Aizawa left the classroom, promising to return with someone who could extricate Liam from the ice floe. As he left, Sasha was helping Yaoyorozu to her feet.
"Is he usually that quick to anger?" Sasha asked.
"No, he isn't. I think that whatever Smith-san said to him rattled him for some reason," she replied. "I think I'll go follow him to make sure he's alright."
With that, she, too jogged out of the classroom.
"Well, we knew that some of them would figure it out," Joshua commented, "But who knew our reception would be so frosty?"
Liam sighed as Joshua and Sasha snickered.
"Hey, still frozen in a block of ice here, but sure, laugh it up" he said.
"You know we will," Sasha replied.
As they all chatted quietly, Aizawa's voice came over the PA system.
ATTENTION CLASS 1-A. HEROICS TRAINING FOR THE AFTERNOON HAS BEEN CANCELLED. ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND. MINA ASHIDO, PLEASE REPORT TO THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE.
Soon, Eraserhead reentered the classroom with a pink-skinned teenager in tow.
"Hiya, you can all call me Mina!" she said. "Mr. Aizawa said you pissed off Todoroki earlier and that I'm supposed to get you out."
"You're the acid girl, right?" Joshua asked. "Are you sure you won't burn Liam?"
Ashido shrugged. "Probably not, but hey, we have recovery girl if something goes wrong."
"It's fine," Liam assured. "As long as it's not hydrofluoric acid the damage would be surface-level. I'll be fine."
"All right!" Ashido shouted. "Let's get started!"
Soon, and with minimal acid burns, Liam was out of the ice. He looked up towards Aizawa.
"Is the rest of our day cancelled too?" he asked.
"You're a part of 1-A, aren't you?" the teacher replied.
"Fair enough. Our luggage arrived earlier, let's get moved in, you guys," he said.
"Ooh, ooh! I want to see too!" Ashido exclaimed.
"Sure, would be nice to have another girl along," Sasha offered.
Ashido seemingly pulled out a smartphone out of thin air and began typing at a startling speed, ostensibly to let someone she walks home with know that she would be a while. The now four-person group walked out of the academic building and across the grounds to a three-story brick building.
The students opened the doors to see a large common area and open kitchen, with a staircase at the far wall. There were long tables, seemingly enough to fit all of class 1-A, several couches and a few TVs. A glass door next to the lounge area even denoted an indoor pool. There were a stack of cardboard boxes, a vintage-looking leather suitcase, and an old wooden chest sitting in the middle of the open space. The students walked over to inspect the pile.
"All my things made it through customs fine," Liam said. "How about you two?"
Sasha and Joshua both nodded excitedly.
"Let's start moving in! I'm on the second floor," Joshua said, "Are you guys there too?"
"Yeah," Sasha answered, "What about you, Liam?"
"Basement," he said. "For my quirk, remember?"
"Oh, that's right, sorry about that," she backtracked. "Anyway, it'll be cool to have a whole floor to yourself! Maybe I'll have to come visit you during the night~"
"You and I both know that my possession of a Y chromosome makes that not a real offer," Liam deadpanned. "Besides, I think if any room was going to be monitored at night, it would be one of ours."
"Hey!" Sasha protested. "You can't out me like that in front of a cute girl!"
Mina blushed purple at this.
"Sasha you introduced yourself with 'I like girls'," Joshua corrected, "I don't think Liam bringing it up really matters."
"H-hey, um, are you guys, uh, done?" Mina asked timidly.
"Yeah, we are," Liam sighed. "Anyway, why don't you help Josh here with his boxes. Sasha and I can both get our own."
Liam picked up the leather suitcase from the pile and a small cardboard box. Sasha picked up the wooden chest and several of the moving crates all at once, and then walked to the elevator.
"Damn, she's strong," Mina commented. "I wonder what that has to do with her quirk?"
"I, um, don't think it's really my place to say," Joshua replied. "But she is scarily strong. She threw me from the ground to the roof of a building one time when we were training."
"Really? That's crazy!" Mina exclaimed. "I think the only people in my class who could throw someone that far are Shoji, Sato, and Midoriya, and Midoriya would get all busted up!"
"Yeah, she's a force to be reckoned with, for sure," Josh agreed. They had reached his empty room. "Anyway, thanks for helping me move my boxes. I'm not the most, ah, physically able."
"It was no problem!" Mina answered. "I was just taking the excuse to see the dorms. I wonder who will move in alongside you guys?"
"Not you?" Josh asked.
"Probably not," Mina admitted, "I think my parents will want to keep me close where I'm going to school for something so dangerous."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Josh acquiesced. "Still, though, you're welcome to come by anytime. I'm sure it'll become an after-class hang out spot for most of 1-A."
"I'll do that," Mina agreed. "I'll let you unpack, I'm going to go drop in on the others."
"Sure thing," Josh responded. "We'll probably all meet in the common area when we're done."
Mina left the room and walked around the floor to the girls' side wing. One of the doors was open, so she walked over and knocked on it.
"One second, Josh, thanks for coming by," Sasha said from inside. She was crouched on the floor, fiddling with something on the front of the large wooden chest from earlier. "I was starting to get a little thirst-"
She stopped talking when she looked over at Mina. "Oh, it's you. Just forget about all that!"
"Yeah, uh, sure," Mina said, "I just came to see what your room looked like. Cool theme, very ominous."
The walls were all red with black accents. The blackout curtains were drawn, so the room was very dark. There was a large vanity mirror on the desk, and a wardrobe covered an entire wall.
"You think so?" Sasha asked. "I think some would find it rather off-putting."
"Kirishima used to be into this kind of thing back in middle school, I guess I'm used to it. You're way more into the theme than he ever was though," Mina replied. "Anyway, I'm going to go see what Liam is up to."
"Knock before you go into his room," Sasha advised. "He can get a little pissy about people dropping in unannounced."
"I will," Mina said as she bounced away.
Going down the stairs carried her to the basement of the building, where the green drywall turned to gray cement. A heavy metal door held the plaque which read that it was Liam's room. She knocked on it twice, and it clanged loudly.
"Just a sec," Liam said from inside.
A moment later, the doors slid open to reveal the room inside. It was spacious, much more so than the other rooms she had seen thus far. A bookshelf lined one wall, filled half with books and half with vinyl records. The opposite wall had a turntable and a desk with a computer. Next to the door was a small television. The middle of the room was occupied by a small couch. The far wall housed Liam's closet and another sliding metal door. There were no windows in the room, and more curiously, no bed. Liam had also changed out of his school uniform into a black tee shirt and jeans.
"So, what do you think?" he asked, making a sweeping gesture around the room.
"Looks cool, but where do you sleep?" Mina asked.
"I don't mostly," he answered. "My quirk has some pretty serious side effects while I'm asleep, so my training includes not getting much sleep. When I need to though, I do it in there."
He pointed at the metal sliding door opposite the one she had entered through.
"Alright then, let's see it!" Mina exclaimed.
"You want me to bring you to my bedroom?" Liam inquired, smirking. "My, I didn't know Japanese girls were so forward."
Mina smacked him on the shoulder. "I don't want you to now that you've put it like that! Anyway, next question, why isn't there any light in here?"
"Uh, because we're in the basement?" he answered.
"Well yeah, but usually there are small windows in the foundation to allow light into the basement," she explained.
"Oh, now I understand. I guess you didn't notice on the way down the stairs. This basement is an extra five feet underground," he said.
"And why's that?" she asked.
"Villain attack procedures, maybe? Tornado security? An excuse for Power Loader and Cementoss to flex? Could be anything really" he speculated. "Anyway, I'm supposed to meet up with the others in the common area, I assume you're joining us?"
"Of course!" she said. They left his room and he slid the heavy metal door shut.
Upstairs in the common area, Sasha and Josh were standing in the kitchen in front of a pot and arguing about something.
"Sasha, the recipe very clearly calls for it, I'm going to put it in the sauce," Josh explained.
"But then I won't be able to eat it!" Sasha shouted at him.
"You can't fucking eat it anyway!" he shouted back.
"What's going on here?" Mina asked.
The two arguing teens looked at her, back to each other, and then back at her before grinning.
"Mina," Sasha started, "Josh here is trying to put a spice I don't like in the pasta sauce for tonight's dinner."
"Well, I guess-" Mina started to respond, only to be cut off by Josh.
"What miss picky eater is failing to mention," he interjected, "Is that she's allergic to one of the other main ingredients anyway and won't be eating the pasta."
"That doesn't matter!" Sasha shouted, "I don't like how it smells!"
"I thought you said it was preventing you from eating it?" Mina asked.
"Ha! I win!" Josh said. He overturned the spoon of herbs into the sauce.
Sasha glowered at Mina. "You're colluding with him, aren't you?" she demanded.
"What?" Mina asked. "I-"
"Sasha, leave her alone, let's go outside if Josh's cooking bothers you that much," Liam said.
"I'll join you once I take this off the heat," Josh said.
The three teens who weren't cooking went outside. The sun was starting to go down in the sky, it was probably almost 5 pm. Mina looked alarmed and turned to the other two.
"Oh geez, I didn't realize it had gotten this late, I need to get home," she said. "It was nice meeting you all, call me if you need to get unfrozen again!"
With that, she sped off, likely to take the train home from school.
"Well, that was certainly an eventful first day," Sasha said to Liam as they watched Mina run off. "What do you think of our classmates?"
"I hope you're not insinuating that I read their minds without their consent?" Liam asked her with a fake gasp.
"Of course not," Sasha said, "I just know your ability lets you read the room a little better."
"They mostly seem fine," Liam answered. "That half-and-half kid who froze me earlier seems like one to steer clear of, very angsty. Same with the blond who wasn't wearing his tie, the anger coming off him was a little scary. Actually, you should stay away from the really short grape-headed kid too. He was so perverted I actually had to take an extra dose of my pills halfway through the class just not to listen to it."
"Liam you can't just keep taking those whenever you start hearing people's thoughts that you don't like," Sasha protested. "How many days' worth do you have left? A week? Less?"
"Sasha, I know," Liam answered, "but they all just think so much. Anyway, there's apparently someone who can make more for me here, so I might be able to get a re-up."
"That's great!" Sasha cheered. "Anyway, any other strange vibes you got from people in our class?"
"Nothing worth worrying about," he said. "That green-haired kid behind the angry boy is an actual ball of sunshine though."
"Aww, cute," Sasha cooed.
Josh walked out to greet them as they finished their conversation.
"Sup?" he asked. "Talking about our new classmates?"
"Yeah something like that," Liam responded. "Any catch your eye?"
"Did you see the guy with the bird head?" Josh asked. "Rad. There was also a girl whose ears had headphone jacks on them, I wonder if they're the right diameter for listening to music with them."
"I guess we'll have to ask," Liam answered. "Is dinner ready?"
Josh nodded. "Yeah it is. Sasha, you said you needed to feed tonight too, right?"
"Yeah, thanks," she said. "It's been almost a week since I've had a real meal."
"A week? Didn't you feed from Liam the other day?" Josh asked.
"Apparently my blood doesn't taste good," Liam chuckled. "She couldn't bear to swallow more than a few sips."
"Maybe if you didn't take enough stimulants to kill a herd of elephants every week it would taste better," Sasha protested.
"Nah, I don't think I will," Liam answered. "Anyway, let's eat"
A/N: Chapter 2 done! More exposition, exploring the dorms, and getting to work on my characters. I was kicking around the idea of making this chapter longer but it's about the same length as the last one and no one said that was too short so I guess I'll leave it.
As always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy!