Chapter 6 - Breakfast
Joshua awoke in the morning, around 6:50 am. He got up, stretched, and opened up the shades that covered the door of his room's balcony. There was some sunlight, but it was still dark out, like a sunset in reverse. After opened the shades, Joshua got dressed, putting on a maroon colored t-shirt and a pair of black gym shorts. He then went out of his dorm room, and was met by a deliciously sweet smell. He also heard laughter, chatter, and what sounded like somebody singing mock Italian. Somebody with a southern accent…
Deciding to find out where the sound was coming from, Joshua went down the stairs and into the main area. There he saw Class 1-A and his fellow new arrivals crowded around the kitchen, still wearing their pajamas and laughing and chattering to each other. Joshua walked up to the group and came beside Hagakure, whom he could only see due to her pink, girly pajamas that looked like they were floating.
"Hey, what's going on?" Joshua asked, his tone drowsy.
"Oh, good morning, Joshua!" Hagakure replied, her voice cheerful. "Your friend, the one with the weird hat, and Sato are cooking breakfast! For some reason, your friend is singing a weird song, but it's so funny to watch!"
Joshua looked into the kitchen and saw Murdock and Sato, a rather large student with impressive baking skills, were cooking breakfast together. They both were wearing their pajamas, but they had on black aprons, and Murdock had on his cowboy hat. The two were cooking pancakes (or flapjacks, as Murdock called them), but while Sato was using a spatula to flip them, Murdock flipped them with the pan while singing loud, Italian opera-like gibberish. Doing all of this was making most of the students who were watching laugh, except for those who were completely serious, such as Todoroki, Tokoyami, and Iida.
"Oh so la me-a…" Murdock sang out, flipping the pancake out of the pan. "Wa-go la da…"
"What exactly is he singing?" asked Todoroki, his expression serious and his head tilted in confusion.
"I don't know." Matthew replied. "Either Murdock is trying to butcher Italian opera as best as he can, or he's actually singing opera and we can't understand a word he's saying!"
Murdock continued singing opera, and then he stopped, turned to the class and said, "Alright, get in a line and get your plates ready; Me and my new friend Sato are going to rapid fire these!"
Class 1-A and the new arrivals obeyed, and Murdock turned to Sato and said, "Alright Sato! Turn up the heat and get to flipping!"
"You got it!" Sato replied, turning up the heat on the stove and pouring pancake batter onto the pan.
As Sato did that, Murdock began giving out pancakes to those who were in line. He placed them on the respected individual's plate and, after they said 'thank you', they went to go eat at a table.
"How in the world did you convince this class to let you make them breakfast?" asked Joshua, when it was his turn to receive food.
"I was the first to wake up this morning and, finding nothing to eat, decided to make some pancakes like my family did back home." Murdock replied, placing pancakes on Joshua's plate. "I guess Sato must have smelled them first, cause he came down and volunteered to help. And when he said that he incredible baking skills, it was then that I knew letting help would be a good idea."
"Move it, will ya?! I'm starving!" Bakugo roared.
"I'm moving, I'm moving!" Joshua yelled back, grabbing his plate with food on it and getting away from the kitchen.
He then went into the dining room, which was a room with three large tables and many chairs. Seeing that most of the students had their own little groups that they ate with, Joshua decided to eat by himself. He sat down at the far end of one of the tables, and began eating. The pancakes tasted sweet, almost like he was eating an actual dessert cake.
As he was eating, Joshua was approached by Milo, who asked, "Hey Joshua, you want to eat with us?"
"No, I'm good." Joshua replied, his tone unmoving.
"Oh come on!" Milo spoke cheerfully. "It's no fun when you're all alone! How about a little company while you eat?"
"I said I'm-" Joshua was about to reply, but then stopped when he saw Jiro sitting with a group. Silently hoping that Jiro was part of this particular group, Joshua replied, "Yeah sure, why not? I'll eat with you guys…"
"Awesome!" Milo replied. "Come along!"
Joshua then got up, picked up his plate, and followed Milo over to the group he was eating with. The group consisted of Milo, Ashido, Sunshine, Jiro, and Kaminari.
"Alright, names going around." Milo said, as he and Joshua sat down. "The pink girl is Mina Ashido, you already know Sunshine and Jiro, and the orange haired dude is Denki Kaminari."
"Nice to meet you…" Joshua replied in a dull tone of voice.
"I can see your a ray of brightness this morning." Sunshine spoke, her tone mildly sarcastic. "Did you have your morning coffee yet?"
"No, I have not. Maybe I should have Jiro jack me again like yesterday; that'll wake me up."
"Very funny…" Jiro replied, her tone as sarcastic as Joshua's.
"I was informed that those jacks of yours are your quirk. So, how about you two, what are your quirks?"
"My quirk allows me to create acid." Ashido replied. "It's pretty handy when you need to burn through something quickly."
"And I can produce and channel electricity." Kaminari spoke up. "I can use it to electrify enemies and charge important things!"
"But you end up acting like a total doofus if you overload." Jiro snarked, which caused Kaminari to shoot an angry look at her.
"Aw, leave him alone; I think it's a cool quirk." said Sunshine, which caused Kaminari to perk up. "It'll definitely help if a medical building or a generator goes out. All he can do is just point a finger at it, fire a stream of electricity, and you have power again!"
"A girl stood up for me!" Kaminari spoke, a happy look on his face and tears in his eyes. "A very pretty girl stood up for me! I think I'm going to cry!"
"Easy on the dramatics, pal." said Joshua, raising one of his hands as a calming gesture.
"Speaking of quirks, your quirk is kind of scary, but also really cool!" said Ashido. "It was shocking how you teared through those robots like they were nothing! What is your quirk called?"
"It's called 'Assault'." Joshua replied. "It basically turns me into a wild animal, and also makes me pretty much invulnerable. It's all well and good, but if I use it for too long, I end up becoming like a wild animal. In other words, I lose my wits and start attacking everybody in sight, friends and allies included."
"Yikes! Sounds dangerous!"
"It is when I can't control it. I've been training to use it longer without succumbing to madness, though, so I can hold on to it for pretty long. Still, a little more training with it would be useful."
"Wise words." Milo spoke up. "But enough with this talk about training for now. Let's get down to the nitty gritty. Tell me, what do you guys like to do in your spare time?"
"I don't know, I guess I'm into anything that's popular at the moment." Kaminari replied with a shrug.
"My hobby is dancing." Ashido replied. "Slow dance, breakdance, you name it, I can do it!"
"Wow, a dancer…" said Milo. "I, personally, can't dance. When it comes to dancing, anything I do would be consider 'break' dancing!"
"Oh?" Ashido asked, her tone rather humorous. "I guess I'm gonna have to teach you how to dance! I can't let something like that go on forever!"
"Really? You would teach me?"
"Sure, why not? It'll be fun!"
"Cool." Milo replied. "Anyway, my hobby is drawing. I like drawing sketches of people when I'm bored and there's nothing much to do. I guess my artistry side stems from having a slime quirk…"
"Think you could sketch us?" Joshua asked, though his tone sounded sarcastic.
"Maybe I could, if you guys didn't mind me doing it…"
"Yeah! That's be awesome!" Ashido cheered.
"I guess everything's exciting with you!" Milo replied, smiling at the pink girl.
"She does that a lot; you better get used to it…" Jiro muttered.
"What about you, Jiro?" Joshua asked. "What's your hobby?"
"Mine's not important…" Jiro replied, bowing her head shyly.
"Oh come on!" Ashido piped up. "Your hobby is about as important as his or mine! Jiro's a musician, and she can play all kinds of instruments!"
Joshua seemed to perk up when he heard that, and he asked, "Really? You're a musician?"
"Yeah? So what?" Jiro asked, her tone defensive. "My parents are musicians and they taught me to play instruments! It's not that big of a deal!"
"No need to be defensive; I was just saying that it's a good hobby. A lot of people pay good money to go to concerts and listen to music. Maybe if you become a hero, you could have a side job as a musician."
Jiro actually seemed to take that into consideration, and she said, "Yeah, I'll think about that…"
"How about you, Sunshine?" Ashido asked. "What's your hobby?"
"Uh… well…" Sunshine replied, her tone flustered. "I like… reading…"
"Reading what?"
"Uh… novels… romance novels…"
Ashido let out a cheerful squeal and asked, "You like romance novels?!"
"Uh… yeah…" said Sunshine, apparently somewhat embarrassed at revealing what she liked. "It's not that I'm looking for a guy or anything… it's just that I like how they're written and… yeah…"
Sunshine turned an embarrassed shade of red and couldn't find anymore words to continue, so Milo asked, "What about you Joshua? What hobbies do you like to do?"
"I don't know, usual stuff." Joshua replied. "Playing cards, listening to music, stuff like that."
"Listening to music, huh? What kind of music?"
"Well, rock, mostly. Bands like Creed, Goo Goo Dolls, Fleetwood Mac, Onerepublic, Switchfoot, and U2. I like listening to U2 a lot; they have nice songs."
Jiro perked up when he mentioned that he listened to music, particularly rock, and asked, "Do you know Sum 41?"
"Sum 41?" Joshua replied with a question. "Yeah, I've heard of them. I only know one song by them; it's called 'With Me'."
"I don't think I've heard of that song. Think you can sing some of it?"
"Sing? Well… I could, but my singing isn't really that good…"
"Oh come on; we won't make fun of you!" Milo spoke. "Give us a couple of bars, Joshua!"
The others gave their support, so Joshua decided to go along with it. He cleared his throat, waited a few seconds, and began to sing. And much to the surprise of those who were sitting with him, his singing voice was actually really good. This is what he sang:
I don't want this moment to ever end,
Where everything's nothing without you.
I'll wait here forever just to, to see you smile,
Cause it's true: I am nothing without you.
Through it all, I made my mistakes,
I stumble and fall, but I mean these words,
I want you to know: with everything, I won't let this go,
These words are my heart and soul.
I'll hold on to this moment, you know,
Cause I'd bleed my heart out to show that I won't let go.
When he finished, he noticed the people in his group were staring at him in amazement. Joshua paused, somewhat embarrassed, and asked, "I'm awful, aren't I?"
"No, you're actually really good!" Sunshine replied. "I didn't know you could sing like that!"
"Really? You guys think I'm a good singer?"
"Yeah!" Ashido spoke. "You have a beautiful voice! Why would you say it's not good?"
"That's what my father's been telling me." Joshua replied. "He says I should focus on becoming a hero, rather than focus on singing."
"Can't you focus on both?" Kaminari asked.
"That's what I asked him, but he told me that becoming a hero was more important than being a good singer. However, I still like singing, so I practice whenever I get the chance, or at least when he isn't looking. If you guys want, I can show you my music after school. What do you say?"
They all agreed to it, and then continued eating breakfast. They would talk occasionally about different subjects, but they mostly ate in silence. Joshua focused on Jiro, and they both locked eyes for a few seconds, then both looked away. Despite their rough attitude and quiet demeanor, they both were starting to like each other… despite the fact that Joshua, being the son of a villain, was always told not to form relationships with people. Especially these people, as they were his enemies… enemies that would soon fall…
Author's Notes: The song Joshua sings is called "With Me" by Sum 41. Sorry for this chapter being a short one, but I was kind of running out of ideas for what the group could talk about. Anyway, there's going to be some action in the next chapter! Hold on tight!
R&R,
Heroboy005