Chapter Text
It’s April in Tokyo, and the flowers are blooming. Sero bolts down the street, cursing under his breath as he dodges pedestrians. It’s his first day of high school, and of course he’s already on track to be late.
I wish I could use my quirk right now, he thinks longingly, his knuckles white around the strap of his school bag. He barely makes his train, but when he does, he’s relieved to see that there are others that are just as behind schedule as him. Ojiro, a blonde boy with a muscular tail, is sitting a few seats away from him and chatting with an invisible girl whose name Sero remembers to be Hagakure. Both are wearing familiar gray U.A. uniforms, same as him. Sero went to the same middle school as them, actually. He’s talked to Ojiro several times before and can recall letting Hagakure borrow a pencil, but he doesn’t really know them enough to join in their conversation.
That would be like intruding, wouldn’t it?
He looks out the window for the remainder of the half-hour ride from Tokyo to Musutafu, realizing that if he’s going to take the train to school every day, he’d better get used to doing homework on it.
Before he knows it, the train pulls into his station, but he, Ojiro, and Hagakure are the only ones who get off.
Guess I kinda have to talk to them, then.
Surprisingly, it’s Hagakure who approaches him.
“Sero, right?” She asks, and Ojiro gives him a small wave. “I didn’t know you were going to U.A.! Congratulations!”
“You, too,” he says with a grin. “What class are you guys in?”
“1-A,” they say in near-unison.
“Hey, same!” Sero suddenly checks his phone, realizing that he’s forgotten all about his mission to arrive on time. “And speaking of that, we really had better hurry. We don’t want to be late on the first day.”
Perhaps he’s a bit overzealous in his mad dash to U.A., because the three of them miraculously arrive fifteen minutes early. Sero separates from Ojiro and Hagakure to check the chart that’s been posted on the whiteboard and find his seat, only briefly wondering where the homeroom teacher is. A friendly-looking boy with spiky red hair intercepts him before he can sit down.
“Hi!” The boy says. “I’m Kirishima; nice to meet you!”
“I’m Sero.”
Kirishima smiles, revealing the sharpest teeth Sero has ever seen. “So, what’s your quirk?”
Sero indicates his protruding elbows (he had to order an extra baggy uniform shirt and jacket to fit them). “I can shoot tape out of my elbows,” he says before immediately flushing red with embarrassment. “It’s cooler than it sounds, I swear. What about you?”
“Mine’s kinda weird. I can, like, harden my skin. It’s good for defense, and it makes my hits pretty strong.”
“Hey, Kirishima, who’s this?” Someone asks, and they both turn to see a boy and a girl approaching them.
“This is Sero,” Kirishima says, stepping to the side a bit so they can have a clearer view of the dark-haired boy. “He can shoot tape from his arms.”
“That’s so cool! I’m Mina,” the girl exclaims, shaking his hand enthusiastically (apparently she doesn’t care much for the formality of surnames), “And this is Kaminari. Nice to meet you!”
Sero studies them both, his eyes immediately drawn to Mina. Both her hair and her skin are bubblegum pink, she has two small horns atop her head, and jet black surrounds her yellow irises. Sero is used to seeing people with all manner of strange appearances, so nothing, not even pink people, really surprises him anymore. Kaminari looks more normal, though, just the tiniest bit shorter than Kirishima. He has kind of small golden eyes that are much brighter than Mina’s pale ones and match his unkempt hair.
“Is that natural?” Sero asks, pointing to the black streak in it.
“Yeah, it is,” says Kaminari. “Might have something to do with my quirk. I can shock people and stuff.”
“I can produce acid,” Mina offers, wanting her own quirk to be known. “As for my hair and horns and skin, your guess is as good as mine.”
“My guess is that you’re amazingly unique,” Kirishima says earnestly, and Sero decides that the sharp teeth and hints of muscle beneath his school uniform might just be hiding an incredibly sweet person.
And then Mina drags Kirishima off to help her locate the cafeteria, leaving Sero alone with Kaminari.
“So,” the blonde says good-naturedly, obviously trying to prevent an awkward silence, “What’re you into?”
Sero pauses.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, what are your interests?”
Oh. Of course that was what he was asking.
“I’m a big fan of photography,” he says before adding, “I don’t really have the equipment for it, though.”
“Really?” Kaminari asks with wide eyes, as if Sero had said that he could speak fifteen languages. “Can you show me some pictures?”
“Um, I guess so.”
He’s not used to being put on the spot like this. Sero has always considered himself to be kind of untalented, but then again, he went to school with some pretty amazing kids. Ojiro, for example, appears to be a fairly average fifteen-year-old who just so happens to have a tail. He actually practices mixed martial arts and has his own style of fighting that uses said tail as an extra limb.
The most Sero’s been able to use his quirk since he started school was to fix a rip in an essay as a fourth year.
“This is amazing,” Kaminari says, taking Sero’s phone when it’s offered to him and looking at the picture that the photographer selected, “How did you even do this on a phone?”
The picture is of Sero’s street on the outskirts of Tokyo, the cherry blossom tree in his front yard practically glowing in the lazy spring light.
“I have a good eye, I guess,” he says as modestly as he can, though he’s secretly pleased that someone is acknowledging the one thing he knows he’s good at.
“‘Good eye’ doesn’t even begin to sum it up,” Kaminari scoffs, “You could get these published or something.”
“If you say so.”
Sero decides that he rather likes Kaminari.
Maybe it won’t be so hard to make friends here, he thinks. Especially if everyone is as nice as this. He keeps talking and laughing with the other boy until Mina and Kirishima come back and join them, the four of them conversing loudly until a warning bell tolls and they have to find their seats. For once, he doesn’t feel like he’s intruding.
He could get used to that.