Izuku snorts as he watches a villain childishly stick his tongue out at a hero, causing the other to scowl. A yawn escapes his mouth, his eyes tearing up. He turns his phone off, slipping it into his pocket as the bell rings. Present Mic slips into the classroom with an excited shout, while he peers over to his right where his classmate sleepily rubbed his eyes, raising from his hunched-over position. It seems he wasn't the only one not getting a full-night's rest. He returns his attention to his homeroom teacher (who just happens to be a popular Pro-Hero), twisting a green curl with a finger. He answers with a lazy "Here" when his name is called.

Soon, roll call is over, and Present Mic is reassuring the students that whatever happened at USJ wasn't going to happen again. "Us Pros are gonna work hard to keep you listeners safe, so there's nothin' you need to worry about!" His grin dramatically falls, a grim expression replacing it. "Actually, there is..." The class of teenagers tense up, though Izuku just narrows his eyes. "You listeners need to worry about the U.A.'s Sports Festival!" He beams and goes on about the advantages of getting on the podium, and the students relax, many of them grinning. Izuku peeks over at his tired classmate again, and even he's showing a bit of excitement, his purple eyes shining in hope and determination.

As for Izuku, he could care less about the festival. He wasn't aiming for the Hero Course; he didn't have any desire to become a Pro-Hero. All he needed was to graduate and get into college, so he could get a better job than the one he has at a fast food restaurant, and if he had a little side business of helping people with small-time things, who cares? It's not like he has any good reputation at school. If he did, he probably wouldn't be all alone and friendless. People would probably stop looking at his quirkless status before looking at who he is.

Being quirkless isn't a fun characteristic to live with, in fact, it is terrible. All because of not having something that eighty percent of the population has, his former friend decided to bully and basically ostracize him. All because of not having a quirk, almost everyone either hated or pitied him. All because he was quirkless, he couldn't save his mother from a stupid villain. But what can he, or anyone, do? Genetics is genetics; not like anyone can change it.

He shakes his head, sighing. Instead of thinking about quirks (or lack thereof), he thinks about his recent client, an old woman by the name of Sato Mio. One of her friends had shared the news of a kind, young teenager who went and found her dog (an angry pomchi, who reminded him to a certain hero-in-training) for a fair price, and she came with the quest of looking for her missing cat. Imagine her face when she met a tired, sarcastic teen who asked her to "Come into my office. Yes, the restroom." He took the job, for the same price as the pomchi case, and now, after school, he has a calico to search for.

He thinks about the places the lost pet could be, the possibility that someone else already found the cat and was waiting for missing pet posters to go up before claiming the cat for themselves (of course, no one could blame Sato, she's just a poor old woman, who didn't even have her phone number or address on her cat's tag). The first thing he will do after school is print posters with the cat's picture (provided by Sato, she had many to choose from; he chose one where the cat was looking at the camera with a toy in her mouth), and put them up after doing a quick search. If the cat wasn't in any easy or obvious place, then he couldn't find her without a bit of help from neighbors (it'd be like trying to find a needle in a haystack). It was the same process as he did with the angry pomchi, and the same process he's done for past animals and will continue to use for future ones.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, Present Mic's loud voice bringing an irritating headache. He felt the sun shining down on him, trying to lull him to a doze or a sleep, and he lets it, setting his head down. It's not like his teacher was explaining anything he was interested in, and there was nothing wrong with getting a small nap in, was there? He feels someone's eyes on him, but he brushes the attention off, nestling into his arms more and breathing in deeply.

It was going to be a long day.

He stretches, yawning widely. He felt slightly rested, somehow allowed to sleep through all his classes until lunch. No one woke him up; it's almost like his teachers saw how dark the bags were under his eyes and didn't want to get in the way of lightening them, even just a bit. Jokes on them, they're as dark as his soul, meaning they're never gonna go away or lessen. He stands from his desk and takes note of how his sleepy classmate (who also happens to have bags under his eyes, is it a new trend going around?) is sleeping once again, his face buried into his arms. Deciding to be nice, Izuku pokes his shoulder a few times, effectively waking him up. The purple-haired guy yawns, his eyes becoming focused and quickly noticing Izuku standing beside him.

Izuku tilts his head, "You wouldn't know how to find a lost cat?" He mostly meant the question as a joke, but was open to any suggestions. What can he say, Mr. Sleepy looked to be a cat-person.

"You woke me up to ask how to find a cat?" Mr. Sleepy groans, rubbing his face in annoyance. He sets his gaze on the green-haired boy, almost glaring.

"Nah," Izuku chuckles, "figured you wouldn't wanna miss out on lunch. Lunch Rush's food is pretty good."

Mr. Sleepy lets up on his irritation, muttering a, "Thanks."

"So, what's your name? I'm Midoriya Izuku," Izuku figures he could try to be polite. The other boy didn't seem to talk to their other classmates. In fact, it was almost like he was purposely distancing himself from everyone.

"I'm not here to make friends." That explains it.

"I don't remember saying that I wanted to be your friend. All I asked for was your name."

The teen sets another stare on him before answering, "Shinsou."

"Nice to meet you, Shinsou."

Izuku smiles before moving on, following the last few students out of the classroom and down the hall to the large cafeteria. He angles his head down, his long, curly hair curtaining the front of his face, when he sees All Might walk out of the teacher's lounge with his annoying grin on his face. He mostly likely didn't remember him, but he didn't want to take any chances. He was the last person he wanted to talk to. He continues down the hall, passing students from all different courses, including a few from 1-A and 1-B. He makes it to the lunchroom, but instead of getting a delicious lunch from Lunch Rush, he goes straight to a deserted table. He could have all the cold french fries and chicken nuggets he wanted when he goes to his shift from seven to nine this evening. He always makes sure his hours fall in line with the curfew set out for minors, allowing himself time to get back to his tiny apartment before then.

He brings his phone out, unlocking it, when he hears the soft sound of a tray being set down. When he looks up, he sees an apathetic male with red and white hair sitting as far away as possible from him. He shrugs. He didn't really care as long as he doesn't try to start a conversation with him; he wasn't in the mood for one. He scrolls through Twitter, giving a few smiles to the memes that popped up and even liking a few. He didn't bother retweeting any tweets, seeing as how the few followers he had were random people that he didn't know nor care about. He's never posted about anything, only use his account for memes and to keep up with any news about Heroes and Villains that was recent, such as the newly debuted League of Villains, or how Endeavor keeps fucking up.

As he's scrolling, he is tapped on the shoulder, causing him to move his eyes away to find one of his classmates looking down at him. He inhales before asking, "Do you need something?"

The classmate eyes the other male at the opposite end of the table before lowly saying, "At the end of school, all of 1-C is gonna block 1-A's doorways, along with a few other groups of students."

"May I ask why?" Izuku sighs, feeling even more tired.

"To declare war," he replies simply, like that answers everything, before adding, "You better be there, Midoriya." He walks off, leaving Izuku before he could get another word out.

Izuku drops his head into his arms and groans, "I have better things to do..." He lifts his head up, setting his gaze upon the teen eating his soba quietly. "Don't know if you heard that, but I'd get out of your classroom as fast as possible. That is, if you wanna avoid getting trapped by a bunch of students for while." The male doesn't say anything, and Izuku goes back to scrolling through his Twitter feed until lunch is over.

He stands up, putting his phone away and pushing in his chair. He follows the mass of students exiting the room, keeping at the back while attempting to run a hand through the mess called his hair. Eventually, he makes it out and is walking down the hall, many students hurrying past him. There was a few minutes to the bell, and if Izuku cared enough, he'd be speed-walking to class too. However, he didn't care, therefore he was taking his sweet time to get back to 1-C. He makes it to the classroom at the same time that the bell rings, shuffling inside and heading to his desk with a yawn. He wonders if he can get away with sleeping in class again. He crosses his arms, putting his head down.

'Won't know if I don't try.'

The next time he wakes up, he's being woken up by a finger poke him. He scrunches up his face before reluctantly rising from his desk. He blearily looks up to see Shinsou, blinking to clear his eyes. Rubbing them when blinking doesn't work, he asks, "Is it time to summon the demon that will end my suffering? If not, I might just cry."

He hears a snort, and with clear vision, he looks at Shinsou. Shinsou is already angled away from Izuku, turning to the door. "School's over. If you're gonna come to 1-A, you better get up."

"Are you going, Shinsou?" Izuku stands, curious. Seeing the male give a tiny nod, he decides to follow, speeding up his pace to match the long strides of his classmate. He doesn't talk to Shinsou any further, instead thinking about the cat. More specifically, he was trying to recall what the cat's name was. 'Is it Yui? No... Yoko? Maybe Yuki? I can't believe I forgot, jeez.'

He pulls out his phone, pulling up a picture of the cat. He stares at her, random names running through his brain, before he looks at Shinsou. "If you had a calico cat, what would you name her?"

Shinsou looks at him strangely. "Why?" Izuku shows him the picture. Shinsou squints, looking at something, before requesting, "Can I see your phone?" Izuku sets his phone in Shinsou's waiting hand, to which the male zooms in the picture. "Her name is Yuka." He hands back the phone before narrowing his eyes, "Strange that you don't know the cat's name, considering she's on your phone."

"She's not mine." Izuku simply explains, seeing a large crowd of students blocking the doors to what is most likely 1-A's classroom. Shinsou pushes past the student, and Izuku follows, using his small stature to snake between people.

He could hear a familiar voice shout, "It's pointless to try, so why don't you just fuck off, ya goddamn mob." Izuku could recognize that voice anywhere, seeing as how he heard it continuously in the past years.

"I came to see what you kids are made of, true, but I didn't think you'd be this arrogant." Izuku snorts at Shinsou's words, keeping himself hidden behind him.

'Probably just Kacchan, to be honest.'

"I'm a bit disillusioned. So that's it, huh?" Shinsou rubs a hand against his neck. "There's lots of kids who wind up in the General Education Department or other departments because they failed the Heroics one." His tone is slightly bitter. "Did you know that? And based on the results of the Sports Festival, people can be even come under review to be transferred to Heroics, and the reverse is also a possible outcome..." Izuku smirks. Shinsou was gaining his interest, and whether that was a good or bad thing, no one knew. "Scoping out the competition? If nothing else, a General Ed kid like me is thinking, 'Hey, why don't I try pulling the rug out from under those Heroics kids while they're on their high horses?' Consider it a Declaration of War."

Shinsou turns and walks off, leaving Izuku to be seen by those at the door of 1-A. Izuku could see Bakugou tense and then scowl, but before he could say anything, Izuku smiles and moves away, being swallowed in the crowd of students as one from 1-B shouts. He shoves his hands into his pockets.

'I have a cat to look for.' He smirks, green eyes full of amusement. 'Yuka, here I come.'

6.8 pages · 2386 words

May 3, 2020

This chapter is mostly a taste-test for you as a reader. I have no idea when I'll post the next chapter, or even if I post it. I hope you enjoy my impulsive writing, and maybe come back for more, if I give it. Thank you for reading!