LITERATURE

"Good afternoon class," Cementoss said quietly. His voice would have been too quiet for the students of 1-A to hear, had it not been for the microphone on his collar and the double-decker bus-sized speakers built into the walls. "Today, I would be lecturing you on the material I assigned you to read yesterday, but…"

On cue, Nezu's voice came through the intercom. "Cementoss, Support Lab 1-C blew up again."

Cementoss let out a long-suffering sigh. "Just read while I'm gone. Maybe I'll have a few minutes to assign the next chapter when I'm done."

The students dutifully opened up their copies of War and Peace. Most stopped reading, however, as they found Cementoss' grumbling through his microphone quite distracting.

"Not a real degree, dad said," Cementoss grumbled, "Should go into the construction industry, that's where the real money is with all those villains breaking things, dad said. Got the hero degree with a writing certification so he'd pay tuition, thought I got one up on him when Nezu hired me to teach Literature. But what does Nezu do? He uses me as a glorified construction crew day in and day out. Hatsume blows up the lab again? Patch it up with some concrete. Nejire breaks a training course? Better whip up a new one, but bigger this time!"

After twenty minutes of grumbling, one minute of grinding concrete noises, and another twenty minutes of sulking and brooding over career opportunities, Cementoss came back into the classroom to find most of 1-A staring at him. He looked down at his collar and groaned.

"The mic was on, wasn't it?"

Kaminari said, "You don't really do everything around here, right? I mean, light bulbs and stuff aren't concrete."

Cementoss punched the ceiling. As he pulled his hand away, the light fixture morphed into gooey, wet cement.

"Hmmm?" Cementoss hummed angrily. Then he tore at the chalkboard, revealing yet more concrete. "Hmmm?" He knelt to the floor and dug out a chunk of lime and gravel. "Hmmm?" He gestured out the window, which also happened to be concrete. Outside, a concrete mixer, which itself was composed of ninety-nine percent concrete, one percent human being driving the concrete mixer, who might have also been made of concrete considering the chalky layer of dust coating every surface of their skin, deposited a load of concrete on the campus grounds, which immediately sprouted into a full-sized apartment complex with working amenities. "Hmmm?"

"Wow!" Ochako said, staring out at the architectural wonder. "I bet you could make so much money off of building repairs!"

Cementoss' eye twitched incessantly as he stared at Ochako. He waved a hand, and a glob of concrete transformed into a pile of books. "That's it, I'm done. Read those. I'll go work on my novel."

Yaoyorozu opened one up. A bit of concrete crumbled onto her fingers. "All work and no play makes Cementoss a dull boy? Oh dear." She looked at the cover. "Oh, it's the Shining. False alarm."

499

The one thing Cementoss can't make out of concrete is a fulfilling career.

Also, just cracked 300 faves! (well, last week, but I forgot to put that in, whoops) Uh... I'll probably crack 300 reviews within 24 hours? JUST DO IT!