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“It's way too early to be here,” Kariage groans, shoving his head in his crossed arms that rest on his desk, blocking out the eye-straining luminescence that streams down from Alderas shoddy light fixtures.
“You've been here for three hours.” Izuku points out, scribbling away in his notebook as they wait for their next teacher to come in, who was, at this point, already fifteen minutes late.
Honestly, with the budgeting, no one would be surprised if they were simply forgotten and made to wait. It wouldn't be the first time, even if that first time there was a fire spreading through the halls because the science teacher's hidden stash got stolen. Kariage got lucky, because he was failing the class and they all got automatic A's after Abiko stormed the principal's office and threatened to sue if they didn't do as such.
Nishio and her had just gotten together at the time, and Nishio was failing.
Fun times.
The rest of the class around them continues chatting, uncaring of the missing teacher.
Izuku continues, “And you slept through the first two classes.”
Kariage isn't sure if it was worth it to get Katsuki to break him out of the police station if it meant he had to go clubbing with him afterwards and make a promise that he would show up to school the next day—if he had to deal with Katsukis sons sass.
Not all of us are as tolerant to drinks as you are, he thinks. Then, he turns his head, directing his eyes towards Katsuki—who sits at the desk next to him—to glower at him, but the light catches his eyes once more, and his headache comes back for vengeance.
“God, I fucking hate you,” he grumbles, not sure if he was directing it towards Katsuki or Deku, but fine with either. The former chuckles, the latter ignores him.
“Speaking of yesterday—” Dehisa begins, voice incredulous, swinging his legs back and forth from his seat on the edge of Kariages desk. He had just finished off the last remnants of his second energy drink in the past five minutes and it was starting to affect him. “---I totally would've found a better rock than the one Imada found, why didn't you ask me?”
He grabs the water bottle from Katsukis desk, takes a swing, then coughs at the unexpected burn down his throat, and squints at the drink, putting it down for the next fool. “I bet he found a basic, dusty-ass sedimentary rock. I, on the other hand, could have found you all kinds of different stones. I bet I could've even found some obsidian.”
Imada hugs Katsuki from behind, bending his lanky body in half from atop his desk stationed behind Katsukis to hold the other, his glasses slipping past his nose. “My rock was perfectly fine.” He glares, looking no more intimidating than a teddy bear. “Stop being jealous that Katsuki picked me. Maybe your rocks aren't as good as you claim them to be.”
“You take that back!”
Imada simply sticks out his tongue, pulling Katsuki closer, keeping his eyes locked on the other.
“I like both of your rocks,” Katsuki attempts to mediate, but his comment gets drowned out by Tsubasa's voice, who asks, “How did you get out of that situation, Kariage?”
Kariage lifts his head up, his hair mused and shirt wrinkled from the night before, and makes it a point to glare at each of his friends before he ignores the question and scoffs, “Thanks for asking.” He turns in his chair until his legs are out from under his desk and in the walkway, toeing his bag out of the way, and rolls up his left pant leg.
“After you lot left me, I got taken to the police station and called Katsuki to bail me out after attempting to lie my way out of having another arson mark under my belt.” He tells, crossing his arms. “Which is pretty hard, might I add, when you are sporting a very, clearly obviously fresh, burn wound.”
Kariage shakes his leg for emphasis, displaying to the group a large burn scar that starts at his ankle and crawls up an inch and a half before his knee.
“I had to give a whole sob story about how my ‘baby brother’ burnt me when we were younger, to find out after I promised the devil over here—.” He points to Katsuki. “---that if he got the pigs off my back, I would go clubbing with him. Just to find out,” he grinds, “that Katsuki and the cops are very chumy with one another.”
“I have connections,” Katsuki defends, shrugging his shoulders without a care in the world. “And it was fun. Did you see Dekus face? Fucker practically shit his pants.” A beat goes by, Kariage still glaring at Katsuki, when he continues, “Also, I won't be here next Thursday,” he mentions. “It's the Sergeants daughter's birthday party and I got invited. She's turning 21 and we are going out for drinks.”
Izuku stares at him with a gobsmacked expression, muttering to himself about the downfall of government officials and making a promise to himself not to go to the police with any hope that they could fix anything.
Tsubasa laughs, peering at the misery on Kariages face, then laughs some more while Dehisa leans over, knocking Katsuki on the shoulder with his fist, an amused grin on his face. “Nice one buddy,” he compliments, “I'll be sure to call you when the cops take me in next time.”
“Anytime,” Katsuki promises, “all you'll have to do is accept my deal when the time comes.” His sharp teeth shine, and Dehisa is sure he can see blood on them.
The door to the classroom opens, and Akuzawa-sensei—Onna—walks in. The black slime that normally drips from her neck due to her quirk appears thicker than normal, and she flops herself on the teacher podium, sobbing. “Why does my husband not love me anymore?” She screeches, the slime oozing out of her pores faster. “Why?!”
The late morning light caresses Dehisa's skin, and he raises his hand, his fingers elongated from his quirk as he buzzes. Without waiting to get called on, he retorts her rhetorical question in a serious tone by commenting, “He's your Ex-husband,” he emphasizes. And to shove the knife even deeper, he adds, “You two got divorced three years ago.”
Laughter fills up the classroom, no one unable to hide their amusement, or willing to try to, as they all cackle like a group of hyenas at a fearful rabbit.
“SHUT UP!” She screams, frustrated, steam coming out of her ears. “All of you!”
If there was one reason why new teachers didn't stay at Aldera besides the dismal pay, it was the disrespect of the students, who would laugh at your face and insult your family line quicker than a heartbeat.
“That's it!” She shrieks, her whole body turning red, the black goop slowing, turning thicker. “All of you, Unit Six,” she commands, and when no one moves an inch to grab their books, her eyes narrow into slits, her grease-colored hair more frazzled than ever, and yells, slamming her fist down on the podium, Now!”
Leisurely, the students grab their history books, and as Kariage leans down to his backpack on the floor, Katsuki reaches for his bag that hangs from the left side of his desk, and calls, “Kari,” grabbing Kariages attention.
“What?” Kariage whispers, digging through his bag for his textbook that he had never opened before, his hand subconsciously reaching for his half-empty pack of cigarettes.
“Look.”
Kariage looks up, his eyes searching for what Katsuki was telling him to view. It takes him a second, then another in slight disbelief, a smirk crawling up his face at the sight of a small, fluffy animal in Katsukis sleeve.
Kariage asks, “Is that real?” His textbook and Akuzawa-senseis rage are forgotten.
“Yep,” Katsuki states, popping the ‘p’, mischief dancing across the pupils of his eyes.
“I'm gonna feed that to Poor Little Meow Meow.” Kariage sniggers, tilting his head sideways to get a better image of Katsukis albino hamster. Small, chubby---Poor Little Meow Meow could eat the small rodent for breakfast.
Quietly, Imada speaks from underneath his desk, his knees uncomfortably close to his chin, “What are you two doing?”
Kariage startles, a strangled noise escaping past his lips that scares the hamster, who bolts, scampering away towards the front of the classroom, his little nails clicking away on the cracked tile floor.
Twenty-eight pairs of eyes stare at the trio, four in amused curiosity, one in secondhand embarrassment, another in fury, and the rest in dull, mindless interest. Before Akuzawa can blow a gasket at the group, her eyes catch sight of something small, white, and fast.
“R–” She stutters, eyes blown wide, finger lifted like an arrow, shaking, “Rat!”
Katsuki pouts at the wrong use of classification, but then thinks better to correct her, and instead calmly makes eye contact with his teacher whose skin is as white as a ghosts, and, amid all the noise of the few students who scream in fear, their chairs scraping on the ground, he rectifies, “You're seeing things.” He gets up from his seat near the back of the class, and walks to the spot beside his distraught sensei, putting a hand on her back, and grimaces at the wetness he feels. “There is no rat.”
“You're wrong,” she stamers, denying the bullshitting teen who houses a mad poker face. “I swear I saw one. I swear!”
A light flickers, and Kariage announces, “Yeah, Onna, there was no rat. Katsukis right, you're seeing things.”
Nishio has her phone held up, recording her teacher's psychotic break, and catches the moment Dehisa and Tsubasa cause her lunacy, when Dehisa says, “Maybe your husband was one of your delusions.” And Tsubasa places the final straw on the camel's back by adding, “Takes talent to keep even your imaginary husband unhappy.”
Akuzawa freezes—Katsukis hand still patting her back—then snaps, pulling her hair, screaming. “He was real. He was real!” Her head moves left and right in quick succession, unable to focus on anything long enough to form a coherent thought. “I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy!” She repeats, her words tessellations fitting comfortably together, then runs out of the classroom, abandoning the students who watch her retreating form.
There was a still silence after the storm that was their history teacher's breakdown—another teacher biting the dust. The silence, uncommon in Aldera, was broken up by Izuku's depressed sigh. “You guys are the worst.”
With twenty minutes left of class, the clock ticks like a bomb, and the Aldera students continue on with their day like they weren't the cause for their teachers' mental suffering. Maybe they will all get an automatic A for this class as well?
When the bell for lunch rings, the hamster can be seen sitting at the front of the podium, oblivious to the tragedy he had participated in, and Katsuki snatches his pet back, a chaotic smirk stretched across his face.
“What are you Circus Freaks laughing about?” Nisho demands, sitting down on the bench like it was a gold dipped throne. She sets her tray down in front of her, then places the second tray that was in her other hand in front of Abiko, and winks.
Abiko smiles, and the rest of the boys around her continue laughing at each other. “Dehisa just admitted that he submitted a Star Trek fanfiction for the history essay that was due today,” Abiko informs her, thanking her beautiful girlfriend with a kiss on the cheek.
“That's real history!” The aforementioned idiot proclaims. “And besides—” he waves his hand like he was swatting away a bug, “---it doesn't matter anymore, I'm pretty sure she's in the looney bin by now.”
“How?” Izuku asks, equal times bewildered and exasperated. “How? How is Star Trek fanfiction history?!”
Dehisa grabs his mandatory bowl of vegetables and sets them on Tsubasa's tray, who accepts it nonplussed, and dives in. “Shipping culture.” He responds, and stuffs his mouth with rice, his cheeks filled up like a chipmunk or squirrel. “It's real history, unlike Katsukis.”
“Dude,” Kariage sighs, stealing a bite of chicken katsu from Katsukis homemade bento. “Just admit you forgot to write the essay like me, it's not like it even matters anymore.”
“Never.” Dehisa smirks. “Unlike you, I have a completion rate of fifty percent.”
“More like twenty,” Nishio quipped.
“Hey!” Dehisa shouts, rice flying from his mouth.
Abiko smacks Dehisa on the head. “Don't yell at my girlfriend with food in your mouth, you pig.” She sneers, her nose upturned, using her napkin to wipe Nishios face. “Disgusting.”
Dehisa chews his meal and swallows, rubbing the back of his now injured head. “Whatever man.” He dismisses. “And hey, at least I'm not as bad as Katsuki, who left school for two weeks because he got a fifty-five on a test.” He uses his chopsticks to point at the explosive blond, and continues, “Only you, man, would get angry over getting a higher score than a forty-nine.”
“It was gonna be fucking hilarious,” Katsuki defends, grabbing the others chopsticks and exploding them, turning them into nothing more than firewood. “When the principal would call me to his office to explain my grades because I'm supposed to be this shitholes saving grace—.” Izuku rolls his eyes, but agrees with what Katsukis is saying nonetheless. “---and I would have been just at the score of failing all my classes. But no, instead Miyamoto, that asshole, changed the weight of the last question and didn't tell anyone. Now I have a fucking ‘D’ on my transcript because we cant retake a class unless you have a forty-nine or below and I got a fifty.”
“Sucks to suck, Kats,” Kariage consoles, trying to snag a second bite of Katsukis chicken katsu. “Shouldn't have tried to mess with the teachers. Karmas a bitch.”
“Fuck you,” Katsuki growls, pulling his bento closer to himself, glaring at the other, who gives up and lights a cigarette instead. “Like you don't mess with them daily as well. Hell, you join me ninety-five percent of the time.”
“Deku,” Tsubasa snorts out of the blue, unintentionally putting an end to the argument, his mouth wavering in his attempt at holding in his laugh, “did you paint your nails?”
Izuku's face flushes an extraordinary shade of pink from his spot between Tsubasa and Imada. Instinctively, he covers his face with his hands, which highlights his forest green nails, and makes the group whistle.
“Deku, gotta say, didn't know you had that side to you,” Dehisa crows, kicking Izuku from underneath the table.
“Shut up.” Izuku snaps, his ears still glowing a bright red, his own rice and curry going cold. “We ran out of nail polish remover at home.”
In a babyish voice, Dehisa says, squishing his cheeks, “Did mommy paint your nails?”
Izuku removes his hands from his face, glaring, “Yes.”
In unison, the group ah's, coming to an understanding. While Izuku barks, “Thought so.”
“Well that solves that,” Kariage concludes, removing the smoke from his lungs and taking another drag from his cigarette. “No one can say no to Mama Inko, not even Katsuki. She's the best.”
“Speaking of the best,” Tsubasa jumps in, “when are you making katsudon? Because we haven't had it in forever, and my tastebuds are missing the taste.”
Izuku drops his hands, finally starting to eat his meal gone cold, and breathes out, albeit reluctantly, “Next Thursday.”
The group whoops, their chopsticks flying in the air like graduation caps, happy smiles on all their faces like a child who got their mom to agree to going out for ice cream on a warm, summer's day.
Tsubasa pulls Izuku into a side hug, while Abiko grabs his hands, analyzing his nails, the rest cheering in the background. “I'm already regretting this,” Izuku groans, his head falling onto the table in defeat, his food left to rot.