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The first day of school was always hell. It was a well known fact amongst students. Midoriya knew this; it was hard not to, especially when quirkless.
His timetable had arrived a week or two prior, long enough to just about memorise, but he had no doubt he’d get lost; one of the not-so-perky perks of having a worse sense of direction than a drunk rat that had been stuck on a roundabout for five minutes.
Looking down at the reflection of his tie shamefully, Midoriya adjusted it slightly, fruitlessly attempting to hide the abomination.
He could manage to slink past his mother without her noticing the mess of fabric, but it was guaranteed that Hatsume would never allow him to forget such a fashion offence. Ironic, considering that she was the one that wore neon yellow trousers.
Taking one last look in the mirror with a frown, he left the room and shut the door with a sigh. The taste of regret was bitter in his mouth, but it was far too late to consider bunking.
Walking to school, in Midoriya’s opinion, wasn’t dissimilar to digging your own grave. The building dread, desperation and panic were reminiscent of physical pain.
Lost in his thoughts, it didn’t come as much of a surprise when he ended up face first in a stranger’s backpack. Rubbing his nose regretfully, he thought that he really should break the habit of forgetting to pay attention to his surroundings.
Much to his displeasure, the poor stranger he’d rammed into decided to turn around. They were unfairly tall, violet hair adding to their height in a way that made Midoriya envious.
Before he was given the chance to look away, awkward eye contact was established. Their irises were a calming shade of amethyst, staring into them felt like a cat choosing you to sit on in a room of people, or successfully stopping your dairy intolerant friend from consuming cheese.
Midoriya forced himself to blink before ‘looking’ transformed into ‘staring’.
"S-sorry." He stammered, averting his eyes.
The stranger didn’t respond, opting to tilt his head to the side questioningly.
The teenager shrunk in on himself.
“Don’t worry about it; I shouldn’t have stopped right in front of you.” The stranger responded.
His voice was deep, coated in honey like smoothness and soft enough to mimic the fur of a cat’s inner torso.
Before Midoriya could stutter a single word, the boy was walking off.
He gaped silently for a moment before realising that he still needed to actually get into the school instead of standing dumbly outside.
His timetable was chaotic to say the least.
His first lesson that day was with the support course, the second in general education, the third in heroics and thankfully he had the rest of the day off.
Following the map (badly), Midoriya (barely) managed to make his way to the support course classroom. Pushing open the doors hesitantly, he stepped inside.
The walls were coated with all kinds of equipment that could easily be mistaken for murder weapons.
Somehow, he’d managed to get there early enough to be alone in the workshop with only two other students, one of which was Hatsume.
Walking up to his friend, he slumped down in the seat next to hers.
“Holy shit, you won’t believe what happened on my way in.” He huffed, resting his head on his hand.
“Let me guess, you bumped into a cute boy and lost the small amount of socialisation skills you have because you can’t function around pretty men?” Hatsume didn’t even look up from the calculator she was tinkering with.
“Wh- How did you know?” Midoriya hissed, slapping a hand over her mouth.
“I saw you, you absolute mess.” Her voice was muffled as she pried his fingers from her face.
“Gotta admit, you’ve got good taste. If I weren’t aro, I’d totally want to date him too.”
Midoriya raised an eyebrow.
Hastume cackled.
“I think we both know that’s bullshit.”
“I can at least pretend, right?” She smiled at him and he sighed in retaliation.
As he opened his mouth to say something, silence filled the room that had slowly filled with students.
A glance over his shoulder was all it took for Midoriya to realise why.
Power Loader was just as scruffy as he’d thought, grease stains colouring his painfully yellow mask like ink stains and trousers singed in far too many places for them to not be falling apart.
Although it was Hatsume who’d introduced him to the world of engineering, he’d heard enough of her rants and borderline worship to be unaware of his skill.
Next to him, Hatsume looked ready to vibrate out of her seat from excitement, shaking his shoulder violently.
“Look, look! It’s him!” She whisper-shouted directly into his ear.
“I know!” He hissed back.
Hatsume was still tugging on his arm when the lesson ended, even though it was mainly an introduction to the school and a summary of what they’d be doing over the course of the year.
He could relate, in a way. If it were Eraserhead, he would act the same, of course, that would be near impossible though.
“And that’s if for now, folks, I’m pretty sure most of you have biology next-” The teacher was cut off by a wave of annoyed groans, “-So I wish you luck with that! See you next lesson!”
In the general education class, he was nearly trampled by students when he froze in the doorway at the sight of the poor teenager he’d ran into outside of school.
Taking the only free seat that was, as if designed by fate to bitch slap him in the face, right next to the stranger, he wished more than ever that he could transform into a raccoon and scurry away and hide in a bin.
His newly assigned seat neighbour glanced at him, blinked slowly and went back to resting his head on his folded arms.
Thankfully, Present Mic threw open the door only a few minutes later, shouting “Good morning!” To the room before chucking himself into his chair, which spun around several times before stopping with the man facing his class.
“Alright, kiddos! Who’s ready to learn about English!” He cheered, met with dead silence.
The man recovered quickly; evidently used to similarly lackluster responses.
“Alright!”
A powerpoint presentation was projected onto the white board at the front of the room, the first slide’s title reading ‘Why pathetic fallacies are better than normal fallacies’ in large toxic green letters.
Midoriya took note of the image in the corner of the screen; a chunky seal with crossed hands photoshopped onto its upper torso. Holding back a light chuckle at how out of place the picture was, he copied down the words into the first page of his book.
By third period, Midoriya was ready to smack a bitch. Throughout the entirety of his second lesson, he managed to catch the stranger staring at him multiple times, not bothering to write down a single kanji the whole hour. He’d passed the boy a note, questioning him about it, but he’d just responded ‘It’s easier to zone out when looking at you.’
At first, Midoriya didn’t know whether to take it as an insult or a compliment, but after catching the boy’s eyes and being winked at, he was pretty fucking sure (For some strange reason) that it was the former.
Midoriya wasn’t sure whether he was glad or not that the purple haired teenager wasn’t in his class, but looking at the spiky blond hair directly in front of him, he wished nothing more than to use the Casanova wannabe as a human shield.
The boy hadn’t thought of Bakugou for a while, and he’d wanted it to stay that way. Unfortunately, luck seemed to despise him.
(Midoriya just knew it was because of the time he’d chugged four pints of milk without taking a breath; he’d used up all his luck by not drowning.)
His former bully had thankfully opted to leave him alone after Nezu had sent a strongly worded letter to his parents describing how deep the shit he’d be in if he continued with his less-than-heroic actions would be.
“Alright, class.” His attention snapped to his teacher and it only took a moment for his brain to fully process the existence of the hero in front of him.
Midoriya’s eyes widened in recognition as his gaze settled on Eraserhead.
"Change into your gym uniforms and head out to the grounds, I'll be conducting a test of quirks." Voice rough and straight to the point, there was no doubt that the black haired man was Midoriya’s favourite hero.
Due to the terror that was changing in middle school, (significantly magnified by the horror that was quirklessness) Midoriya was out first. It didn’t take too long for the rest of the class to follow behind.
Whilst Midoriya was starting up on his stretches with a couple of other students there were several conversations scattered among the class.
“U.A is known for its ‘freestyle’ educational system.” The hero’s eyes skimmed over the students.
“That applies to us teachers as well.”
Midoriya had just finished up his preparation for the upcoming tests and was listening to his teacher drone on about the lesson, hanging on to every word like cleavers to cat fur.
“This’ll be fun!” A student who looked far too energised for half past eleven in the morning cried out, pumping their fist.
Aizawa raised an eyebrow.
“Fun, you say? How about this; whoever comes last across the eight events will be judged hopeless and will be expelled.”
Midoriya gulped.
Even though he had come first in the entrance exam, had the support of the principal of the school and had trained for two years, the feeling of uselessness that was guaranteed the second he was diagnosed as quirkless still followed him around like an assholish version of a shadow with trust issues.
He felt Aizawa’s eyes drift over him and saw as they landed on Bakugou.
“You,” The teacher nodded at the boy.
“Throw this as far as you can with your quirk.”
He tossed a ball at the student and gestured for him to step into a white circle.
Midoriya managed to catch several people’s eyes as he motioned for them to cover their ears right before a loud explosion sounded.
Aizawa held up a counter, the number ‘seven hundred and five’ blinking on the screen.
“All I can say is do your best and hope it’s enough.”
Sometimes, Midoriya wished there were Principal Nezu sized mouse traps. One of those times was exactly at that moment. Cursing the rat god under his breath, he mentally prepared himself to completely humiliate himself.
Clicking a button on a small remote, the results from the tests were projected for the students to see.
A sigh of relief left Midoriya as he saw his name in sixteenth place. He’d placed above a ‘Rikido Sato’, a ‘Denki Kaminari’, a ‘Kyoka Jiro’ and a ‘Minoru Mineta’.
The short one, who Midoriya assumed was Mineta, burst into tears.
He shuffled away awkwardly.
“Mineta. You’re expelled. Collect your things from the classroom and I suggest you look into other schools.”
If Midoriya weren’t so revolted with the fact that some of Mineta’s tears got on his shoe, he’d most likely fanboy so hard he’d astrally project into a different dimension.
Midoriya took longer than he expected to clear up all his stuff, and by the time he’d finished, he was alone in the classroom.
After slinging his bag over his shoulder, he looked around, stopping after noticing a small movement from the vents. He stood there for a moment, watching.
“Nezu?” He questioned, tilting his head to the side as the principal hopped out of the ducts.
“Hello there, Midoriya!” The man said, voice painfully cheery.
He brushed off his paws as he approached the teenager.
“How did you find your first day?” He asked, taking a seat near the boy.
“It was,” Midoriya paused for a second, thinking.
“Manageable.” He decided.
“Good, good.”
The rat man leaned in closer.
“Any complaints? You know they’ll remain anonymous, right?”
Midoriya shook his head.
“Nope.”
He turned to walk out, but Nezu grabbed his sleeve.
“You might want to leave it a moment; I believe Bakugou-San is waiting for you outside.”
“Ah.”
“Would you like to hear about the time Aizawa accidently ate ground coffee beans in the staff room?”
“Fuck yes.”