Chapter 6
"Hey! You good? How was training?"
It had been like that for more than a month now. Everyday they would gather on the roof to have a quiet moment together, the five of them - or six, whenever Calico gave them the honor of her feline presence-, either for lunch or at the end of the school day.
They were a weird group, from the scowling mute Aizawa to the boisterous loud Hizashi, but they worked. Kyoko felt good in the middle of them. Literally in the middle, with Hizashi and Nemuri on one side, being the crazy, loud, funny ones, and Oboro and Aizawa on the other, calm, reasonable but mischievous in their own way. And she fit well in between them. She knew she could lean toward one side or the other to find her balance whenever she needed.
They felt good together. Like a family. At least that's the closest thing she ever had…
"Fine. Can't feel my legs anymore but fine…" she sighs, falling on the ground between Oboro and Nemuri. "I stopped to check on Cali, I think she caught a cold or something."
At that, Aizawa's head snaps in her direction. She had quickly found out that if something would catch his attention, it would be her cat. Or any cat.
"Do you need to take her to a vet?"
"No, I don't think so. She's isn't unwell, she just sneezes like crazy. Like a hundred times in a row!" she jokes, imitating the poor creature, earning laughs from the other but a deeper frown from him.
"Hm… I got some oils at home. For inhalation. I'll bring them tomorrow."
"Oh! Good idea! Thanks you!" she gives him a small smile. She still struggles around him, she still has to figure him out. He's not as cold and mean as he first was, but he is still deadpan and serious all the time. His smiles – or laughs – are rare and short. Like lightning, you have more chance to miss it than to see it, but they radiates. The only thing that reassures her, is that he's like that with everybody, even his best friends.
"Oh! The Sport Festival is coming soon!" Nemuri screams after a minute of peaceful silence. "Are you going to kick asses senpaiiis?" she coos, leaning her head on Hizashi's shoulder.
"Don't call us that." Aizawa scowls.
"I like it! I like the hierarchy…" she purrs, wriggling her eyebrows and trailing her hand on Hizashi's arm. The poor guy goes red in the face with wide eyes searching for help. But it only makes them all burst out laughing. Well… it's makes Aizawa smirk and roll his eyes.
"Insortable…"Kyoko mutters in her mother tongue. She doesn't use it often anymore but she like to brag sometimes.
"What?"
"It means you're impossible and that we can't take you out in good society!" she soften her words with a laugh and by ruffling Nemuri's hair. The black haired girl huffs and straightens her red glasses on her nose.
"But she's right, how do you feel it? Confident?" she goes again. "You're basically invincible in this context Aizawa. That's almost unfair for you all…" She still struggles at calling him by his first name, especially with people around. The occurrences can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
He rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
"No one's invincible. Don't be silly…" he mutters.
"You're not participating Kyoko?! Hizashi exclaims. "I thought your control was good now? You would have so much success!"
"Yeah, good. Not perfect!" she chuckles. "I could handle the one on one, or the race with some effort. But the public? With the noise and the stress? Huh huh… Nope!"
"They didn't even let her join her class for quirk training yet. They wouldn't risk half of the heroes of the country, the students and their families." Aizawa adds, watching his friend like if he was the stupidest person alive.
"Thank you for your kind words…" Kyoko huffs, adverting her gaze.
But she quickly compose herself. She knows he doesn't mean it like that, he's blunt and rude with everybody around him. That's his manner of avoiding hypocrisy and winning time. But it still stings to be reminded of her destroying past.
"Anyway, no. I'm not going. So I want you to win for me, my friends!" she puts a hand on her heart, overacting her demand.
"For you we shall fight, milady!" Oboro answers, bowing and taking her hand.
Again, they laughed and Shota rolled his eyes. Kyoko caught him, and it irritated her.
"No wonder they hurt, if you keep rolling them to the back of your skull like that. Be careful, one day they'll get stuck…"
And it was always like that. They talk, eat, bicker and laugh. Shota gets annoyed, Hizashi loud, and Oboro mediates. One memorable time, Kyoko and Shota had argued so hard, encouraged by Hizashi commentating the spar like a sportscaster, that Oboro had gone desperate and Nemuri had had to put them all to sleep with her quirk to avoid getting in trouble.
It was nice.
It sounded stupid to her own ears but Kyoko couldn't help thinking it was just like in those movies and animes she had watched. The new girl finally meeting her best friends in her new school after a life of being the black sheep.
That was a cliché she didn't mind.
A few days later, she faces an other famous cliché. That one she had been certain was a legend…
It's Monday morning, and she and Nemuri are walking to 2-A's room. She just need to give Shota his inhaler and oils back. No big deal.
Kyoko doesn't really pay attention as she enters the room, still laughing at one of Nemuri's kinky joke, but she stops seeing his and the boys desks still empty, and only then notices the intrigued gazes fixed on her.
"Oi! What do you think you're doing hafu?" comes a voice from her right. Kyoko turns her head to see a tall girl, with olive skin and glossy black hair frowning at her, her black irises diving into Kyoko's eyes. Her friends giggling idiotically behind her, exchanging a knowing gaze.
It better not be what she thinks it it…
"I am bringing something to someone. How is that your problem?" she sighs tiredly. It's too early in the morning for her to deal with some stupid high school girl shit…
"It's my problem as a class rep to know what a first year is doing in my class. Who are you hoping to give your gift to, anyway? Shirakumo-san? Aizawa-san? Ah! You got no chance sweetie…"
"Oh putain… ça se fait vraiment ces conneries*?…" she curses under her breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. A quick glance at the rest of the room and she sees all the others's eyes on her or on the girl in front of her, amused and curious at the display. She takes a deep breath.
"One, it's not a gift. Two, again, it's none of your business, and last… how do you know? Did you try yourself? Rejection made you bitter?" she heard a few snorts and muffled laughs behind her but never moved her gaze from the other girl black eyes. She slowly lifts her hand to drop the bag on Shota's desk, a big fake smile on her face, with a last insolent "Have a good day!" before retreating to the door. She can hear furious steps behind her and feel wind brush her back. Shota had been right on that one, always being aware of your surroundings.
"If you're thinking about throwing the bag at me, I would advise you not to break Sho… Aizawa-san's things. You don't want to see him angry, believe me." she says, still walking calmly. This time, hoos and whistles echo in the room. Had she let slip his first name on purpose? Maybe…
She allows a smug smile to tug at her lips, but it's short lived as a forceful hand grips at her shoulder and forces her to turn around, to meet angry entirely black eyeballs inches from her face.
Everything goes black for a second, the only thing she can see in the void is her own body. She can't hear anything either.
The next second, she's back in the room, in the same position, except that the girl isn't there anymore, and a ton of huge tarantula spiders are crawling towards her. She takes a step back, but they're coming from everywhere. She can feel them climbing on her legs, under her skirt, on her hand and inside her sleeves.
She tries hard to keep her screams in, and to stay still, keeping her eyes firmly shut. If not to keep her dignity, at least to irk the bitch further. But she can't bear the feeling of thousands little legs tickling her skin. The laughs of the students…
Her breath fastens, she shakes her arms and legs, and takes a few steps back. Her thigh hurts a desk, then a chair, which clatters on the ground. Then she trips on her feet as she passes the door threshold and falls backwards…
They're walking toward their class, like every morning.
Shota had tuned out whatever debate Hizashi and Oboro were having this morning. It was too early for him and they were already too loud for his taste.
That's why he is the first to hear the commotion coming from across the corridor.
"Come on Shota, which is the best salmon or…."
"Shhh!" he cuts Hizashi, pointing to his ear then to the empty corridor.
"Come on, stop it Asami." "Leave the poor girl alone." "That's enough!"
Laughs. Gasps.
"Come on Kyoko, come with me! Hey!"
Nemuri?
They run.
They know Kyoko, and, unfortunately, they know their classmate. It couldn't be good.
They're just a few feet away from the room when they see Kyoko tripping, clutching her arms and shaking her head.
They don't even need to talk. Oboro creates one of his clouds and throws it under her, Aizawa activates his quirk, and Hizashi screams loud enough to startle Asami and make her loose focus.
The noise will certainly attract the attention of some teachers but he doesn't care. Not when it's about her.
"HEEEY! WHAT'S GOING ON HEEERE?!"
She lands smoothly on the cloud, startled. She blinks a few times and look around her with wide eyes, observing that whatever illusion Asami had trapped her in had vanished.
Him and Oboro go to her while Hizashi enters the classroom and takes his favorite part, attracting all the attention to himself.
"The show is over dear classmates! Soo, what's all the ruckus about?"
Shota hears him ask, certainly to Nemuri inside the room. Oboro is helping Kyoko up to her feet and down the cloud. Her hands are clutching his uniform, trembling with the remnants of her fright. Her face shot to him and her expression goes from confusion to hurt and anger in a blink. He only realizes then that his quirk is still activated.
"Sorry!" he says, hands in front of him in a apologetic gesture. "Measure of precaution."
"Are you okay? You're not hurt?"
She shakes her head no. Shota doesn't know what to do. He opens and closes his fist, hovering next to her, unable to actually make a move to comfort her. Not finding the right words either. Oboro beats him at it and rubs his hand up and down her arms.
"We just came to bring Shota's cat stuff back, and she went nuts…"
"Me?! She insulted me!"
"You're ridiculous…"
"LADIIIES pleaaaase!"
"What was it? What did you see?" Oboro asks her softly.
"Spiders. Everywhere…" she answers with a shudder. "I panicked… I hurt a desk and tripped…"
Shota too shudders with rage and he steps in the room.
"Who do you think you are? Since when do you think yourself authorized to put your nose in other people's business? Do you even know what you could have done?" he may have raised his voice a little too much. Even Hizashi was looking at him with wide eyes. But he couldn't care less. His heart was beating fast and his brain was clouded by suppressed fury. She could have hurt her. They could all be hurt or dead. And for what…?
"What is going on in here?"
The apparition of Principal Nezu, Gran Torino and two other teacher -including their own homeroom teacher – freezes everyone in their spot.
"Can someone please explain me calmly what happened here? Kayama-san?" the principal turns toward her. Surely he had chosen because he knew she had been the only one to be there all along.
Nemuri tells them how they had simply come to give Shota his things back, only to discover he wasn't there and how Asami had decided to provoke one of those ridiculous mushy shojo scene. Shota wasn't surprised by the part where Kyoko stood her ground and fought back with scorn of her own. It made him feel something warm in his guts. Something akin to… pride?
"She's lying! She used her quirk on me too!" Asami had the nerves to lie, crocodile tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Allow me to seriously doubt that, Nakamura-san. I'll appreciate if you could not lie to me again. I'll leave the choice of your sanction to your homeroom teacher for this time, but I want an apology letter in my office by tomorrow morning."
No one, ever, had seen or heard the Principal so stern before. They watched him go back toward Kyoko in loaded silence. The others thought he was angry. They knew he was worried.
"I don't want her apologies." she snarls. "She can shove her letter where the sun doesn't shine."
"Come on dear, lets get you back to your class." Nezu says, putting delicately his paw on her right forearm, unbothered by her vulgarity. Shota had already noticed along their numerous fights that she could have the mouth of a sailor when she was truly upset.
Shota had seen many expressions on her face. He had seen her happy, sad, embarrassed. He had even seen her angry and ashamed after loosing one of their fight. She would always end up smiling and laughing all these emotions away, before putting her usual neutral and cold mask back on. Her armor.
But not this time. This time the armor is cracked.
He had never seen her like she was right now. She was furious, sad, ashamed and disgusted, all in the same time.
She was feeling humiliated. And that, she visibly couldn't bear. Or hide.
At this instant, he sees it. In her cold and falsely calm stance, in the deep movement of her chest as she breathes, in her dilated nostrils, in her tightly clenched jaw, and most of all in the cold murderous glint in her averted eyes.
And a glance at Gran Torino and Nezu tells him they see it too.
What she looks like, with a toe on the wrong side of the line.
*"Oh fuck… Is that shit really a thing?"