At around five in the morning, I clicked the light off, but stayed where I was. I wasn't really too tired anymore. I felt a lot better today than I had yesterday, not to mention I was ready for any sort of crazy test they threw at us. I really did feel like I was learning a lot, and while it was devastatingly difficult, I had a feeling it would all turn out well in the end.

Not to mention, there were few things that put me more at ease than holding Moe while he slept.

I could reach my literature textbook from where I was sitting, so I read through it casually until six thirty, using the dim dawn light. Then, I stood and put Moe on his bed, fetching his uniform while he woke up. Usually, he did all this, but there was no harm in giving him a hand every now and then.

We changed, fixed our hair, packed our backpacks. We had our usual early breakfast, and walked through the cool morning to his classroom.

"Sorry I haven't had time to ask before now, but how has school been?" I said, holding his hand while he skipped over the grooves in the sidewalk.

"Good."

"How's Ms. Joke?" He paused, then looked up at me with a hilariously weary grimace.

"Energetic."

"The polar opposite of my homeroom teacher then." I told him, "Mr. Aizawa always looks sleepy. Have you been getting along with your classmates?" He nodded.

"They're smart. Ella wants to be support too."

"That's exciting!" I told him, "Do you ever tinker together?"

"No. But we show each other ideas."

"I'm glad to hear that, buddy." We arrived and I opened the classroom door, "Hi, Ms. Joke." She waved from her desk. She was inflating some balloons and all the children seemed exhausted by the sight of her. "Have great day, everyone!"

For once, I had a little bit of time to spare, so I got myself a disposable cup of hot chocolate mixed with coffee and made it to the classroom a few minutes before homeroom.

"Morning, Juniper!" Uraraka said, flipping through a brightly decorated notebook, "How come I never run into you in the mornings?"

"Ah, I get up early." I told her, "But we'll have to try and have breakfast together sometime."

"Yes! By the way, I never thanked you for pushing me away from the debris yesterday." She clasped her hands together and bowed her head, "I'm sorry! To be honest, I didn't fully realize what happened. And the whole thing was my fault in the first place…"

"Oh, don't worry!" I said quickly, feeling a bit embarrassed that I had just about forgotten about the incident altogether, "I was able to try something new with my quirk, so it was actually pretty helpful!"

"Well, alright." The girl pouted, "Still, I'm buying you and the others from our group some dessert today as an apology."

"I won't say no to that!" I responded, smiling. Sometimes, people just need to clear their conscience. She walked over to her seat and Deku sat behind me. I turned in my chair while he put his things away.

"Morning, Midorya." I greeted, "Any clue what's in store for us today?" I half expected him to pull out the historic data of all past classes given at this school, then use that to make predictions.

"Oh hi, Juniper!" He greeted back, "And, uh, I can't say I do but…" He seemed worried too, "If we have to fight and I break my bones again, I think professor Aizawa will kill me."

"I know what you mean. He means well, though. I got chewed out for getting myself hurt too. I'm actually relieved that we have a teacher that cares about us getting injured. I was worried hero classes would be all about putting our lives on the line in any situation."

"Yeah, we'll definitely be better heroes if we know how to keep ourselves safe." He agreed, "Now if I could just learn to control my quirk…"

"Ah, I'm sure you'll figure it out." I told him, nodding at his desk. If Uraraka's notebook was sparkly and tidy, Midorya's looked like it had been through a blender. Twice. "If anyone can think of a solution, it's you."

"You really think so?"

"Not a doubt in my mind."

"Forget it!" We turned to see Ochaco arguing with Bakugo and Kirishima.

"Sorry," Kirishima said, significantly more friendly, "But I agree with Bakugo on this one. If we take what happens during training personally then…" He glanced at me with a big grimace, "I'd owe Manderly dessert for a week."

"Screw that, I just don't want your stupid charity!" Bakugo yelled.

"But…"

"How about," I interjected, since I could all but taste the conflict in the air, "We each get our own dessert, but have lunch together today? That way we can get to know each other a bit more and talk about yesterday's exercise if we want."

"Okay, yeah! I can get behind that!" Kirishima said.

"If you're sure!" Uraraka agreed.

"Hell no!" Kirishima got Bakugo in a headlock, much to the latter's fury.

"He'll go."

Miraculously, when homeroom started, our PE uniforms remained untouched. Instead, we had to pick a class representative. It was refreshingly mundane, or so I thought.

Everyone raised their hands and began debating loudly. I set my head on my desk and decided to let them fight it out while I got some extra sleep.

"EXCUSE ME!" Ida raised his voice and everyone quieted. I raised my gaze. He cleared his throat. "The class representative must have the trust of their peers. Therefore, the best way to decide this is democratically."

"Are you sure? We only met a few days ago."

"Wouldn't everyone just vote for themselves?"

"We'll make it a rule that you can't vote for yourself." Ida said, "And we'll have everyone tell the class in a few short sentences why they think they'd be a good fit before we begin."

Everyone agreed.

We went in order of desks, with everyone saying something from leadership experience, to looking after the best interests of the class. I planned on just saying I didn't want to run, but that felt out of place when it got to be my turn. Why the heck did everyone want to be class rep so bad? I sure didn't want to fight them for it.

"Well, I'm patient, good at listening, and I spent a lot of time with kids, so I'd say I'm a good wrangler." I provided with a humorous grin. Deku stuttered saying he'd try his best. Bakugo said he was obviously the best choice. Ida said he respected this institution and each one of our places here, that he would take the position with great honor if awarded and strive to be worthy of the title. When we finished, another problem arose.

"Wait, if the votes are anonymous, what's stopping people from voting for themselves anyways?"

Some murmuring discussion began.

"We can have an objective third party confirm the rules aren't being broken." Ida proposed, "Mr. Aizawa…" We glanced at the front to find him asleep in his sleeping bag.

"Let him sleep." I said, standing and stretching, "I can count them, I don't mind taking myself out of the running."

"What?"

"Are you sure?"

"But it's a big deal, being the class rep at UA, you don't even want to give yourself a chance?"

"Nah, I'd do it if I had to, but I can tell everyone else wants it a whole lot more. So I'll count!" I smiled cheekily, "Voting for yourself or me will be invalid. I'll give you a chance to go back and give me a proper vote though."

"Well, if you insist." Ida conceded, seeming less than satisfied, "Why don't you take a seat at the front and everyone will pass their votes to you." I took the attendance roster from Mr. Aizawa's desk and sat at his chair, since he was on the floor. One by one, they stepped up to me. I confirmed their votes were valid and counted as I went. I made sure we went in alphabetical order too since I didn't have everyone's names fully memorized.

"Hey, I appreciate it, Deku, but I'm not a valid choice." I said, handing his vote back to him. He reddened. "Try again!" He quickly scribbled Ida's name instead, "Good choice."

Bakugo gave me a death glare when he handed his slip of paper. Unsurprisingly, I handed it back.

"Come on, try again." I said. He blew the paper up in his fist. "Come on…" I insisted. He wrote on a new piece of paper and handed it to me before walking back to his desk.

It had his name again. I laughed out loud. "Alright then." Surprisingly, both Todoroki and Jiro tried to vote for me. At this point, I just shook my head, probing until they gave me valid votes. I wanted to properly wonder why they'd want to vote for me, but decided to focus on counting. Finally, the last vote…

I blinked at my name and looked up at Ida with an exaggerated appalled look.

"Tenya Ida." I chastised, "How could you disrespect our democratic process by writing the proctor's name?" A few people snickered. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"I apologize, I should have stopped you from becoming proctor in the first place. But, everyone seemed to agree, so I didn't think it was prudent. That said, it would be dishonest to vote for someone other than who I think would be best suited for the position." Did my hair look nice today or something? What was with the attention?

"Nah, I don't want the job." I said, "Try again." He voted for Deku.

I counted up the votes again to be sure, then looked over my shoulder.

"Do you just want to know the result or should I write how many votes everyone got?"

"Everyone!" Kaminari called from the back, "I don't think I won, but I wanna see how many votes I got!"

"Aye, aye!" I took the chalk and wrote out everyone's names along with the number of votes they received. The top three were Kirishima, who was fairly popular so it made sense, Deku, since he was observant and earnest, and of course…

"Congrats, Ida!" I said, then checked the time. Two minutes left. I turned to the sleeping bag awkwardly. "Um, professor?"

"Hm?"

"Tenya Ida is our class rep." Mr. Aizawa got up, filing his sleeping bag under his arm.

"Alright." He wrote it down, "And who's vice representative?"

"Oh, um…"

"The person who got the next amount of points, naturally." Ida dictated. That would be Deku with three. Ida turned to him but...

"A-actually," Deku said, "Technically, more people voted for Manderly."

"Eh?" I prepared to remind him, and everyone else who was nodding, of the very clear rules we'd laid out.

"Alright, Manderly." Mr. Aizawa wrote me down, "Back to your seat." He walked out and after a silent moment of defeat, I shot a playful glare and the grinning faces of my classmates.

"Well, you're all the worst."

"I like it!" Kirishima said, "The two of them were basically fulfilling their roles already today!"

"Yeah!"

"Haha, democracy works."

"Sorry, Manderly!"

We joked around until Present Mike stepped in. For the rest of the day, everything was blissfully boring. Lunch with Uraraka, Kirishima, and Bakugo was a little tense, but we ate ice cream and complimented each other's ingenuity. Ida and I were pulled from study hall to a class rep meeting, so I met a few new people. We got some general information to share with the class and walked back, in no rush.

"I can hand these flyers out." Ida told me, "And we should establish a cleaning schedule to keep the classroom pristine."

"Good idea!" I agreed, "I've got supplies in my room, so how about I make a mock-up of a chart? If you like it, I'll make it properly, and we can change it every month."

"Excellent! Do you think we should have people cleaning in pairs or groups of three?"

"Pairs would mean people have to clean less often, plus I think one other person is enough to have a conversation while you set up."

"Good logic. I'll draft some possible pairs based on student personalities and we'll meet at homeroom to look over that and your mock-up."

"Oh, I wouldn't have thought of that. Don't want to accidentally schedule Bakugo and Midorya at the same time."

"Precisely."