Chapter 1
I have naturally curly, fluffy ash hair that stretches past my shoulders, but not very far down, and my eyes are a deep blue.
My name is Hana Bakugo, and I'm 13 years old.
"Hey, Hana!" Reo exclaimed, reclaiming me from my daydream. "C'mon! We're going to be late for English!"
I grunted okay, and yanked my headphones out of my ears. There's only so much time a passing period can give me, and here at Aldera, it's only four minutes.
"You finished the homework, right?" She asked, holding me back before I took the last step needed of us to enter the class.
"'Course I did. Why do you ask?"
"Can you help a girl out?" Reo's eyes bore into mine, almost pleading with me. Her puppy-dog ayes are truly a sight to behold, that sea-green color does wonders for her.
She really was born lucky, I realize whenever I look into them.
I just nodded, fished the paper out from my pack and handed it to her.
She hugged me curtly before skipping to the bathroom, using her Quirk to speed along the hallway.
"You're a lifesaver!" She yelled, turning the corner.
I chuckled and took the last few steps into the room, slinging my backpack over my right shoulder.
Just like every other time I enter the room, everyone went silent for just a moment, as if giving me one moment of recognition before I burned back into the sidelines of life.
There are 86,400 moments in a day, and one of those is spent pitying me.
The rest are probably spent looking at me out of the corners of their eyes, scoffing at what I can't do.
Of those 86,400 moments, I can't tell you if even one of are spent with a clear mind. I'm always thinking, stretching my perfectly average intelligence to give me even one answer to all the questions muddling my mind.
I walked to my seat at the far right corner of the room, right next to the window without a word.
"Hana? Where's Reo?" The teacher asked me, not even bothering to look up from her computer. She continued to type away, unwavering at my moment of silence. I couldn't tell if she willingly took part, or just didn't care enough.
I hope it's the second one.
"She's in the bathroom," I truthfully explained. "Girl problems."
The teacher nodded, peeling her eyes from the computer to take a glance at the doorframe.
"Oh! You're here!" She bubbled, smiling. "Excuse me? Class!"
They all stopped their idle chatter to introduce us to the girl in the front of the class.
"Class, this is Clair, a foreign exchange student from America!"
"Hi!" She smiled.
Damn.
She has light, shoulder length white hair with a few flecks of blue strewn about. She has clear, milky-white skin, and a face unblemished by normalities for our age group, for example acne.
Picturesque, photogenic, and to the utmost power.
"I'm Clair, and I was born in LA, but my family picked up and moved here. I'm looking forward to making friends with you all!"
I noticed the boys in the front subtly nodding their heads up and down, checking her out. Judging by the look on her face, she had no idea.
From the front of the room, her eyes caught mine.
And she smiled.
The teacher didn't really prod her about herself. She knew that the other kids'd get all the info out of her that they need, and maybe more. Someone with her looks and that bubbly voice is almost guaranteed for schoolyard success.
She picked herself up from the front of the room, locking her eyes with mine.
She ignored the popular girls sitting in the front row. The athletic boys sitting in the front middle of the classroom tried getting her to sit with them, but she walked over to my desk and took her seat next to mine.
"Do you wanna commit social suicide?" I asked, barely taking my eyes off my phone, which I had pulled out a few seconds ago as to get her to stop staring at me. "You should sit next to Reo."
"I don't know who Reo is, but you have beautiful eyes."
"What does that have to do with anything?" I scoffed, quietly blushing.
"It's probably selfish of me, but I wouldn't mind seeing them every day."
Under my breath, I probably chuckled, but I wouldn't know. The sound of my heart pummeling the inside of my brain kept me from hearing much else, to my surprise and chagrin.
Putting my phone down, I sheepishly peered over the neutral white case, catching a detailed look at her.
Damn.
She's even better-looking up close.
Her eyes are scarlet, orange and yellow all in that order. I didn't really want to scrutinize, but I couldn't help but notice soft red birthmarks tracing the skin on her face. In my humble opinion, it just made her look human. It gave me solace to know that there's a couple of conventionally unattractive things about her, that she wasn't the epitome of aesthetically pleasing in this day and age.
"What are you listening to?"
"Oh, you wouldn't know it," I sighed.
"I listen to lots of music," She said. "I think I'm knowledgeable enough to have an idea."
"Suit yourself." I pressed the on button on the side of my phone and flashed the screen at her. "Know it?"
"Know it?" She laughed. "Of course I know it!"
"No way in hell." I said, pulling the phone from her view and putting it back in my pocket. "This stuff is from, like, hundreds of years ago!"
"It's a hobby of mine, you know? Listening to music from that long ago."
"Me, too."
She smiled at me, pulling out her own phone and launching into a tirade about how trying to learn the lyrics are super hard, a struggle I can share with her.
Would you look at that?
86,400 moments in a day.
And this one specific moment I think I can mark down as a pleasant one.
We talked about popular pre-Quirk era music for quite some time instead of actually paying attention to the teacher. Which was equal parts fine and equal parts not, because we did have Reo give us a rundown on what the lesson was actually about.
But that didn't matter very much. Our next few periods were quick and easy. Math, natural sciences, and English. Not very entertaining, but necessary.
History of Japan, though, was very fun. As always. With a history as rich as ours, you'd expect the class to at least be mildly interesting. But no, our teacher just goes above and beyond to provide for us.
After a pretty sobering lesson about the history of UA High, we were let out for lunch.
"So, who do you sit with?" Clair asked me. We strode through the halls with an equal speed, perfectly lined up with eachother.
She didn't seem to notice how slow we were moving.
"I just sit in the library and read manga or something." I sighed, taking a right with Clair in mind. "I'm telling you, my life's really not interesting."
"Dude, you're Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight's daughter. How can you not be interesting!" She bubbled, laughing.
"If my dad's who you want to meet, go to Kaina." I rolled my eyes, grimacing as her name escaped my lips.
Kaina.
"She's my older sister."
"Oh. Well, I like you, Hana. I think you're cool."
"That's blunt."
"Gosh, do you not know how to take a compliment?" Clair scoffed. "How is your life not interesting? You live in a huge house with an almost infinite amount of money at your disposal. How is that not fun?"
"Infinite supply of money, huh?" I chuckled, lowering my tone as we entered the big door of the even bigger library. "I guess that's one way to look at it."
"Oh. Are we supposed to be quiet?" She asked in her outside voice.
The librarian shot her a look which got her apologizing in a voice so small and cute, I wouldn't even know she spoke at all if I hadn't seen her mouth move.
Remaining quiet, we walked to the corner of the library and sat down.
We took out our lunches in silence until Clair broke the ice, "So, that was awkward."
I got a good laugh in at that, cracking open the fresh bento box I'd made this morning.
"I know, right? Has no one taught you how to act in a library?"
"How was I supposed to know that you had to be so quiet!" She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Uh, common sense!" I retorted. "She lets me eat in here because Dad saved her son from a car wreck, so don't go and jeapordize our deal!"
She let out a small laugh, and opened her own small, plastic tupperware. Taking one look at hers, and one look at mine, she said,
"I propose a trade. My sashimi for your furikake."
I took one look at her sashimi and instantly took that deal.
Mina's furikake recipe is good. But it's not yellowtail-with-siracha-sauce good.
"Dd you make that?" I asked, in awe of the perfect blend of flavors coming together in my mouth.
"I might've." She said, mischievous. "Do you like it?"
"Do you even have to ask?"
"I'll send you the recipe."
Her smile reverberated throughout my mind, sounding alarm bells as it flew.
Why is she so kind? Why is she so nice to me? She has to know about me, right? No way someone hasn't told her.
She blew off hanging with the popular girls to hang out with me?
That's literally impossible. Why? Why is she doing this to herself?
Clair Shiuchikara.
Just what is it about you that makes you want to hang out with a Quirkless nobody?