Part 26

Chewing on my pencil I watch how the others react to the news. We have finals coming up, very soon, and that's going to change how we experience the summer camp during the break as well.

I'm not worried. I'm going to be flipping my shit on the day of the test, but before that, I'm not worried. I have a tendency to study normally until the day of the test, freak out the day of the test and study crazy within the hours before the test and not actually get any of that info, and then passing the test anyways since I did study and there was no reason for me to freak out.

So for now, I'm calm. When the test comes, I'll be having a heart attack.

I chew on the pencil a bit more as I look at the paper in my hands. I don't even use wooden pencils anyways, so I have a large supply of chewable materials for class.

7th. I got 7th from midterms. Just above Jirou and just below Asui. Breaking off the bit of the pencil I was chewing, I put the broken piece to the side and begin chewing again only to feel it taken from me. Looking up, I meet the unapproving glaze of Izuku.

Right, I'm now supposed to eat pencils. Auntie Inko says so.

He puts the pencil down before grabbing something and leaving it on my desk. Picking it up as he walks away, I look at it for a bit before remembering what it is. It's someone Auntie Inko bought for me when she noticed my chewing problem.

Gum makes my jaws hurt but I can comfortably chew on chewy jewelry made for it. Putting the necklace on, I raise the rubber crystal and begin chewing on it instead, looking down and focusing back on the paper in front of me.

_____

During lunch I eat with the others, me and Izuku stealing food off of each other's plates. He got something for lunch that he likes but one of the sides he doesn't like, and the same for me. We trade those options with each other easily, but turn into war when we notice other food that the other has that we want.

This results in us stealing small bowls, random slices of food and small chunks from each other while trying to keep the other away.

Using my chopsticks, which I do clumsily because I'm not the best with chopsticks, I attempt to reach behind Izuku and try to grab at something in his bowl from the other side, only to get stopped by him noticing and pushing my arm away while using the moment to grab food from my bowl instead.

"God fucking dammit Midoriya, let me get some noodles!" I hiss out, swatting at his chopsticks.

"You have your own noodles!"

"I don't like my noodles, I want those!"

"Okay fine, you can get some if you give me some of your pork slices."

"Fuck no, I like my pork slices."

"Well, I like my noodles."

We end up just swatting at each other's chopsticks with our own, which devolves into us doing a lightsaber battle with the chopsticks. God, we're both fuckin nerds.

I leave him alone when he starts talking with the others, instead opting with trying to reach behind him to get some noodles off of Iida's plate. At first, he gives me a look before sliding some noodles in my directions, which I take.

When I try to take some more though, he gives me a glare and I back off.

I'm ducked down trying to keep the stolen food from spilling off my plate when something hits me in the back. Hearing a sound, I turn to see that the thing that hit me in the back was someone's elbow, and it had also hit Izuku's face.

We both look up to see that guy, that guy from the festival.

"Oh sorry, your head was so big that I accidentally hit it." He says. I look at him. While we may not have someone as aggressive at this table that makes us safe, like Bakugo's table does, I'm still aggressive enough to chop off this guy's fingers and eat them.

"You're from class B...uh, Monoma!" Izuku says, helping me remember the name of this guy.

Before Izuku can even get out whatever he was going to continue saying, Monoma speaks instead. "I heard you guys met the hero killer. Just like at the sports festival, you guys in class A just have to have all the attention, huh? But that attention isn't because people have high hopes for you." He says.

"It's because you keep attracting trouble, right? Oh, that's scary. Someday, the rest of us might also be caught up in the trouble you bring and become victims as well... Like getting cursed by the god of pestilence! Oh that's sc-" He's cut off from his random ramble by an orange-haired girl coming over and hitting him over the head.

"Monoma that's not funny. Don't you know what happened to Iida?" The girl says. I'm unsure as to whether or not she just knocked him out or just made him crumple but I appreciate both either way.

"Sorry class A. This guy's heart is just kinda, you know." Kendou says. Midoriya seems to look at his crumpled body in fear but I nod. "Never thought I'd meet a mean person who actually fit the dumb blond stereotype," I say, poking a bit of pork on my plate and moving it around. She lets out a small laugh.

"You guys were talking earlier about how you don't know what's going to be on the practical exam for the finals, right? Looks like it'll be combat against robots like in the entrance exam. " She explains.

"Really?" I voice, along with the others. Isn't that a little overused? They used it for the entrance exam, won't everyone already know how to deal with them. I mean, I don't mind though. Looking back at how I took care of those in the entrance exam makes me grimace.

I was using powers and doing all this extra stuff to look cool and fail. And while I'm still completely okay with being kicked out, that old style of fighting hurts to look back on.

"How do you know?" Izuku asks.

"An upperclassman friend of mine told me. It's kind of cheating though." She says.

Suddenly Izuku's muttering again. "No, it's not cheating. That's right, I'm sure gathering information ahead of time is also part of the test." He keeps muttering but I just give him a pat on the head. There's no point in breaking him out of it now, he'll just go back to doing it later on.

But honestly, I think he's overacting there a bit. Overthinking it a little bit. I mean, are you sure they thought that far ahead. I just ruffle around his messy hair a bit, trying to make some parts of it lay down.

"Are you an idiot, Kendou? We had an information advantage! This was our chance to get ahead of the detestable Class A!" I watch as he struggles to look up only to get hit again by Kendou. We watch as she drags him back to wherever they were sitting before Monoma approached us.

I hope that guy doesn't stay that way. It's not surprising, or cool, it's just annoying. Like fly zipping around your head annoying.

_______

I lean against a desk as everyone goes over the new information. I can see how this is a good thing for some of my classmates. Some of them can't control their quirks as well as they'd like to, and it'd be harmful to use their uncontrolled quirks against real people.

Robots do solve this problem.

I turn when I notice Izuku staring into the void. Looking around the room, I turn back to him to see that he's staring down his now clenched fist.

I look up when Bakugo starts yelling. He's a loud person, it's hard to ignore him really. Watching as he yells at the others about controlling their quirks, I raise my hand to pinch my nose bridge. You can't just tell someone to control their quirk like that. That's like telling someone with Asthma to just breathe.

Suddenly he's addressing Izuku. The room stills. Everyone knows by now that nothing good happens when it comes to these two. It honestly makes me confused. I saw Midoriya run into the sludge incident when he didn't even have a quirk, filled with worry and fear as he tried to help Bakugo. I can't imagine having such anger against someone like that unless they had ruined my life beforehand.

He seems mad, and it probably has something to do with how Izuku was running during the assignment. But honestly, yeah, you can kind of see it but I know and so does Izuku, his style isn't supposed to be like Bakugos.

He got his run style from Gran Torino, and if it looks like Bakugo's, that's Bakugo's problem.

I watch as he goes on about how they'll get different scores from the test and that'll show who's better. Yelling 'I'll kill you' just seems extra when adding to a sentence like that.

I watch as he points to Todoroki, "Todoroki! You too!" suddenly I find that I'm also being pointed at. "And You! Fucking Try this time so it'll be a real contest!" He yells.

huh

wait

Am I among the top of the class? He only does this with the top of the class.

My mind blanks as he leaves. Am I a part of the top of the class. I know those three are always having their own thing. I thought I wasn't a part of that, cause you know, they made it really far into the finals of the festival and I stepped out cause of Artemis.

Then again, I guess that was my equivalent of Todoroki refusing to use his fire, to Bakugo.

Actually, wait a fucking second. I've really held off this long on speaking to Artemis? I swore I'd have a talking with him after the whole thing with the festival, what the fuck. How did I forget? And then there's my meeting this afternoon. Dear god.

______

I stand hesitantly in front of the door. Meeting with the school faculty, and the principal. This is nothing, you've got this.

Looking at my phone just as the time changes, I look back up to see Aizawa sliding open the door. "Your right on time." He says, before moving aside and walking to sit at the table with the rest of the faculty.