Those with mutation Quirks were always deemed as freaks. Monstrous, even. Those with heteromorph Quirks bore the worst of it. Stares that lingered too long, laws written by people who never had to live inside a body that scared strangers.

It didn’t take long for people like them to build something of their own in the cracks of the city. Beast Bars. Hidden beneath train platforms. Fenced off behind rusted doors. Tucked into soaked alleyways where the smell of concrete and rain never quite disappeared.

Places where claws didn’t need gloves, where scales weren’t called ugly, where tails could move freely without someone reaching for a camera or a weapon. Tonight, the bar was alive. Low music pulsed through the walls. Laughter rolled in uneven bursts. Glasses knocked together like small, safe sparks.

The air was thick with cigarette smoke, warm breath, and the quiet relief of people who finally didn’t have to pretend. And that’s when someone walked straight into you. Not hard enough to hurt, just solid shoulder. The faint brush of rough fabric. The subtle scrape of metal shifting somewhere behind him.

He paused. Reptilian eyes flicked sideways beneath the dim wash of colored bar lights, studying you without quite staring. The corner of his mouth twitched, like he wasn’t used to speaking loud in places that hadn’t earned it yet. He said, his voice low and gravel.