no particular fault of his own, the energy to maintain a professional cordiality. He defaulted to the tone he would use with his contemporaries, superiors, friends, and even family.
"You don't remember what your own mother looks like?! Holy shit, go away kid— quit being a fucking nuisance. Don't you-"
He coughed and subsequently lost all the natural timbre in his voice.
"Know when and where to play pranks? Don't you see I'm dying out in this- heat wave— hell if I know whatever this is, and you have the gall to do some shit like-"
He kept coughing; he held his magazine in place with one hand.
"I believe she still is in Musutafu; I believe Musutafu is a bit south of the Kanto region" said the boy.
"Stop talking; stop talking! Look what you're doing— do you think I won't slap the shit out of you just because you're a kid?— Huh?"
The officer's tone had dramatically crescendoed.
"You expect me to believe that you lost your mother in Japan while you're on Jeju Island— how could that possibly even happen!? Do you expect me to believe she left you here or something— or you ran away? Even if that were true, how could I possibly help you with that?
How would a Japanese boy even know how to speak perfect Korean?!
Don't make me take this magazine off my head and have to spank you in this hot ass sun, you little conniving fuck!"
"..."
"And don't come back!"
That was it: the officer had spent all the latent zeal he'd found within him to lambaste the poor boy; the heat exhaustion had returned and promptly riposted, and he dramatically sank further into his lawn chair.
Before he dozed off, he thought: "Yeah, I'm definitely quitting this job tomorrow."
7:51
Sanctuary from death: the first touches of sunset.
A considerable amount of the sun's corona had disappeared below the earth; the harsh drop in temperature hadn't gone unnoticed by the subconscious sensors of the body.
The officer had groaned and immediately felt the effects of sleeping in such an obtuse position.
He had removed the magazine from his forehead and met with the sunset that developed his suspicion of the time.
He had fully aligned himself on the chair, in an attempt to stretch and stand up for a piss, when he looked to the right and visibly jolted.
There was a young man— no doubt that same young man from earlier, with an outstretched arm holding a glass bottle of milk with three fingers and the stem of a small wild flower between two.
He was dressed strikingly feminine: in a white sun dress past his knees, a small white cardigan to protect his shoulders with floral allusions all along the skirt bottom and ribbon belt, and a laurel crown of roses.
The officer stared on and on, for a while— even.
"Hello, officer."
"... What do you want?"
"I would like you to help me find my mother."
"Who are you?"
"I don't know if I can answer that question correctly. I have a name tag."
The young man, with his undeployed arm, pointed to the 'name tag' he mentioned, a branding on the side of his right calf.
"JAPAN-971: MIDORIYA."
The officer blinked, audibly.
2 WEEKS LATER.
July tenth.
"Hawks! I need you in my office!" the chief barked.
—A few moments later: hawks entered.
"What's up?"
"What's up?!" the chief reenacted.
"You heroes have no respect for chain of command, or even basic honorifics!"
"Sooorry, sir-chief sir!"
The chief sighed, resigning the chastisement; he returned to his computer, typing away.
"Sir, how can I be of use to the great Musutafu police department— and all of greater society today, sir-chief sir!!"
The chief glared him down from the corner of his right eye.
"Enough with the jokes, hawks! I need you to escort that boy to his mother— can you do that?!"
"What boy?"
"The one sitting in the waiting area."
Hawks peered outside the door.
"Are you talking about the one in the dress?"
"I am."
"Why is he here?"
"... Do you remember that green-haired woman from a couple years ago— the one you flew in?"
"Yeah, with the missing boy."
"That's him; they just deported him from Korea."
"Korea?! How did he get to Korea?"
"He says he doesn't know; he says he doesn't remember much. The N.S.A and Foreign Affairs think he was trafficked and escaped his captors there, so they agreed to expunge him."
"Shouldn't he be in witness protection then?"
"They say they don't have any conclusive proof he's in danger, or that he was trafficked. They couldn't pursue much from this anyway."
"Why not?"
"There's not a lot of precedence for this type of situation."
"Then what makes them so sure he was trafficked?"
"He has a tattoo on his right calf: he was branded."
Hawks looked outside again.
"...Whoa. Yeah, he really does look like her— with the freckles and all... How did they find him?"
"They didn't: he came to them."
Hawks went outside.
"Yo! Boy— or do you prefer to be called girl?"
"Hello, flying hero hawks. I am a boy."
"Would you like to be flown or driven to your mother's house?"
The boy smiled.