The Stray

Part 11 - Polished by the River or Scored by the Landslides?

Izuku has had a very tough life, the question is, did he treat life like a river and let it polish him, or did life push back too hard, leaving him with a scratched and buffed surface?

Either way, the result is a very unique person, where beauty is in all his marks.

P.S. -- I was tired when I did this chapter, so the writing's a bit . . . slow, I guess. I took in the scenery as I wrote this, and so did Izuku. Sorry if it's not your taste.

Image link:  https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8f/27/82/8f2782832f9714ae360e86507063a6b8.jpg

~ Nezumi

Polished by the River or Scored by the Landslides?

My brain felt like pudding. And not even the good kind of pudding-- if felt like the one with lumps and pudding-clots. The bad-kind-where-it-felt-a-little-too-solid-for-it-to-still-be-called-pudding-yet-not-solid-enough-to-be-called-a-solid pudding.

"Is he ok?" Hizashi mutter-asks Shouta out of the corner of his mouth. He was attempting to be discreet, quiet, but his whispers tended to sound like normal talking, so I could still easily hear him from my pile of blankets I was burrowed under. I didn't much care though-- nobody cares about things like that when their brains are pudding.

"Would you like to take one of Nezu's personally-designed tests?" Shouta asks back, not even bothering to try and lower his voice. I could hear him tapping steadily across his keyboard. The kind man types neither fast nor slow but at a steady pace that rarely breaks it's rhythm, giving away how familiar Shouta is with the activity.

Hizashi makes a sympathetic noise.

I wasn't lying when I described my head as pudding. It took hours--  hours-- for me to finish the packets. Yes, I self-taught and studied even when on the streets but I couldn't remember the last time I had to sit down for more than an hour and do something to mentally taxing-- not to mention emotionally taxing. Remembering made me depressed in the worst way and it made the headache I had acquired even harsher.

I had neglected my brain and it was now showing in the form of a nasty migraine that made the lights turn into stabby knives and sounds into crashing cymbals.

When I was done with the testing (and nearly in tears) I actually made grabby hands until Shouta was forced to carry me back to the apartment (I'm never that attention hogging usually-- the memory's so embarrassing!). With the way Midnight and Hizashi cackled I doubt the kind man and I would be living it down any time soon.

(I was also pretty sure I heard the sound of pictures being taken too-- and I hadn't thought Hound Dog to be that type.)

The tests had been exactly what I had and exactly what I hadn't expected.

I had expected the fact that they would test my knowledge from the most basic problems of the subject (2 + 2 and identifying the verb) to some problems at my grade level and then beyond.

What I had not expected was the slew of problems that asked him to explain. There had also been a lot of moral questions slipped in both the Japanese and English sections-- despite there being a whole section dedicated to philosophy.

I quickly realized they were feeling out my mental state and my moral status (joke's on them, he knew the meaning of pretty much every possible Rorschach inkblot, and Nezu only got the many possible meanings for each one-- not my interpretation as they were surely hoping for).

Still, the tests were long and arduous and I regret having not spent more time in the local library.

Pudding brains. I have pudding for brains. My prize possession and it's turned into pudding.