This Color Ain't It

Chapter 15: Yokohama

Kenji was exhausted. Not about the disaster that was the fight at Kamino. Not about the scolding he received from Tanizaki for leaving Musutafu. Not even from having eaten as a way to distract himself but ultimately failing.

He was exhausted from trying to keep up with the class group chat.

Taking another glance at the notifications, he let his head fall against the table once more with his phone face down.

"They're still going at it?" Tanizaki guessed. He carefully set a mug of tea in front of the tired blonde with a chuckle. His chuckle was strained though. Kenji understands his frustration pretty clearly, too.

Tanizaki himself was trying to keep a grimace off his face as he tried to use his phone to check for messages from the agency or play a game. Notification after notification kept popping up with similar article titles, and no matter how much he tried to swipe them away or block them, they kept coming back.

"They don't know anything about Ability users," Kenji mumbled against the wood. Tanizaki hummed in agreement.

"As the media has so kindly put it," Tanizaki sighed. Usually, they would have the TV on to hear about local news that may either pique their interest or aid in their investigation, but all everyone was talking about was the fight between All For One and All Might, and how the Hero Commission has finally confirmed the existence of Ability users to explain the villains attacking both hero and villain.

The only solace that Kenji seemed to find was in the individual chats from Kaminari, Tokoyami, Kirishima, and Shoji. They were concerned about him since he wasn't active in the class chat condemning Ability users at all, and they knew how passionately Kenji felt about his city. To hear that the majority of his classmates were against Ability users solely based on what the Hero Commission released to the public that following morning...

Tanizaki's frantic swiping came to a sudden stop, eyes widening. "Kenji-"

A new message popped up before Kenji could set his phone down again, and he didn't have to wait for Tanizaki to finish to know what he was going to say.

jamming wey: Don't know if you've heard yet, but apparently Yokohama officials are planning to hold a press conference later today

"A press conference," Kenji and Tanizaki end up saying together. They looked at each other in surprise, then turned to their own phones to get more information.

countryboy: I'm not all that surprised. The heroes did violate a lot of rules

It was another fact that the class was heavily discussing. At the conclusion of All Might's fight, the students who had gone into Yokohama were spotted by a police patrol and escorted to the local police station where they found it packed with non-injured pro-heroes in all sorts of confusion and anger.

The heroes were fined on the spot while the students were given a warning since they were minors and victims. Then they were driven to meet with Musutafu police at the border to be handed over and make sure the students were okay.

Although very, very confused, since they weren't given a gag order, they sent their findings to the class chat as soon as they were allowed to go home. So now there was that.

jamming wey: Mina, Kirishima and I plan on watching it at my place. Do you want to join?

jamming wey: it's okay if you won't feel comfortable. Your'e probably not even looking at the group chat anymore, but we promise to try to be open-minded?

Kenji genuinely sat there and thought about it. Since he'd woken up that morning and caught sight of a few of the group messages, he'd wanted to avoid it as much as possible, opting to cheerfully catch up with Tanizaki about the new plans, but his curiosity kept winning him over. Now, he was quite sour with his classmates who wholeheartedly trusted everything the Commission had to say. There should be a limit to how much one can blindly follow others.