Yoritoki groaned as he rubbed his temples.
He'd been having more and more problems remembering things lately and as the paper in front of him told him it had been affecting his grades.
"Geeze Kai, did you turn in your test last minute?" Machida, a girl from the support course asked as she sat next to him once again.
Yoritoki sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"No, just the family mental problems acting up again, I don't know how aunt Shelly gets anything done at the station." Yoritoki exclaimed.
Machida nodded her head, ever since she first sat with him Yoritoki had told his 'sea buddy' about the family curse in hopes it would make the girl leave him alone.
However, the girl seemed to be completely unfazed by his constant forgetfulness, much to his chagrin.
Machida hummed setting her head on her fist "And you've been taking the new meds when you were supposed to?" she asked, and he rolled his eyes.
"Yes, not like they ever do anything to fix the problem, can't fix a curse with pills you know." Yoritoki grumbled moving on to actually eat his lunch.
"Hey um, Kai?" Machida said and he hummed back.
"Do you ever think that the problem might be because your quirk?" Machida asked and he threw her a look and grabbed a string of his 'hair'.
"My quirk is to grow strings of seashells instead of hair, other than it coming out of my head I don't see how that could affect my memory." Yoritoki told her rolling his eyes.
"I don't know how it would either, but you said the only ones who have problems are the ones with seashell hair like you so it might." Machida countered and he groaned.
"Even if it was, how would I go about finding that out? Just go out and find a quirk counselor and say 'hey I think these seashells I'm growing are sucking my memories out, any way you can prove it'?" Yoritoki said with a scoff.
Machida flinched back at his tone but persisted.
"Well, no, but you can ask one of the quirk teachers about it." Machida pointed out.
"As if, Wannebo-Sensei is too busy talking with the other kids to have any time for this and I think one of my counselors would have said something about it by now." Yoritoki replied before taking a bite of his food.
"Then we could just ask Deku-Sensei." Machida countered and Yoritoki couldn't help scoffing.
"In case you've forgotten Machida I'm in Gen ed, and you'd be hard pressed getting any of those heroics guys to talk with any of us lowly eds." Yoritoki blew off.
"That Bullet-Jacker woman maybe but Deku-Sensei isn't like that, he'd definitely help you." Machida argued.
"You maybe," Yoritoki said pointing his chopsticks to where her nose would have been "Because you're in support, of course he's going to be nice to you." Yoritoki added seconds later.
"Besides, ain't he the guy everyone's been talking about on the news? The guy who expelled three dudes on the first day? And you want me to go to him about my memory problems?" Yoritoki questioned giving her a look that hopefully conveyed how ridiculous he thought she was being for suggesting something like that.
Machida's cheeks puffed up from indignation.
"Deku-Sensei wasn't just helping me to be nice! He covered half of Maijima-Sensei's classes the other day and even showed us how to patch up the entrance exam robots after school closed until Maijima-Sensei got back!" Machida told him.
"He's super smart with quirks and taught us a lot of common design problems for certain quirks, if your quirk is what's causing you problems he'll know and even tell us how to fix it." She huffily told him before standing up.
"You'll see, once school gets out, I'll take you up to the teacher's offices and we'll go ask him together!" Machida fired off and stomped away before he could even get the chance to deny it.
Yoritoki tsked and stabbed one of the shrimp on his plate, like he'd actually go along with her cockamamie plan, and if she got upset with him 'ditching' her he'd just tell her he 'forgot' about what they talked about.
"You know I could sue you for kidnapping for this right?" Yoritoki spat as Machida, through use of one of the net guns she complained about them working on this week, dragged him to the faculty room.
Machida gave a soft hum "I'm sure that if you remember what happens tomorrow, you'll be thanking me for this." Machida responded not at all bothered by his threat.
*Damn basement gremlin.* Yoritoki thought in his mind, cursing himself for not cutting the crazy girl from support out of his life as his Sempais had warned him to do.
He could hear Machida knocking on a door and one opening seconds later and guessed they were wherever Machida wanted to bring him.
"Heya kiddo, do you ne- Woah there missy. Ya two looking for Maijima-San to help get your friend over there out?" A voice asked and given the accent Yoritoki assumed it had to be Snipe from the Hero course.
He couldn't exactly see much since the net wasn't see through.
"Hello Snipe-Sensei, no we're actually here to see Deku-Sensei, is he still in?" Machida replied calmly.
There was a moment of silence and Yoritoki hoped that Snipe would have half a brain and get someone to help him out of this situation.
"... Yeah, I think he's still here, come on in, wouldn't want your friend to block up the hallway." Snipe answered and Yoritoki cursed the man under his breath while Machida gave him a cheerfully thank you then started dragging him again.
It seemed that the man had no more sense than the feral gremlin that decided to kidnap him.
"Deku-Sensei!" Machida called a second later.
"Oh, hello Mach- Machida-San... what are you doing?" someone else, much younger asked and Yoritoki figured that the girl had successfully brought him right to the young boy as she promised.
Yoritoki was startled when he felt someone's arms around his waist suddenly pick him up and plop him, still in the net mind you, on a... chair? Or maybe a couch if they were in the teacher's lounge but it didn't feel big, so he was putting his money on the latter.
"Sorry about this Deku-Sensei, but my friend Kai has a problem and we wanted to know if it might be quirk related, but Kai's stubborn so I had to get creative about getting him to come along." Machida explained to Deku.
"If by 'creative' you mean jump me on the way out of class with your homework from last week, then you sure got creative Machida." Yoritoki spat crossing his arms.
He heard the boy sigh "Machida-San," Deku said scoldingly.
"I'm sorry Deku-Sensei but I promise this is important okay, please just listen to what's going on with Kai and if you still think I'm overreacting I'll take however many days of detention you want to give me for this, no complaints." Machida pleaded.
"I'm giving you a week of detention either way for this Machida-San, now please let Kai-San out so that we can talk about this face-to-face." Deku requested sounding rather exasperated by the situation.
As much as it irked him Yoritoki was glad someone else was able to see what Machida was doing as much of an annoyance as he did.
Though it sucked that it was the kid a year younger than him was the only one that seemed to see that.
Thankfully though Yoritoki found that the net had been pulled down so he could once again see, blinking he saw he was indeed in the teacher's offices and not the lounge.
Less fortunately he saw the only two people around were Deku and Machida and he groaned with a facepalm.
"Apologizes Kai-San, I hope Machida-San didn't keep you from anything that important." Deku said but Yoritoki could hardly blame the guy for what the girl had done.
"You're not the one who should be apologizing." Yoritoki grumbled crossing his arms again.
However, he noticed the boy's eyes on his hands, more than likely on his nail polish and chose to hold one of his hands up.
"Want to know the name of my stylist?" Yoritoki asked dryly.
Deku's eyes went from his hand to his hair and back a few times before he spoke.
"Are you having problems with your memory Kai-San?" Deku asked, making Yoritoki jolt and retract his hand at once.
"Wha- Have you been talking with my teacher or something?" Yoritoki questioned.
"Or muscle cramps? Numbness in your hands perhaps?" Deku inquired, making his heart plummet even further than from where it was in his stomach.
"How did you- I didn't-" Yoritoki sputtered but the boy merely shook his head and grumbled something under his breath and the boy pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You have a calcium deficiency Kai-San, it's not uncommon for those with quirks like yours that consume massive amounts of calcium." Deku said, reaching into his bag and digging around for something, then he pulled out a bottle of... seeds?
"These are Chia, Poppy and Celery seeds, they are full of calcium, and you should be eating at least 16 oz. of these a day, or a calcium rich substitute to make up for what your quirk takes from you." Deku told him as he placed the bottle of seeds in his hand.
"Wait what are you talking about?" Yoritoki questioned waving his hands.
Deku took a deep breath.
"Despite popular belief," Deku said as if the words pained him to say so politely.
"All quirks, regardless of type have dietary needs, and with your quirk growing seashells you need to consume much more calcium than the average person since that is what they're made of." Deku explained.
"How someone hasn't told you this before now, or noticed that you were suffering from a calcium deficiency before now I don't know, but thankfully we have found the problem before it could cause irreparable damage to you and put you on a diet to correct the damage that we can." Deku told him.
Likely seeing his incredulous look on his face Deku's shoulders slumped.
"Look, if you don't believe me, you can have a test done with a doctor to officially confirm it for you, or you can eat all of this bottle and see how you feel the next morning." Deku offered as he got his things together.
"If you need a prescription for calcium pills do tell me as I can write one for quirk related medical needs, and I am certain that Machida-San can find me for you again." Deku added before he moved to the door.
Only to stop and turn to the girl "Without dragging you along in a net." Deku said and Machida sheepishly nodded her tail tucked behind her.
Ai stood by the gates the next day tapping her foot as she waited for Kai to arrive.
She was curious about whether or not he'd taken Deku-Sensei's advice or not, she didn't think that a doctor's appointment could be quickly booked so last minute but the boy could have eaten some of the seeds.
She knew Deku-Sensei would at least have a theory about what was going on with her friend and she was glad she dragged him down to see the young teacher.
... Even if she had to spend a week of lunch time detentions with Maijima-Sensei.
It would be worth it if Kai didn't have to worry about one day losing his mind.
Ai couldn't remember the last time she had a friend she could eat lunch with, she was always too big and had too many teeth for anyone else to let her eat anywhere other than the corner or in the classroom.
The raw fish she ate probably didn't help the matter, sushi was one thing but biting into a whole fish, scales and all had been a severe turn off for most, even the other mutant kids in her class groups before now.
Her classmates were nice and all, but she wouldn't really call any of them her friends, Kai on the other hand let her sit with him and even talked with her about more personal issues like his family's mental health.
She couldn't think of another person who had done that, and it would only be right to do something to help him, right?
Ai's tail started wagging when she finally spotted the pearl-like strings of Kai's hair and rushed over to him "Kai." she called but he didn't turn to face her, in fact he seemed to have one of those rumored thousand mile stares.
"Kai?" she repeated, waving her hand in front of his face somewhat concerned.
"I had everything in my bag this morning." Kai muttered.
"That's nice." Ai said, Kai would grumble at lunch about forgetting something at home once and awhile.
"I haven't remembered to pack everything in my bag since I was ten Machida." Kai told her his shoulders started trembling while her's slumped.
"Kai." she said only to jump when he suddenly hugged her, and she placed her arms around him.
"You were right." Kai told her and as much as she wanted to preen under this fact comforting Kai would take priority, the boy having been more disheveled by following Deku-Sensei's advice than she expected.
Izuku *returns to the shared office space of his doubles and proceeds to grab a pillow and scream into it*
Riya *comes over and rubs him on the back*
Mido, not looking away from the laptop: Undiagnosed quirk diet issue?
Izuku *Screams even louder*
Riya, nodding and solem: Undiagnosed quirk diet issue.
Izuku, pulls head from pillow and takes a deep breath.
Izuku, eye twitching: I swear if one more kid comes to me with a quirk diet issue...
Mido: Already writing the book Ori, go back to work