Chapter Text
The UA building stood proud and mighty before her, rising high above the neighbouring buildings and towering over their small metropolitan. Much like the big pro-hero names it boasted, the school seemed to also be watching over the city with its presence alone. Maya clenched and unclenched her fists in both excitement and anxiety at the sight of it. In a few moments, she would be stepping into a whole new world, a completely different career path. Once the Marketing director for budding hero agency, she would now be a teacher at UAs business course. She felt her heart hammering in her chest.
Miss Hirai, Maya mused to herself, letting the sound of her name roll of her tongue. It had a nice ring to it, she concluded, imagining how it would sound coming from a classroom of 20 kids.
Is the suit too much?
She fidgeted, second-guessing her outfit. She tugged on her preppy business skirt until it splayed seamlessly on her thighs and smoothed down her blouse.
Well, no point fretting over it now.
With a final breath of courage, she strode in towards the building and clicked into character, letting her professionalism conceal her nerves. Plastering the most confident grin she could muster; she found her way to Principal Nezu’s office.
“Miss Hirai!” His voice called out before she even had the chance to knock. Maya smiled sheepishly and let herself in, greeting the small bear rat with a polite bow.
“Thank you so much for this opportunity.” She told him sincerely. He chuckled in response.
“No, Miss Hirai. Thank YOU for accepting this role. There’s a lot our business course students can learn from someone with such impressive industry experience.”
Maya felt her face go red but before she could thank him for his kind words and let him know she wouldn’t disappoint, he continued again. “I’ll give you a tour of the facility and show you to your new classroom but before that I want to introduce you to the other staff members. They should all be in the teachers’ lounge right now.”
She tried to force out some small talk as they made their way to the lounge. For someone so small with such tiny legs, Principle Nezu walked surprisingly fast and Maya was out of breath as he navigated the hallways with ease.
“Here we are”, He led her into a room at the end of the hallway, immediately commanding the attention of the crowd. “Good morning everyone! I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our teaching staff, Miss Hirai! She will be the homeroom teacher for the business course first years. Please show her a warm welcome to our team.”
Maya felt her body cave in under the attention of so many people and tried to appear as confident as possible. “Hi, everyone. My name is Maya and I look forward to getting to know all of you!” she managed with a friendly smile, letting her gaze roam over the faculty members. She could spot some familiar faces in the crowd like Pro hero Midnight who was beaming with excitement and Present Mic. Midnight came bounding to her as soon as introductions were over and her excitement instantly rubbed off on Maya.
“Yes, finally more girls! And look at you, you’re so beautiful and your skin is so clear! It’s been a while since I’ve seen some pretty faces around here.” Midnight gushed, talking awfully fast.
“Thank you so much, Midnight! I’m a big fan and I feel so honoured to be working with you.”
Midnight brushed her comment off with the wave of her hand. “Drop those formalities. We’re colleagues now! Call me Nemuri!” Maya nodded with a flush as midnight threw a hand over her shoulder and pulled her closer.
A few more colleagues walked up to Maya to offer some friendly words. Present Mic gave her an energetic (and loud) welcome and Cementoss offered some nice advice about lesson plans. The rest of the staff members remained mostly to themselves, like Vlad king who offered Maya a small grunt of acknowledgement and another shaggy looking hero who only nodded his head in greeting. It didn’t seem all too bad until All might suddenly came barging in and Maya suddenly froze up at the sight of him.
“Good morning colleagues!” His boisterous voice echoed through the room. “What’s going on?” He asked no one in particular. Thirteen mumbled something to him and his gaze snapped towards Maya. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of her and she felt her body freeze up as he strode towards her. He assessed her for a tense minute before finally stretching out his hand.
He cleared his throat, gaze roaming over her face. “Umm..Toshinori Yagi. Nice to meet you!”
Maya placed her clammy palm in his own and shook it with caution. She struggled to muster any words to reply to his greeting and as another long tense silence crept between them, All might awkwardly stepped away. The whole staff room seemed to be watching them interact and Maya quickly replaced her terse frown with a fake smile.
“Nezu, I’d like to take you up on your offer for the tour now.”
She gave the crowd one final polite smile and a bow before following Nezu out of the teachers’ lounge but not before catching the gaze of the detached shaggy looking teacher who suddenly seemed all too interested in her.