Saya had just finished washing the dishes she had used for breakfast when the bell rang. She eyed the clock on her microwave. It was 6:42.
It was strange that someone would just ring the bell that early in the morning. Whoever it was, she thought as she approached the front door, it'd better be quick.
Saya was already dressed in her uniform and ready to leave. Even her white Mirko backpack laid carefully packed on her table. Still, she wasn't that familiar with public transportation and preferred to leave her house early, lest she arrived late on her very first day at UA.
She couldn't believe her eyes when she opened the door.
The Bakugo's son was standing there with a scowl on his face, hands in his uniform pockets and a blue backpack hanging from one of his shoulders. He kicked a pebble when he heard the door, not looking in her direction for even a split second.
"What the–?" Saya mumbled, but was promptly interrupted.
"That stupid old hag made me do this," he explained. "She said I should walk you to the station."
Saya looked behind him and, sure enough, saw Mitsuki watching their interaction from the window. She waved at her the moment she saw Saya.
"I can get there on my own," Saya said. She had no idea where it was, really, but her phone had GPS.
"I couldn't care less about you getting there," the boy retorted, his red glare finally landing on her face. "I care about my fucking mom threatening to revoke her consent for me to go to UA if I don't babysit your stupid ass around town!"
"Oh." Saya was still angry at the way he had talked the night before. "Sounds terrible. Better luck next year," she chirped, attempting to shut the door on his face.
He got a foot in the door before she could do it, though.
"Oi!" he said. "You only have to let my mom see us go. Then you can be on your way and I can finally have some fucking peace and q—"
"Sorry," Saya interrupted him and promptly kicked his foot out of her doorframe. "I don't wanna do it."
She slammed the door shut.
Oh, that must have been the sound of pure satisfaction. Or, perhaps, it was only the string of curses and insults that followed, which were barely even muffled by the closed door.
Was Saya being a petty and nasty person? Probably.
Did that asshole deserve it? Absolutely.
She hummed a happy tune while collecting her backpack and putting her shoes on. This was going to be a perfect day, the day where she would start training in order to be a hero just like her dad and her adored Mirko.
She did not expect him to have waited for her outside though.
"You're still here?" she asked, voice expressionless.
"What do you want?" he, on the other hand, sounded on the verge of his second fit of rage.
"How about…" Saya smirked, "an apology and some nice words like 'please' and 'thank you'?"
"No fucking way in hell!" he yelled.
"Too bad," she shrugged.
Her phone was in an also Mirko-themed case with silicon bunny ears. She opened the GPS app and started walking towards the train station.
"You know what? Fine!" he yielded. "I'll apologize."
Saya turned around with an arched eyebrow.
"I'm sorry your dad's a fucking loser" he ended up saying.
Saya clenched her jaw. A vein popped on her forehead. Her palms turned into fists.
"You're an asshole," she said. "Get kicked out of UA for all I care."
She started strutting away from him without another word.
She knew he was walking behind her, at a distance. They were both headed to the same place, after all. But she made it a point not to look back. Not even when a hundred different, wittier comebacks than 'yOu'rE aN aSsHolE ?¬タル were running through her mind. Not even when he caught up to her at a traffic light. And definitely not when they entered the jam packed 7 o'clock train and were forced to stand next to each other for a 40 minute ride.
Avoiding eye contact had been technically easy.
Avoiding physical contact in the crowded space had been a different story. In fact, it had required her to inconspicuously use her quirk a couple of times, especially because the fat businessman beside her kept poking her arm with his suitcase and shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
The whole thing had taken so much of Saya's attention that she had stopped listening to the announcements over the speakers.
"Oi, dumbass," the blond's voice all but startled her. "Are you moving or what?"
Her face reddened and she proceeded to walk towards the open doors without speaking a single word. She did feel stupid at that very moment. How could she not have noticed they had arrived at their station?
It was his fault, Saya decided.
If he hadn't completely ruined her mood with his lack of basic human decency, such a thing would never have happened to her. It definitely was not in any way, shape or form an indicator of how capable she was of looking after herself, alone in a city she didn't know, away from the comforts of her life at home. Nope. She wouldn't let her thoughts go that route.
She breathed in and out.
This time, she let the boy go ahead and waited a couple of minutes to follow suit. Soon, she saw other students with the same uniform as theirs and felt much more comfortable walking in the same direction as them.
"I heard both Endeavor's son and Kaiser's daughter have been accepted through recommendations this year," some older student was saying.
Saya was walking right behind him and another boy that she assumed was his friend. Of course, after overhearing them unknowingly talk about her, she couldn't help but get invested in their conversation.
"Yeah, what's weird is they were both placed in the same class, seems a bit unfair if ya ask me," said the other guy.
Saya's mouth formed into a perfect 'o', but she didn't emit a single sound.
She remembered Endeavor's son, Todoroki, from the preliminary tests they made the recommended candidates take. He was a pretty quiet guy with one of the coolest quirks Saya had ever seen.
It was pretty obvious he would be one of those accepted, same as with the dark green haired girl that could separate and reform her own body parts. Saya wondered who else from the group got in.
"I heard they evened the difference out by placing some of the weakest ones from the admissions exams in that same class as well," the first guy went on to say.
Saya wondered how he knew all of that. Perhaps he had some sort of intel-related quirk, she thought. Perhaps, rumors just spread too fast and wide around the UA.
"Yeah, I heard about the guy who scored a zero in the admissions, but saved someone and got a bunch of rescue points because of that," this time, it was the other one who spoke.
His friend shrugged.
"That's not even that bad if you consider the guy dealt with one of the zero pointers by himself." He paused a bit as they approached the school gates. "But I heard about a guy whose quirk was to pluck some sticky ball thingys out of his head," he chuckled. "Sounds like a weak ass talent to have, but, hey, he pulled it off at the exams!"
Saya would have loved to continue overhearing what they were saying, but she did have a class to attend to. In a classroom she had no idea how to locate. In a preposterously big building.
It took her a few minutes to find the giant door painted with red letters that read 1-A. By that time, most of the seats were already taken by their owners.
Saya had been informed beforehand her seat number —which was, of course, based on hiraganical order— was 16, so she made some rapid calculations and noticed it was on the first row near the wall that faced the windows.
That was not a bad place at all, she thought. Until her eyes landed on the seat behind hers.
Bakugo was sprawled on it, one foot on his desk like a school delinquent from some cheesy TV show. It didn't even surprise her to see him behave that way.
So cliché, she thought.
She sighed.
She had just placed her backpack on her desk and was about to sit on the comfy-looking blue chair when someone startled her:
"Take your feet off of that desk now!"
She turned around to see a tall dude with glasses had approached Bakugo and was scolding him. She felt a surge of happiness at hearing that.
"It's the first day and you're already disrespecting this academy by scuffing school property, you cretin!" the guy added.
"You're kidding me, right?" was the blond's answer. "Your old school put a stick up your ass or were you born with it?"
Saya was rooting for the guy with glasses to say something clever in response, but he completely backtracked, proceeding to introduce himself and inform Bakugo of his academic background instead.
Were they going to become best friends now, or…?
"Somei, huh? So you must think you're better than me. I'm gonna have fun tearing you a new one!"
No, Saya thought. With the likes of Bakugo, of course they were not.
The tall guy started fussing about the blond's threats and Saya lost interest in the whole interaction, so she sat on her chair and took a look around the classroom.
Besides the asshole, the only other familiar face around was Todoroki's, although, hadn't she seen the girl in the last seat in the preliminary tests?
Saya was almost sure she had, but if the brunette with the ponytail had gotten in through recommendations, she wouldn't have been placed in the same class as they were.
Perhaps they'd decided to make an exception this year. Or, perhaps, she was mistaking her for someone else.
She was still taking a look around her new classmates when they all turned towards the door. Saya shifted her attention there as well, expecting to see the teacher, but the newcomer was just another student. An either very shy or awkward one, at that.
Maybe there was more to him than met the eye, though, she thought, as seeing him being complimented by others on his performance during the admissions.
Behind her, she heard the pest click his tongue.
Such a baby, she thought. He couldn't even stand not being the center of attention. Her dislike for him grew even larger.
She was about to grab her phone from inside her backpack to check the time when the teacher finally made it into the classroom.
He introduced himself as Shota Aizawa. He looked a bit ragged and tired and in need of some grooming, but at least he wasn't the type to beat around the bush with unnecessary formalities, as he told everyone to put on their gym attire and head outside.
A rush of excitement could be heard in the hushed gasps around the whole classroom.
"Shall we go to the changing rooms?" some girl asked.
Saya started judging her on how stupid her question had been until she noticed the girl in question was invisible. Like, actually invisible, only recognizable because of her school attire which seemed to float in the air like an inanimate puppet.
It must not have made much of a difference for her, she understood.
"Yes," the teacher answered. "Go on, now. Didn't I just say time is precious?" he repeated, his monotonous voice stirring everyone into action.
They all headed for the door, where they received instructions on how to get to the changing rooms. Naturally, the girls started clumping up together.
"Congratulations on your success in the preliminary tests, Hayashi," someone said to her left, and Saya turned to see the brunette she had seen earlier in the classroom.
"Thank you," she responded. She could not recall the girl's name, but wasn't about to ask her. That would have been very impolite considering the taller one had bothered learning hers. "Congratulations to you, too."
"Actually, I didn't score high enough in the practical tests to be accepted," she explained, her smile not faltering even for a second. The comment took Saya by surprise and it must've shown, because the girl added: "I had to take the regular admissions just like everyone else in order to get here."
Awkward.
"Oh, sorry" Saya didn't really know how to respond to that. "That's still impressive, though."
"Nothing to be sorry about," the girl answered. "The preliminaries were tough because of the level of the recommended candidates. You were better than me and that's that," she went on. Her words made Saya feel incredibly uncomfortable, but somehow, it also didn't feel like there was any malicious intent behind them. "I promise to work hard so that I can catch up to you and Todoroki."
The last statement made Saya smile. She liked that attitude.
"Let's do our best," she said, to which the brunette nodded.
They arrived at the changing rooms and, just as she finished adjusting her all-white sneakers, Saya was approached by the invisible girl from earlier and another one with a mutation that made her skin and hair as pink as newly blossomed cherries.
"Hey, girl," the latter said. "We couldn't help but overhear someone calling you Hayashi. Are you THE Hayashi, though?" she asked. "As in THE Hayashi that was rumored to have entered UA through recommendations this year?"
"Well, I guess?" Saya raised an eyebrow.
She knew what came after that. She had experienced it too many times before. They would start asking incessant questions about her parents. It was quite annoying, really, but she was used to it.
"So, are you Sadao Hayashi's sister?" the pink girl asked.
That took Saya aback. Sure, Sadao was her older brother and sure, he was an up and coming pop star, but he was nowhere nearly as famous as her parents were. She didn't think many people outside of Hokkaido knew of him.
"Yeah," she answered, scratching her head.
Both girls squealed in delight.
"Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod," the invisible girl said. "I'm his number one fan! I've been stanning him from his Better than me era"
"Well, that's impressive," Saya said, remembering her brother's first EP which was released when he was still in high school. That had been at least two years prior.
"He is so handsome," the pink girl commented. "Like, how can a human being look that good? It shouldn't even be legal!"
Saya snorted.
"Oh, you've just never seen him straight out of bed," Saya argued as they started heading out of the changing rooms and towards the area where their teacher told them to meet.
"Ohmygoddd," the invisible girl squealed again. "That must be the cutest sight in the whole wide world! Do you happen to have any pictures?"
"Ew, no," Saya grimaced.
The pink girl laughed.
"You probably think we're so lame," she said. "Please forgive us, we're just excited. I'm Mina Ashido, by the way."
"And I'm Toru Hagakure," the invisible girl added. "We're super honored to meet you."
"Ugh, please don't say that," Saya asked. "I'm just a normal high school girl, no one you should be honored to meet." She softened her words with a grin. "The name's Saya Hayashi, by the way," she finished.
