Blessings, curses, abilities, or powers, it doesn’t matter what you call them. All that matters is how you use them.

The light of dawn creeps over the horizon of a nondescript city in Tokyo.

Thump, thump, thump

Echoes of footsteps cover the space of the 2nd floor of a parking garage. The sound of shoes running on the garage floor echoes in the early morning. A man with emerald green eyes and slightly wavy, ear-length dirty blonde hair, his bangs are combed back out of his face, revealing a horizontal scar above his left eyebrow. The scar starts at the eyebrow and fades towards the temple, stopping just before the ear. He is holding a long bamboo-handle net, one used to catch beetles. He quickly turns a corner in the parking garage, chasing a beautiful parakeet. Soft pink is its predominant color with gold shimmering along the edges of its feathers, intensifying at the tips of the wings. The bird flies through the parking garage like a fighter jet as the man swings the net in a futile attempt at catching the bird as it darts through the parking garage until the bird suddenly makes a sharp left, exiting the parking garage through an opening.

The man pauses to let out a sigh before charging towards the opening. In one smooth motion, he leaps out and swings the net towards the bird but only for a moment, for gravity has other plans for him.

“Ah, 2nd floor, that’s right.” He chuckles to himself as he starts to fall.

He swings the net towards a utility pole and for a brief moment it snags on it, causing him to swing and shift his trajectory. Unfortunately, the net breaks where the net meets the handle. His body bounces off the roof of a convenience store but if that swing hadn’t changed his path, he would’ve smacked into the road a full story below.

Thump

Two workers inside the convenience store look up at the ceiling towards the noise. Above them, the man groans in pain as he rolls onto his back. His head tilts up towards the sky as he catches his breath. Just then he spots the gold shimmer of the tips of the bird’s feathers as it slips into a window of a nearby apartment.

“Come on. You lied to me.” He murmured.

He tries to roll onto his side for a better view of the apartment, not realizing he is on the edge of the roof. He reaches out to stop from rolling off but it’s too late.

“Ah-” is all he manages to get out before he smacks the top of a dumpster, bouncing onto the cold morning pavement behind the store.

He lets out another groan, but this is more out of  defeat than pain. As he sprawls himself out on the ground, the morning light bathes the aching body of Elio Sato, giving us a clear view of him. In his mid-20s and standing at 176cm. Elio wears a plain sky-blue V-neck shirt, tan baggy harem pants, and a pair of plain brown running shoes. Though hard to notice under his clothes his athletic build is evident.

As Elio lies on his back, he interlocks his fingers on his stomach and thinks out loud. “So that means that old man does have the bird. Now, how do I get back into his place this time? He doesn’t like me and he told the building people to ban me from getting back in. How does that work? Can he even do that? Do they have a photo of me up at the front desk? Or did he just mention me to them? I could sneak in. Maybe a disguise? That could be fun but I don’t think I can do that. Maybe I can just change in. No, that’ll cause more trouble.”

He closes his eyes and sighs. “I got to get in and get out fast.”

After a moment of silence he opens his eyes. “Guess I gotta climb up to the balcony of his apartment that’s on the… 8th floor. That’s gonna be a pain but it’s a corner apartment, so that helps.”

He lets out an annoyed sigh. “If only I had an ability to-”

“Hey,” A sudden voice breaks his solo conversation. “Did you just make all that noise?” Question one of the convenience store worker who’s peeking out of the back door of the store.

Elio tilts his head back toward the door and sees a 170cm tall woman with brown eyes, her black hair resting at her shoulders in a ponytail. She wears a convenience store uniform. On the uniform is a name tag that reads “Ena Kano”.

“Yeah.” Elio sits up facing Ena as he crosses his legs. “I fell on the roof…Then I fell off the roof.”

Ena looks up at the roof. “You fell on the roof?” she looks down at Elio. “Then off? Uh, are you okay? Should I call an ambulance?”

Elio leans back with his arms supporting him from behind. “No, I’m fine. I just need to get that bird and then I’ll take a nice bath.”

Ena looks around, “Bird? Why?”

“Yeah, I got hired to catch this bird. I’ve been searching for it for days and I finally found it in that parking garage.”

“And that caused you to jump onto the store's roof?”

 “It flew off out, so I had to go after it but it was on the 2nd floor and well, I landed onto your roof. Then onto this ground.”

Ena looks confused as she stares up at the parking garage next to the store. “You fell from a two-story high? How are you fine?”

“I’m fine. I landed on the roof anyways, so it wasn’t that far of a fall. I just gotta catch my breath, then I’ll get that bird.”

“What kind of bird is it? Is it a special or something?”

“Nothing special about it! It’s just a bird!” Elio chuckles, “An old lady hired me to get it from her Ex-husband. On the first day, I went to the Ex-husband’s place and kindly asked him about the bird and he kindly showed me his place and that, in fact, there was no bird. He told me he freed the bird to spite his Ex-wife.”

Eilo looks at the apartment building and then at the parking garage. “However, I just saw the bird fly back to his place. And get this, before it went into the parking garage, I was following it from the direction of their old house. What could that mean?” 

Elio starts to talk to himself. “Did he train the bird to stay at the old house? He did get it in the divorce. And he taught it to fly to his new place? How would he have done that? When would he have had time to teach the bird that? Before the divorce?”

Ena looks worried at this rambling man. “You think he trained the bird to hide in the old house so when you searched for it, it wouldn’t be there. That seems a bit much.”

“If you knew how much they despise each other, it wouldn’t surprise you if he had trained that bird to do that. But I don’t care what he did, I just need to get it back.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I can't go through the front door. So I was thinking of climbing up the side to the balcony and using that door. Then I sneak in and grab the bird.”

“Why can’t you use the front door?”

“For some odd reason, I’m not allowed back in that apartment building, so I gotta get to his apartment without being seen.”

“Why aren’t you allowed back? Didn’t you say he “kindly” showed you around? How kind was it?”

“Pretty kind is how I remember it but if you ask him he might say I shoved my way inside and was “illegally entering a private property.” But that’s just a matter of perspective.”

Suspicion grows on Ena’s face. “Sounds like you are tried to break into a guy's house and steal his birds.”

Elio chuckles as he stands up. “I know, right.”

“Well, good luck with that.” Ena nods as she tries to get out of the conversation.

“Thanks, I just wa-” Eilo stumbles as he takes a step.

Ena steps toward Elio to help him stand. He places his hand on her shoulder to steady himself. Those falls he’s taken might have had more of an effect than he thought.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ena worries.

Elio steadies himself on Ena’s shoulder when suddenly his eyes widen and he looks up at Ena with an ecstatic smile. “Ahh, you are wonderful. I’m quite lucky today.”

Ena takes a step back. “Stop that, I don’t like men.”

Elio claps his hands in front of his face. “You’re an ability user. Just when I started to miss them one comes to find me.”

 “Wh-what are you talking about?” Ena stutters.

Elio places his hands on both sides of Ena’s head as she looks shocked.

“It’s been a while, so let’s get a good read.” Elio starts to tilt Ena’s head from side to side. “Ah, I see. What a fun one. In the shape of a hemisphere, you can add the property of elasticity to an object you touch. Diameter is 10cm. With a 5cm radius, that would make the circumference 31. 42cm, yeah 31.42cm. Which means the volume is 261.8cm3.”

Ena steps back from Elio. “What are you talking about?”

Elio tilts his head back with eyes glazed. “That’s kind of small. Not at birth but puberty. Maybe in your late teens. Were you a late bloomer? And don’t use it much, huh shame.”

 “How…how do you know that, about my ability? Who are you? What are you?” Ena questions, mouth agape.

Eilo picks up a screw from the ground and places it between his thumb and index finger. He squeezes his fingers and as if he was bending a straw, the screw bends in half. Elio examines the bent screw with delight. “Even though the volume of elasticity isn’t much. If I lower the volume, I can increase the strength of the elasticity. Nice and balance.”

Elio releases the bent screw and like a freed spring it flies off into the sky. He looks up at the flying screw. “That’s fun.”

He looks at Ena with a cheerful smile. “What do you call it, your ability?”

Ena shakes her head, disagreeing with Eilo. “Fun? No, it’s not.” She scoffed. “I call it a pain in the ass. It caused me nothing but trouble.”

She points at Elio. “Now answer my questions. Who are you? How do you know about my ability and what’s with all that math?”

“Oh,” Elio looks dejected for a moment. “You don’t like it. I guess that’s not too uncommon. Still a shame.”

“Not really, please answer my questions.”

“Oh yeah.” Elio perks back up. “I’m Elio Sato and I’m an ability user just like you.”

“You are? Oh, I’m Ena Kano.” An excited, curious smile envelopes Ena’s face as she starts to rapidly ask questions. “Really?  You have an ability too? I’ve never met anyone with one too. What is yours? When did you get yours? How many people have them? How do they work? How can you control it?”

Elio lets out a long exhale. “Man, that’s a lot. But yes, I have an ability. I've had my ability since birth. There isn’t a solid number on us but they say 1% of 1% of humans have an ability. But how did they get that number? I doubt every county shares their info about us, so do they just make an estimation? Is it based off of a ratio from one region or multiply? 1% of 1% might be right. If it was only a 10th of what they claim, that would still make sense. I bet it’s because of the budget. But if either of those percentages are true, that’s still millions of us.”

“Millions of us? So there’s a lot of people like me?”

“Like you? You are the 1st that I’ve came across that has an elastic ability. So not exactly like you but most abilities are unique, one of a kind.” Elio pauses. “That’s probably not what you meant. There are lots of us, if that’s what you were asking.”

 “But some can seem very similar to everyone except me.” Elio lets out a chuckle. “However, I can see and feel all their differences, size, shape, texture.”

“You can feel them? Is that your ability?”

Eilo smirks. “Locate, identify, Alter. The keyword there is Alter, which is the name of my ability.”

 “Alter?”

“Good name, right? I didn’t think of it, but it’s still good.”

 “You used that and that’s how you knew about my ability? How does it work?”

Elio cups his eyes for shade and scans from side to side. “Locate, find an ability.”

He then puts his pointer fingers on his temples. “Identify, figure out what the abilities properties are.”

Next, he rubs his hands together like he’s molding clay with them. “Alter, Change aspects of the ability but still keeping its balance, then I can use it.”

Ena looks dumbfounded. “What.. You have three abilities? And you can copy abilities?”

“It might look like it, but it’s all one with phases for it to work. And just between you and me, Locate is just a weak form of identify but three phases sound better than two. It’s not a one-to-one copy, I need to alter it first. Take for example, what I did with your ability. I decrease the volume but increase the strength of the elasticity. Which sent the screw flying” Elio looks up. “I wonder where it went.”

“You bent that screw with my ability. But my ability only works on my feet. So you can also change where you can use it too?

“No.” Elio looks confused. “Any part of your body can use it. It’s an external ability; any part just needs to touch the object. Have you only used your feet? Is that why you think it’s only your feet? Maybe that’s where it awakened for you and you never thought about using your hands, it happens often.”

Ena looks stunned. “Whoa, you’re right. When I was 16, I was running track and noticed it felt like I was bouncing on the track. Like I was running on a trampoline. Ever since then, I would have had moments of feeling like I was bouncing when running. Was that when I “awakened”?”

Elio rubs his chin. “16? Yeah, late bloomer. Most awakenings happen at the start of puberty, 16 is a bit late for a woman but maybe that’s the first time you noticed it. Maybe you Bounce before but hadn’t noticed. I’ve-” Elio pauses as he gets lost in thought.

“wait!” Elio Shouts. “bouncing!”

 Ena gets a little spooked by the sudden shout. “Yes? Is that important?”

“Of course it is. It’s very important. Bouncing, bounce, bouncing, bounce.”

Elio pauses and nods his head, agreeing with himself.  “Yeah, Bounce, that’s it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s the name of your ability. I was trying to think of something with elasticity but nothing felt right. Then you mentioned feeling like you bounce on the ground and there it was, Bounce. That’s smooth, rolls of the tongue.”

“That’s what you were thinking about?” Ena remarks. “I don’t care about the name.”

“But…it’s a cool name,” Elio whispers. “I haven’t been able to name an ability in so long and I’m so good at it.” He pouts.

Ena sighs. “Fine, yeah, it’s a fine name.”

“Right, I’m good at na-”

Clank!

The back door slams open.