Chapter Text
As Shinsou enter class a couple days later, he hears a few snickers. The kids from the center of the classroom eye him, as if he were prey. He looks at them for a few seconds, then makes his way to his seat, letting his stained bag fall from his shoulder as he drops his head onto the desk. Last night he was lucky to have three hours of sleep instead of the usual one or two - if he managed to fall asleep, that is - yet it had only served to make his body even sleepier once he woke up. There’s still a fair amount a time left, enough for a quick nap. God, even thinking about sleep makes his bones cry with want.
As he tried to catch a few seconds of rest, he hears footsteps make their way towards him. Slowly lifting his head up, his eyes meet the small group of students that were staring at him before. He recognize one of their faces, a boy with light brunette hair that stuck out like the spades suit in a pack of cards. He stands near the right side of the group, holding a sneering smile. He was the same student Shinsou bumped into at lunch the other day.
“‘Sup, your name’s Shinsou, yeah?” Said a guy standing in front of the crowd. His face is grey and cracked, yet his smugness is painted perfectly. Fairly tall, he looms over Shinsou. Shisou stops himself from squirming in his seat.
“Yeah, so,” Shinsou states rather that asks.
“Well it’s nice to meet you, Shinsou.” The way the boy says his name in such a mocking tone makes Shinsou uncomfortable. “I know that one of my friends may have messed with you.” He nods to the spade-haired boy. “I’m sorry about that. He can be a bit of an idiot.” The boy laughs. Shinsou doesn’t, instead settling into the most bored face he can put on. It ends the student’s laughter. “Anyways, I just wanna say sorry about that. Let’s just put it past us.” The tall boy extends his hand out him. “Instead, let’s be friends.” He smiles.
Shinsou stays still. His mind is racing as he flips through what his response should be.
‘As if. With you? No way. Why should I bother with you chumps? No thanks…’
But then he catches that smile, eerily similar to one he saw at lunch the other day. Similar to what that green-haired boy had. Thinking back on it, and seeing the smile in front of him, he feels himself becoming more intrigued by his request.
‘You’re joking, right?’ he can hear himself think. ‘After all that resolve to be alone, you’re going to throw it all away? Just because of some boy? They ruined your bag for God’s sake.’
He looks at the student. His hand is open, just begging to be shaken. His eyes breathes sincerity. And his cracked smile shines so brightly. Slowly, all thoughts of the other day’s event feel like they were light years ago. Ignoring the raging thoughts, Shinsou outstretched his left hand to the tall student.
“Fine,” said Shinsou. The tall student smiles even bigger as their hands meet each other.
“Idiot.”
Suddenly, Shinsou feels a smushing pain as his hand is taken into a vice-like grip. He tries to free his hand but to no avail. He begins to feel numb in his hand. His hand and arm turn into a cemented gray. Shinsou looks at the tall student, trying to swallow his panic. The tall student laughs.
“You idiot. You’d actually thought I was serious? I was just kidding about that friend shit. Who wants to be friends with a weirdo like you?” He loosens his grip ever so slightly. “I just needed to send a message,” he says cruelly. “You know, just in case you’re thinking about ratting on us because of earlier. Well, will you?”
Shinsou could just get him to stop. He could just turn the whole situation around if he wanted. May be even make them pay, or worse. He just had to speak, and the tables will turn in a snap.
He’ll be a villain for sure.
Shinsou stops struggling. He looks down for a moment, then stares at the student, his expression carefully balancing between annoyance, disinterest, and defeat.
“I won’t,” He sighed.
“I won’t, what?” the tall student sneers.
“I won’t rat on you.”
“I won’t rat on you, what?” Shinsou keeps his eyes from rolling, already having gone through the whole routine numerous time before.
“I won’t rat on you, sir.” No matter how many times he has done this, saying it still makes Shinsou want to throw up.
He removes his grip . Wincing, Shinsou inspects his arm. It had turned into stone up to the area before the elbow, inflexible. He can’t really feel anything there, even without the grip cutting off all of his blood vessels. As the group walk away, laughing, the tall student shouts back to Shinsou.
“Oh yeah, that’s gonna last until the end of school. Enjoy class with that!” He lets out a small groan. His left hand is his writing hand. The teacher finally enters as the starting bell rings.
“Alright class settle down,” he says to no one. “Today I have an important announcement.” Hushed whispers flickers in the classroom. The teacher ignores them and goes on. “Two weeks from now, U.A. will host their annual Sports Festival. All of you are expected to participate in it.”
A quick burst of excitement befalls the class before nearly everyone immediately slump into their seats. They are the General Department, so there’s no real purpose to participate in the event. They’ll be crushed by the Heroes Department students if they try. They have no talent to show for. They are worthless.
The teacher continues. “Now class, you all know what happens in the festival, so I won’t even bother explaining it. Just get to training. If any of you do well enough, you may get to move up into the Hero course, and vice versa.” By the time he finished, Everyone had tuned him out.
Everyone, except Shinsou.
His dull purple eyes glimmered for the first time in forever. He had heard of the rule long ago, but to have it started officially evokes something within him. He lets outs the smallest of smiles, double checking that no one is looking at him.
Finally, he can show everyone not only his quirk, but also his potential beyond it. He’ll show that he’s more than a villainous quirk; that he can be a hero. Then they can take him out of the General Department and be put into the Hero Department, just as he dreamed. Glancing at his stoned limb, he has a small thought.
‘And the sooner that happens, the better.’
The rest of the school day is uneventful. Shinsou now eats in the stalls, what with his original spot having been discovered. He tries to catch sight of the green-haired boy again, but to no avail. Even though he wants to remain alone as much as he can, he can’t help but feel happy whenever he sees that ball of green fluff among the sea of students. He vows to never speak to him, but he can at least allow himself some sort of interaction - in the loosest sense of the word possible - between him and his crush.
By the end of the school days all but the tips of his fingers have returned to normal, just as the cracked-faced boy said. As the final bell ring, all the students in his class rush out of their seats and into the hallway. Quickly picking up his things, he follows them. He had heard about the USJ incident, in which a bunch of villains attacked the facility while Class 1-A, a Heroes Department class, were occupying it. School was cancelled the next day, which allowed Shinsou to catch those three hours of sleep. Unlike the General Department students, everyone else is excited about the Sports Festival, and with the news about USJ, everyone is interested in how that will affect the performance of that class in the competition.
The hallway to Class 1-A is crowded, students filling in from both sides. Shinsou stands around in the middle, not too far from the entrance into the classroom. He can see a few of the students inside of it.
Standing at the door stands an extremely shocked girl. With short brunette hair and rosy cheeks, she carries a sort of a sweet and bubbly air around her, even as she shakes under the attention of everyone. He barely hears her shouting as the crowd’s loud murmurs muffle her. He gets closer, trying not to shove too much between everyone. He slithers in front a gigantic student when he sees another person. A guy this time, his ashy blonde hair and poor posture is the direct opposite of the previous girl. Shinsou can taste the arrogance seeping off of him. He talks to the student behind him about something before glaring at the crowd. He speaks to the students in the hallway.
“Move aside, cannon fodder.”
Suddenly, Shinsou feels extremely pissed off.
As he hears someone scolding the guy, he scoots into the front of the crowd. Shinsou is talking, but he’s not really thinking about it. He lets a tiny sliver of emotions do the work for him. All he can think is that if the rest of Class 1-A is like that, he’ll be more than glad to knock their smug faces off their pedestals at the Sports Festival. They can all go to hell for all he cares.
“Consider this a declaration of war,” he ends with.
Just he finishes, he looks for their reactions. The blonde in front of him seems unfazed, which can’t be said for the people behind him. He recognizes the bubbly girl, who stands next to a tall student in glasses, both caught with unnerved expressions. Shinsou notices that somebody is standing behind the blonde, shaking green hair just barely poking out. It seems familiar to Shinsou, and soon, as he finally sees the owner of the hair’s freckled face, he remembers who that is.
‘Fuck.’
A student behind him yells, but Shinsou is too caught up in his thoughts to register. The boy that he has a crush on is right there. He promised that he would never speak to him, but here he is just telling off his entire class. Out of all the things he could have say, Shinsou feels that was he most definitely shouldn’t have said whatever he said. The boy’s face is wide-eyed and scared. His brain kicks into high gear.
‘Great now he hates you he hates your guts why did you open your mouth you freak you creep he hates you like a villain you're a villain why are you here you should just-’
A slam of a door being shut brings him out of thoughts. Everyone goes quiet. He freezes, trying to keep that aloof yet pissed aura he had for the past minute. Fear instills in him as time passes. Shinsou can feel the stares on him, even if he doesn’t see them as he slowly turns around. His breathing quickens ever slow slightly. As absurd as it sounds, he hopes that no one had heard his thoughts. The silence remains painfully.
Someone sighs and leaves. The hallway clears out soon after. Chatters about the smug blonde litter about, but none about Shinsou’s little freak-out, which means that no one noticed. Shinsou finally relaxes as he walks down the stairwell and out of the school.
During the walk home he plans out his training plans for the next two weeks. He doesn’t have a gym membership, and it’s not like he can just use his quirk freely. He settles on doing some runs and maybe use some weights that his dad had from his younger days. He’s by himself for a good amount of time after school, so he can train during that period of time. It’s a bit pointless to try to outmatch the Heroes Department students physically, but Shinsou will do anything to show his worth, no matter how small the odds. He just has to beat them.
His planning helps distract him from the thoughts about the green-haired boy, and how he probably ruined his chances with him, until he reaches home. His parents aren’t back yet. He’s not feeling particularly hungry, so he decides to skip out on making dinner. He walks to his bedroom. His room is rather plain, with simple monochrome colors painting his furniture and walls. Shinsou makes a beeline for his bed, plopping onto it with a soft grunt. As much as he should do homework right now, he really, really just wants to sleep. Besides, he’ll probably wake up after an hour or so, so he will still have time to do it.
He lets his mind wander about as his eyelids fly shut. Whenever he starts to think about his crush, he forces it to think about something else, such as math or space. Yet soon he is plagued with thoughts about the student and how he probably-, most likely-, definitely-, totally hates Shinsou right now. He is on the brink of a freakout until he tries to think about the positives about the student. There’s his hair, messy yet kempt, unlike Shinsou’s wild locks of purple. Then there was his smile from when Shinsou first saw him. It was so happy and sincere and-
And similar to the student that messed with him earlier today. The one that showed just how little Shinsou learned from middle school. All bark and no bite Shinsou was, saying that he would not get close to anybody then immediately throwing all that away for a smile.
‘You’re so gullible,’ he thinks. ‘He and that Class 1-A kid are the same. Honestly, you’re such a faker, trying to act all cold and tough, when you’re actually a loser whenever anyone show any interest in you. You’re such a wimp. No wonder everyone likes to pick on you. You deserve it. You deserve it. You deserve it.’ Shinsou shakes his head, hoping it would shake off those thoughts. Instead it repeats over and over until his head is throbbing. He curls in on himself, attempting to fall asleep so they go away. Quietly, he promises that he won’t let that boy mess with him anymore. He vows that he’ll stop crushing on that Class 1-A student, as uncomfortable as that may seem.
Steadily, the thoughts go quiet. He pauses, making sure that the peace in his mind right now is real. He closes his eyes, realizing that it actually did ended. His body goes limp as exhaustion hits him like a truck. Head snuggling into his gray pillow, he tries to take a nap.
Two hours of thought-riddling no sleep later, he drags himself off the bed to do his homework, eyes drying.