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mr-steal-your-lute
eatbreathewrite
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You’re beginning to suspect the quiet guy in your office of being a Superhero. He constantly disappears with flimsy excuses just before a local vigilante is seen saving the day and he clearly has supernatural talents. As it turns out, he’s just a regular guy

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eatbreathewrite

To tell the truth, coworkers come in and out of the office for various reasons throughout the day. It’s nothing special, nothing to really pay much attention to. Under normal circumstances, I really wouldn’t care, but this is a special case.

Because when he disappears, that asshole’s workload gets pushed onto me along with every single deadline, no leeway, no extensions—nothing. I’m the one who gets lectured by our jerk boss when something’s late, and he’s free to go on his merry way doing whatever the heck he does when he’s not working.

So, at some point, I started paying attention. Watched hour-by-boring-hour how he quietly remained in his cubicle across from mine, not often speaking to anyone aside from business calls to the big boss’s office and, even less often, personal calls on his own phone. Most of the time he sat there typing up spreadsheets, shooting off e-mails and, I guess, getting up to take a pee break or get coffee from the kitchen.

Once, when he was away, I noticed the police scanner on his desk, hooked up with the earphones I thought he used to listen to the Beastie Boys since he had their posters tacked up along his walls in a collage with mountain-climbing magazine pages, calendars and messy reminder notes. Not an uncommon object—people had them, sometimes, for whatever reason.

But he sure as hell didn’t need one in the office.

So I bought one, too, and eventually matched up his absentee excuses of picking up his dry-cleaning (those shirts were never pressed), picking up his dog from the groomer (he had a cat, going by the hair on those un-pressed shirts), taking lunch to his son because he was in a rush that morning and forgot (his cat was his kid, according to social media), or just going for a ridiculously long bathroom break, with the times of local incidents.  

Not just any incidents, like fender-benders or petty theft, but the incidents. The ones where our resident superhero and pain-in-the-ass to law enforcement everywhere, Right Hand of Justice, intervenes and saves the day. The first time, I could write it off as coincidence. The second, sure, maybe. But the third was stretching it and the fourth, fifth—and the entire month after, like clockwork, all matched up in a way that far surpassed just uncanny.

There’s no way this guy is a Clark Kent, or a Peter Parker or a Bruce Wayne. No way. Not the boring, quiet guy with shirts that are never ironed properly and hair that’s rarely, if ever, brushed. Not the guy who has awful taste in music and politely laughs at cat videos the elderly receptionist shows him at lunch. Not the guy who always turns in meticulous notes and never misses a deadline, unlike everyone else, and definitely not the guy who can balance fifteen cups of coffee for the whole office when he arrives late. Well, maybe that guy, because he’s definitely an exemplary employee to the point of being suspicious—when he’s here to do the work, at least—and it’s likely thanks to all that that the boss keeps him on the payroll.

But—could he really be…?

No. No way. His desktop background is a photo of the Right Hand of Justice—a really nice air-shot of our resident hero going in for a right strike, gauntlet glimmering in the sunlight. A rare, hi-res, un-watermarked shot I’d seen on popular magazines a few weeks back.

No hero would be that vain.

He doesn’t have the bearing for it. Where the Right Hand is confident, brazen to the point of being obnoxious, and punches like a heavyweight, this guy is sullen, meek, and avoids all conflict. And if he is such a stand-up citizen-slash-superhero, why does he have to shirk his responsibilities and drop them on me so damn often?

I have to know—have to prove that tiny doubt in my mind wrong—so I follow him on a day where we have a miraculously light workload and the boss is in a generous mood.

The crime scene is within walking distance. He makes a beeline for the parking lot and pops the trunk of his SUV, quickly exchanges his loafers for a pair of sneakers and grabs a backpack that looks suspiciously like it could hold an entire, familiar black costume and an iconic iron gauntlet, before taking off down the alley at a surprisingly fit jog.

He sticks to the back streets, out of sight, before ducking into a conveniently dark alley that has no out. If I’m going to get the truth, if I’m going to catch him, it’s definitely there.

I move in to corner him.

“You have so much explaining to do—”

But really, he doesn’t.

There’s a DSLR camera in his hands, equipped fully with everything needed to capture a superhero close-up and in action. Not only that, but in the short time it took me to cross the street and confront him, he’d traded his office attire for a pair of sweatpants and a tank top. Not a super hero get-up by any means.

He stows the prepped camera carefully away atop a pile of wadded-up clothes and zips the backpack slowly, eyes glued on me in surprise, shocked into silence.

“You’re a photographer?” I say, but then it seems so obvious—enough that I feel stupid, but at least immensely relieved that he’s not a masked vigilante. “You’re a photographer. The one who slips the mainstream media all the best shots. You’re the Peter Parker to Spider-Man, just—without the Spider-Man part.”

“You followed me?—No, wait, what? Who did you think I was?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Did you really think I didn’t notice you slipping away each time the Right Hand appears?”

He shakes his head, looking antsy, and points his thumb over his shoulder. “Look, I gotta go or I’ll miss him. You won’t tell the boss I’m moonlighting, right?”

“It seems like a pretty good idea since all your work gets shoved on me anyway.”

“I am sorry about that. It’s just, a guy’s gotta pay off his student loans and we never get raises, so…”

“Really no surprise you never get a raise.”

He moves to his feet. “Ok, you’re mad. I get that. Can we talk about this later?”

“Yeah, we will. And we have a lot to talk about.”

“Deal. See you back at the office.”

That said, he gives a casual wave before jumping up on a dumpster, grabbing the fire escape railing and parkouring up to the rooftop in pursuit of a photo op.

Maybe he isn’t such a boring guy after all—but he’s definitely no superhero.

#writing
mr-steal-your-lute
faketextsfromlastmight
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faketextsfromlastmight
Principal Nezu : How are we going to catch this traitor?
Present Mic : Why don't we get Class 1-B to produce a play about betrayal? And then make Class 1-A watch it? That way we can study their facial expressions to find a spectator who looks weirdly uncomfortable.
Principal Nezu : Okay, Hizashi, two things. One: just because you're plagiarizing "Hamlet" doesn't mean it's a clever idea. Two: the fact I don't have a better one makes me want to cry.
#my hero academia