Fine Line

Chapter 10 - Remember

- TW: STRONG LANGUAGE -

My father direct's the class's attention to him for roll call. 

"Alright, shut up, brats. I'm starting roll. When I say your name, say 'here,' or I'm marking you late."

The class immediately goes quiet. You can hear the ruckus from the other rooms. 

"Y/n Aizawa."

"Yours truly. Oh, and, here." 

He lets out a sigh, "Yuga Aoyama."

"Here, twinkling brightly!" He says with his hand sassily draped on his forehead. He is indeed very sparkly. Something about his hand position combined with his facial expression is eerily creepy.

"Mina Ashido."

"Heeere!" She stresses the 'e.'

"Tsuyu Asui?"

"Here, sir. But call me Tsu!" You can tell what her quirk is by her frog-like features. But, if a frog could talk, that is exactly what it would sound like. I actually quite like her voice, though. It is oddly nice.

He went through the rest of the names, and I heard some unfamiliar ones, some familiar. More kids didn't go to the open house than I had thought. 

When Aizawa was finished with roll call, he leads us outside. We looked around at each other, confused. He was supposed to be taking us to an assembly right now, right?

He told us that we would be having a small competition, or rather, another acceptance exam. Apparently, the person who scores lowest is being sent home for good. He's a good liar, but I can pick out the times he does. It's not often, but there have been a few times. The lies are never too big, so it's not very important. 

The kid with anger issues steps up to do the ball throw. 

"Bakugo. How far could you throw in middle school?" Aizawa asks.

"Sixty-seven meters."

"Let's see about now. Here, throw it." He tosses a softball to Bakugo and motions for him to step in the throwing circle.

Bakugo throws it but adds some explosion to the back, pushing the ball further. 705.2 meters. 

"Not bad, Spikey," I say to him, referencing his insane hair. It's almost as if his anger is seeping out of those spikes.

He grunts and walks away as the rest of the class laughs along. I see the slightest smirk on his face as he turns. He's challenging me.

"Y/n, your turn." Aizawa hands me a new ball and grabs my shoulder, pulling my ear near his head. "Don't be difficult. I can tell you're just getting started with that nickname you gave Bakugo," he whispers. I roll my eyes. I'm not being or going to be difficult. The nickname is a joke, and I know that Bakugo and the entire class know it. My natural energy is just kind of rude jokes, but they're barely rude at all. It's more teasing, I'd call it. Not personal attacks that would make anyone feel bad, I know how to steer clear of those. Rude is just my natural output, and teasing is how I show affection to loved ones. I know that Aizawa knows this, but still. I'm not difficult. He's just being an ass.

I can do this easily. All I need to do is set it on fire and I can move it as far as I want, even past my vision. I take the ball from his hand and step in the circle, setting up my stance. No one besides Aizawa and Todoroki knows my quirk as of now, but everyone's about to find out. It's not like I care, we have to find out each other's quirks eventually. 

I begin throwing the ball, but before it leaves my hand, I set it ablaze, and make sure the heat is low so it doesn't disintegrate on contact. It leaves my hand and I begin controlling it to move it higher and further. I let it keep going for a bit before Aizawa stops me and points to the machine he records the distances on. There was an infinity symbol on it. 

I step off to the side to stand with Mina. 

"You did so good, babes!" Mina exclaims.

"Thank you!" I say, however, I knew this would be no challenge to me. I might be arrogant, but not the annoying kind. Bakugo is definitely the annoying kind. I know my boundaries and limitations, and I base my attitude on them. However, he overestimates the extent of his boundaries, that's all. 

The girl with the pretty eyes looked over at me for a minute but looked away when she saw that I noticed her. I guess without her music she's a bit more observant. 

I don't know what it is about her, but I felt sort of panicky when we made eye contact. Like my hands got warm and my face went a light shade of pink. I'm going to talk to her later. I've got to attend to some business first, however. 

We go through the other tests of the quirk apprehension test, and I ace them. I can use my fire as boosters to go faster on the fifty-yard dash, and the standing long jump. I'm not as fast as Iida and a few others for the dash, but that's fair considering his quirk specializes in speed. Still, I'm glad for my versatile quirk so I can score well overall. I also do well on the sit-up and long-distance run portion, considering I do that shit all the time for Aizawa's training. Shigaraki's was even more brutal than this, so it's no big deal at this point. I also find that I have a fairly strong grip, which I hadn't even realized before. 

I end up tying with Shoto for second place, we're very evenly matched in power. Momo just easily created machines and mechanisms to help her, so I knew it was no use from the start. We were pretty close, though.

We go back inside, and I notice Midoriya's worried expression. At that moment, it hits me that not everyone here knows my Dad was bluffing. I feel kind of bad for him, but I also want to see the shock when he realizes he fell for my Dad's trick. Seems kind of twisted, but whatever. Amusement is amusement, my friends. 

As Aizawa finally spits out that no one will be going home, Midoriya's face is utterly priceless. It's a twisted mix of shock and realization that he fell for the lie. I can't quite pick out the other pieces of his expression, but even so, it's hilarious. I have to keep myself from laughing, I see Bakugo also holding back laughter. 

––––––

After a few classes, we head to lunch. I search for Kaori's face in the crowd. I pick her face out from a group of girls and run over to see her.

"Hey, Kaori, can we go talk?" She simply turns to face me and nods her head. "Like... alone?" I motion to the group of girls she's standing with.

"Oh, yea, of course, muffin! How about the roof?" 

I nod my head as we start walking. We move slowly to the roof. I'm taking small steps so I have more time to relax. She links her arm in mine, so I'm guessing she's oblivious to what this is about. I guess she really doesn't think I remember. We reach the door to the roof and I take a deep breath as I open it.

"Okay, muffin. What'd you want to talk about?" she says in her most innocent voice.

I take another deep breath and close my eyes. "Uh... it's about the party."

"Oh!" I see a worried expression crash across her face for a split second. "What about it? Did you have fun?" The worried expression leaves and she looks as innocent as ever.

"Kaori. Don't act so innocent right now. I may have been flat-out wasted, but I remember. Well."

It was the rest of our conversation that made me realize... maybe I didn't remember as well as I thought I had.