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Ordinary and plain. Two words most people would use to prescribe him, like some sort of doctor's note for a benign illness. Walking through life transparently, a ghost, someone who can slip between crowds and barely get a side eye at if not for the occasional wide glare at his tail.
He doesn't make a spectacle of it; doesn't like drawing attention to himself unnecessarily, lest people get the wrong idea and conclude hardwork and owned effort don't coincide with one another.
Think what you think, he won't mind, but diluting his beliefs in such a way is two steps further than the imaginary line of chalk he'd drawn, and even just one is testing it. Patience is a virtue in a world where everyone seems in a rush to get ahead.
A belief which can be attributed to his withdrawal come the Sports Festival. Not chugging along with the rest of the winning crowd wasn't an option -- not until he'd put his licks in, after he'd blinked and snapped out of the daze to find that purple kid staring bug-like at him, and showed Midnight-sensei and the rest of Japan what must've been the equivalent of a white flag.
Running his mouth to a microphone? Declaring his want to leave such a prestigious, public event? It’s come close to being two of the hardest things he's done. Especially in front of a crowd. There'd been so many people at the stands, all eyes on him as the screens panned from what had been Todoroki's team's win, before the spotlight had turned its beams to him.
Difficulty aside, contradictingly enough, it'd been too easy for the syllables to form and for the words to fester;
"I can't continue forward."
Advancing would be a power struggle against what he's always considered dear. Instilled in him from the start, since his father had glimpsed potential in those baby, beadish eyes of his (he'd seen the photo albums, mother obsessive with taking stock) and decided he was ready to take charge of himself. Martial arts had come naturally. Values? They'd had to be learnt. Praise and persistence subdued the frustration that came along with such teachings. He'd gotten ahold of it eventually. Claiming to be the most patient all his life would be a lie.
Mulling over the tragedy that could've been his turnabout in the Sports Festival could've never come to motion anyhow; Hanta's pitiful 'Don't Worry About It!' loss against Todoroki had proven that much. In the face of overwhelming power, ordinary people like him and Hanta and Tooru don't exactly stand a chance. Envisioning himself willingly breaking his fingers to press on against an opponent like Midoriya--impossible. Montages of scenarios have played back in his head, of course, of endless possibilities where Tailman had never come to fruition and, instead, in his place, a version better than him with one of his classmate's quirks would be depicted on a front cover... there’s no imagining doing the things they do.
Flickering his palms into explosions? Crackling ice and stunning fire?
(And he hadn't even known Todoroki had held a fire quirk, too; how could he not use it, at first? How could he be so-- privileged? Ojiro’s sure he has his reasons, well aware of the damning looks Midoriya and Todoroki sometimes shared across the classroom, as if conveying this grand secret in a game of telephone that Ojiro can’t pipe an ear for, but, why?
Maybe it’s best not to question things.)
Ojiro’s classmates had been supportive of his decision. Envied him. Called him honourable.
He doesn’t consider it much honour and more so a refusal to play along, eyeing the purple kid (Shinsou, he knows now, you’ll never forget the name of the opponent who stole minutes of your life from you) fishily before turning his back. Cast an askance glance behind his shoulder and smiled at the rest of his peers.
Wished them goodluck.
(He’d warned Midoriya before his match with Shinsou. Although the warning hadn’t been heeded, as within a matter of moments, Midoriya had fallen into a daze and started trailing away on the battlefield, it hadn’t been much of an issue. It’s a miracle he’d managed to snap out of it. Vaguely, Ojiro wonders what about their circumstances was so different; could he have been able to break out of it, too? Or was that just another ability that would never make it into his hands, all because he had a tail and Midoriya had a quirk that would break his bones if he went about it wrong? A quirk that was steadily improving day by day anyhow?)
There was another who’d also had time erased from them; Nirengeki Shoda, from class 1-B, the other boy with tufts of ice-blue hair. After the event, they’d reconvened, shared a laugh. Most certainly awkward, but-- he’s never been one for laughing anyway. Knowing they’d followed along with his decision too, sharing the same thoughts? That was enough to soothe him.
—
Compared to his middle school, UA’s school bell is quite pleasant.
“Hey, listeners!” Mic-sensei’s hands drumming away at the chalkboard still, pointing up into nowhere as he dons a smile, “Ya hear that? That’s your sign to pack away! ”
Ojiro hums patiently as the rest of the class breathes out a sigh of relief. English was usually the first lesson of the day. Today, it isn’t. Midnight’s class, Art History, was second on Tuesdays and Thursdays respectively, but today was a Wednesday, so they’d have Ectoplasm after lunch, before heroics with either Aizawa-sensei or All Might. Maths has never been his favourite subject, but he’s decent at it.
“Ojiro!”
Looking up from where he's pressed against his desk, hands swallowed by his bag just as he’d been depositing their grammar book, Present Mic stares back at him unabashedly. “Could I have a word with you?”
Pitying looks burn into his back. He can feel the draft when some turn their heads.
Tilting his chin upward, Ojiro offers his friends -- lingering by the door, bags already in hand -- a chuckle. Hopes that it doesn’t show that he’s nervous.
“Don’t wait up on me,” he reassures them, tail waving them off. When they don’t look convinced, undoubtedly for what must be the expression their teacher is giving him, for good measure, Ojiro extricates a hand from his bag and adds a thumbs up. “I’ll be fine.”
He’s not too sure how true that is.
Hanta offers him a grimace. “See ya, man.”
“Break a leg!”
Nice as always.
“Hagakure, that’s not-- okay,” Ojiro gives in, venturing on a sigh when they’re both already gone. Trailing after them are Shoji and Koda, who, in their absence, spare him what must be an attempt at reassurance. In turn, he smiles, too, and then they’re gone as well.
Thumb withdrawn back, fleeing, he retreats back to his task of packing away. Though the heat on his face folds back into cold, it isn’t enough to ignore Mic-sensei’s eyes on him.
Focusing on the rest of his classmates’ voices as they depart for lunch is much nicer; Yaoyoruzu has a nice tone to her voice. Kaminari’s snickering is much funnier when the guy isn't the butt of Jirou’s jokes. Todoroki’s low monotone comments on whatever he considered interesting as he filed out of the room to Midoriya piques Ojiro’s interest, despite never really being one to talk to the ice-hot boy.
If it was anything important, Hanta or Tooru would tell him. Rumors had a tendency to get picked up in UA like books when they’re turned into movies.
Ojiro finally looks up to meet his teacher’s stare. Or, at least what he’d thought to be Mic-sensei’s eyes on him. When it’s finally all attended to, books packed neatly against stationary and his less-than-banged up water bottle, his teacher’s attention is heavy on his monitor.
Slipping out would be feasible. At least, from how much focus Mic-sensei is fixing onto the computer-- which is quickly disproven when he looks up from his computer and wags a finger over. If they could talk, they’d scream, just like the rest of Mic-sensei, “come-hither”.
Swallowing, Ojiro gulps down the rest of his pride and does his best to face the music. There’s likely nothing to worry about: his assignments have all been turned in to the best of his standard, none late or too early to arouse questioning (though getting ahead of his homework and completing it first has never been foreign), he never really draws attention to himself anyway, nor gets into fights the same way Midoriya and Bakugou both have respectively (mostly with each other), and his grades have never looked better. Being ranked eighth in the class was an accomplishment in of itself. One he can recognize.
Still, there’s doubt. “You said you wanted to have a word with me, sir?”
Mic-sensei nods. “I’ll scooch over.”
Within a flick, Mic-sensei’s already drawn up a chair for him to sit on, scooting his own to the side to make room for it. There’s not exactly a desk in the middle of the front board, with the teacher’s podium front and center, but there’s one tucked away in the corner. Which, from what he’s heard, was due to the school making the decision to add more things for teachers to do their grading on. Aizawa-sensei’s certainly glared at them enough from it.
“Right,” he agrees, tucking his tail over the inner crook of his arm where his elbow is, and folding it up to his shoulder to sit. It’s cushioned, which is a far cry from the slate of wood his chair is, though the back of his chair is much unlike this chair, postured nicely.
Like everything else about him, his teacher’s hands as they clap together are loud.
“So,” he starts, and although no hint of his eyes peek out from under his sunglasses (Ojiro doesn’t even remember the guy’s eye colour; blue? red? green? all of the above?), Ojiro would swear up and down that something glistens in them. “You’ve been doing fairly good at English.”
Dishing out overwhelming praise is Mic-sensei’s calling. With how often he does it, you would think it’s a birth-given duty. Admirable, but not for Ojiro -- the ‘fairly’ added on is not lost on him. His teacher does notice a lot.
He bows his head. “I suppose I have,” he admits, and nights of ticking away at his grammar books flash into his head.
Ojiro’s not too sure when him being ‘good’ at English had started; for Tooru’s sake in particular, with her not particularly being the best at it, he just hoped it wouldn’t end.
Maybe he’s just looking for an excuse to keep teaching her. Or at least praying that his time studying isn’t wasted. Lapping away at text that blurred into the next was not an experience he wanted to leave with nothing.
Mic-sensei grins at him. “You have! It’s come through real clear to me that ya’ve been puttin’ a lot more into this whole thing.”
A lot more? “Of what?” he questions, petting his tail. An odd feeling, but if Kaminari likes it as much as he does, Ojiro supposes he could give it a try. Maybe it’s different when the appendage is attached to you.
“At the start of the semester, you weren’t doin’ too shabby,” Mic-sensei confesses, then pauses. “I don’t like telling students that.”
Why tell me then, Ojiro thinks, not bitterly. Mic-sensei’s clearly trying to be nice here. “Oh.”
Mic-sensei flashes him an unrecognizable look. Just as soon as it’d come, the look is gone, painted over by another smile. Ojiro faintly recalls his mother offering him a similar expression when he’d misread the fine print of the acceptance letter and figured his dreams at UA had already been crushed.
“That is to say,” his teacher folds his hands forward. Interlacing his palms on the desk and sticking his pinky out, he continues, “You’ve improved tenfold, Ojiro.”
The man keeps going before Ojiro can respond. A whoosh sound escapes his mouth, likely to imitate something; a car? “Shot up like a rocket! Hell,” and Ojiro amends the image to a rocket, though at the last word, his teacher seems to realize he shouldn’t say it, as his mouth juts out into a pout before shaking his head and barreling on, “Even your Aizawa-sensei’s noticed!”
Aizawa-sensei notices plenty. After USJ, though he hadn’t been there to witness it, the extent of Aizawa-sensei’s injuries, and him limping back into the classroom barely even a day or so after ‘getting his ass kicked into the ground protecting them’ (Mineta’s words, not his, though he won’t lie when he says he and some of their classmates had scowled at the crude choice of words’), Ojiro can recognize one thing: Aizawa cares.
So he doesn’t doubt Aizawa-sensei picking up on his improvement. It’s nice, that they’ve noticed. He and Mic-sensei both.
“And I’m sure you and your classmates already know that man’s a grump,” and though Ojiro would protest, there’s a fond look on his teacher’s face that Ojiro is unsure how to place. His father looks like that when he talks about his mother, even when she’s just in the other room. The kind he sticks his tongue out at them for, laughing when they gawk. “Big deal, huh? You’ve done really well. You should be proud of yourself! I know I certainly am! Your efforts have come a long way!”
Not really. He is proud, but not in the same way Mic-sensei is, from the way he’s beaming across from him. “Sure,” he shrugs his shoulders.
His cheeks are not burning. No. No way. The tuft on his tail itches against his ear.
Abruptly, there’s a screech when chair legs scrape against floor as Mic-sensei stands upright. When Ojiro gets up himself, there’s only a soft roll of wheels; why had his teacher given him the nicer one? How hadn’t he noticed? Worrying had likely blinded him.
He elects to ask, because Mic-sensei hasn’t moved an inch since he’d got up, humming away.
“Was…” he hesitates, then shakes his head, having faced the music already and walked away with what could’ve been considered a day at an orchestra, if he’d had to put a description to it, with Mic-sensei’s creative writing sessions in mind, “That all? You wanted to say?”
“That’s all I really wanted to say,” Mic-sensei confirms.
Ohhhhh-kay. He nods. Well, isn’t that pleasant.
Quickly heading back over to his desk, he makes a grab for his bag and rushes back to Mic-sensei. Dipping into a bow, he offers a ‘thank you’.
(Un)surprisingly, Mic-sensei doesn’t make a show of it. He just laughs and gestures towards the door, thumb thrown out.
“Now, run along, now,” he whistles, and before Ojiro knows it, there’s something slipped between his fingers as Mic-sensei steps forward, “I’m sure Lunch Rush has somethin’ good in store today.”
Glancing down, Ojiro startles when he finds a teacher’s lunch pass in his hands.
What? Because he can't help himself, he gawks.
What’s this supposed to mean?
Twisting his head around, he holds the ticket out. “Sensei, I can’t--” accept this.
When he turns, Mic-sensei’s already back to humming away at his desk, tuned out.
Sighing, Ojiro just tucks the paper into his pocket. Hooks his bag over his shoulders and, slowly as he can, makes his way to the door.
“Least I could do for pullin’ ya away from your friends,” Mic says suddenly, just before he makes it out. Like an afterthought. From the clicking ringing out in the room, he’s still typing away at his keyboard-- maybe putting grades in? "Get the katsudon, yeah? Lunch Rush's version always kills it."
The ticket is light in his pocket.
Looking over his shoulder, Ojiro chances a faint smile.