"Um... Hi?"
Another moment of silence, then... "Hi!"
The high-pitched voice came from my left, belonging to a girl in what I'm assuming is UA uniform, who was previously sitting on the desk behind her. I looked up and smiled, trying to force some false confidence into my voice, but I still stuttered, "H-Hello, I'm Kei Takada, the transfer s-student" I felt myself blush, and awkwardly reached a hand behind my head to tug at my hair.
"Cool! I'm Ochako Uraraka, but you can just call me Uraraka! this is my friend Izuku Midoriya," She gestured to the figure standing next to her and leaning against her desk, who waved in response. At least now I had names for the shapes.
I heard most of the class return to whatever they were doing after I introduced myself, though a few were still looking at my headphones and gloves. With a wave of confidence, I held my hand out, saying "Nice to meet you! You can call me Kei,"
She grinned even wider, if that was possible, and shook my hand. I felt her open her mouth to respond, and from her body language, I guessed she was either going to ask where I sat or show me my seat. Before she could speak, another voice sprung up to my right, my attention had lapsed whilst I was focussed on Uraraka and Midoriya.
I recognised the voice even as it spoke enthusiastically, "You! Transfer student! school uniform at UA does not include gloves or headphones! You should remove them before Aizawa-sensei arrives!" Just as Iida spoke, I felt a breath of cold air as the door opened and the slightly familiar presence of our homeroom teacher, Aizawa, who groaned as he took in the scene and heard Iida's complaint.
"Iida, stop complaining at the new kid, he has permission from the Principal for the gloves and headphones. Everyone else, this is Kei Takada, the transfer student we told you about. Sit down. Kei, your seat is in front of Todoroki. Todoroki, wave." Iida looked down, ashamed of himself, sitting at the desk beside where I stood, and as everyone else sat down, I remembered the seating plan I had received last night. I knew roughly where the seat would be, but a shy and hesitant wave from someone, presumably Todoroki, helped me identify it.
As I set my bag down and pulled out the chair, I smiled shyly at Todoroki, who looked up at me, but I couldn't tell if he returned the gesture.
Aizawa-sensei ignored my presence for the rest of the short homeroom period, which was nice for me, as I could relax a bit and gather more information on the room and my classmates. From what I could tell, the student next to me, probably Mineta, was only a couple of feet tall, whilst Koda on my right was bigger than average. Tokoyami, in front of me, had an oddly-shaped head, likely to do with his quirk. Someone a few seats in front of me appeared to have a tail, and annoyingly kept brushing it back and forth along the floor.
After informing us of individual 1 v.s 1 battles taking place during hero training in the afternoon, Aizawa laid on the floor in a sleeping bag, leaving the class to talk between themselves. I felt Iida approach, his stiff movements and tall stature easily recognisable.
"I apologise for what I said, that was intrusive and rude of me! Please forgive me!" He bowed stiffly, though I could hear the sincerity in his voice.
"I- uh, no problem, seriously. I get that a lot" I rubbed the scarring on my neck again awkwardly, uncomfortable with so much interaction with new people.
"That is no reason for me to intrude!" I was about to try to reason with him again, when the bell for first period went. It was louder than I was expecting, and I flinched away from the sudden sound. Iida noticed, and probably figured out that I wore headphones to cancel out some of the noise. He hesitated before turning back and returning to his seat, just as the door opened and our next teacher walked in.
I sensed his extravagant hairstyle, but also some slight buzzing, like electrical interference. Just in time for his introduction, I managed to turn up my headphones, saving myself from the volume of Present Mic.
"Hello, Listeners! I understand we have a new student, but we shall not slow down! Onwards!" He shouted, and I looked down at my desk, embarrassed at being called out but yet again thankful for him moving past it.
I was due to receive tutoring during regular English lessons, due to my obvious inability to read, but also because I already spoke fluent English, as a result of my mothers influence on my upbringing. However, UA had yet to find me a tutor who had the security clearance to access UA grounds and students, but who also knew braille. The lessons with my tutor would be spent going over previous material and catching up lessons, as the class was ahead of my old school. For the time being, I fished around in my bag for my 'pencil case', though it was more of a protective case for my audio recorder. I turned the device on, as it had been decided that even though I couldn't take notes, I should record lessons to go over with my tutor. No one seemed to notice my lack of book, or at least no one turned to face me, although I had a sixth-sense kind of feeling that someone was watching.
The lesson passed by relatively quickly, Present Mic didn't ask me any questions, and neither did any of the students, although I was going to have to come up with an excuse sometime soon.
From what I knew, each class stayed in the same room all day, so there was no need for movement between classrooms, a bell would ring for the end of the lesson, and the next teacher would arrive. I felt my watch on my wrist, it was specially made to look like a normal fitness tracker, but the supposedly blank screen on top actually told me the time via Braille. We had two minutes until the end of the lesson, so I turned my recorder off and put it back in the case, not wanting everyone to see during the short transition from English to maths.
As the bell went for maths, I retrieved my Braille textbook from my bag (again printed to look like an ordinary textbook) and changed the setting on my audio recorder, so it would save the recording to a separate file, so that I could easily distinguish between each subject. Thankfully no one approached me whilst we waited for our next teacher, so I had a moment of peace before the door opened again. I heard the movement of fabric as our teacher walked towards the front of the room; one long coat with a tall collar, the unique hero costume of Ectoplasm. From what I'd heard, he could create clones of himself, which was exceptionally useful in combat, but also provided his students with a dummy to practice their fighting style on. Alongside all these other great qualities, Ectoplasm was also qualified to teach maths, which was the less-exciting purpose of his presence. Although I couldn't wait for combat training, as none of the class knew my quirk or my abilities, my old school, Seijin, was behind where UA was on the course, so I had a lot to catch up on.
Ectoplasm was a good teacher, he explained everything clearly and related the more difficult problems to real-life situations, and seemed to know when to push the students and when to let them figure it out on their own. The concepts he was teaching weren't too difficult to grasp, they were just new to me, so I made a mental note to listen to the recording again when I had some spare time, and go over it with my tutor, when UA finally found one.
Sixty minutes and one headache later, I fumbled for my timetable again. One more lesson, then an hour for lunch, then hero training. I pulled my timetable from my pocket, trying to unfold it and hold it the right way round. It was harder than it looked, I had to keel figuring out if the Braille was upside down or not. Although, I guess even sighted people had that trouble sometimes.
A quiet voice behind me cleared their throat, and I felt Todoroki lean forward slightly, telling me "We have- uh- art history next, with Midnight?" The subject sounded familiar, so I nodded and smiled slightly, still embarrassed that he'd noticed my fumbling around with my timetable. He hadn't raised his voice, even though I was wearing headphones, so he must have figured out that I have sensitive hearing. It was a relief to not have people speaking overly loudly to me, assuming I couldn't hear through the headphones.
Shoving my timetable back into my pocket, Midnight glided gracefully into the room, a minute or two after the departure of Ectoplasm, and seemed to almost purr when she spoke. "Good morning! Whose ready to learn about some lovely art history!" I could hear from the way she walked that her costume was very tight fitting, there was no fabric swishing around, and she had metal bracelets, probably resembling handcuffs if I remembered her hero profile correctly. I had read about her online, and, if I could see, I imagined there would be quite a few blushing faces amongst the class.
I was going to be pretty useless at the 'art' part of art history- analysing paintings and modern artworks, but I sometimes found the history side quite interesting. Learning what inspired the classical artists, and their years of devotion to the craft was amazing to me. I couldn't help but feel like the way artists were described as practicing every waking moment, and building up wonderful images with every brushstroke, seemed familiar to me, and the way I spent years of practice building images in my head of my surroundings, taking in every detail as best I could.
The lesson was relatively interesting, focussing on the traditional Japanese art style of Ukiyo-e. By the time it was over, I was starving, although my anxiety from earlier had only slightly decreased. I did wish that I'd managed to eat more for breakfast though, I underestimated the length of time three lessons, plus a train journey, would take.
Everyone started packing their books and pens away, and the squeaking of chairs across the floor filled the room. I placed my stuff back in my bag, making sure it was in the correct place, before standing up and trying to remember where the lunch hall was. As the bell went, three sets of footsteps approached me, two from my right and one from my left. I recognised them as the only three students who had talked to me so far-minus Todoroki- the class representative, Iida, as well as the excitable girl from before, Uraraka, and the shorter Midoriya.
I fiddled with the bottom edge of my blazer, unsure I should walk to the door or wait until they approached me, I've never been too good in these sort of situations. Luckily, one of them spoke before I'd made up my mind. "Hey, Kei, right?" I nodded, turning to the voice. It was Midoriya who spoke this time, he had a slightly high-pitched voice, and seemed very cheerful and friendly enough. "We were wondering if you wanted to sit with us, because, well, you haven't really made friends yet?" A bit blunt, but at least he wasn't lying.
"Sure," I managed not to stutter this time, probably because the rest of the class had filed out of the room whilst Midoriya spoke.
I felt his facial expression change as he and the other two smiled at me. I smiled back, feeling some of the weight of anxiety lift from my shoulders. I'm finally making friends!
——Authors Note——
And that's chapter three! I hope you all enjoyed Kei's first interactions with 1-A! I don't have a lot to say today but again, please please please vote and comment! I'd really appreciate knowing people were reading this! I keep checking to see if the reader counts have gone up but they don't / anyway, have a great day!
-Entity
Date of publication: Thursday 11th Feb 2021
Word Count: 2112
