White Shadows (BnHA)

Chapter 2

Masami felt like she was about to pass out.

    Ten months had gone by in the blink of an eye, and the high school entrance exams were finally taking place. And that included the entrance exam for U.A. So, of course, Masami couldn’t help but stress herself out. Had she studied enough? What if she had studied the wrong topics? She liked to think that she was somewhat smart, but U.A. was the best of the best. She was concerned about making a fool of herself. Her worst fear included walking into the wrong classroom and being laughed at for her stupidity.

    Yeah…

She had no clue how she was going to survive this.

It didn’t help that the exams for all the courses were occuring that day, either, so kids from other schools were practically coming in swarms. It took all Masami’s effort just to not be carried away by the crowd. Though, that may actually be beneficial in her case seeing as standing in paralyzed fear in front of the tall, daunting building wasn’t doing her any better.

“Mi-chan?” The said girl nearly yelped and jolted ever so slightly as a hand was placed on her shoulder out of the blue. She only calmed down when she noticed that it was Midoriya. He held a look of concern for his friend, noticing the panic in her eyes.

In all honesty, Masami wasn’t surprised to see Midoriya at the exams. It had already been announced to the class after all that he had applied. And considering his fanboy tendencies, Masami would be more surprised if he hadn’t shown up. But it was more than that. Over the past ten months, Midoriya Izuku had changed. He seemed a little bit less anxious, and he had been gaining some muscle. He seemed to be gaining some confidence with himself. It made Masami proud. She could tell that he was putting his best effort into becoming a hero.

Though, he did have a tendency to mutter under his breath even more nowadays.

So that was kind of awkward.

“Ah, Izu-kun!” She was relieved to see a friend before entering. Being around friends always seemed to give her some form of comfort. It was a shame that she didn’t have any friends applying to General Studies with her. She’d feel a lot better if that were the case. “Are you about to head in?”

“Yeah, but I saw you standing here and decided to say hi.” The concerned look hadn’t left his eyes, but he seemed to be a bit relieved that Masami was no longer frozen in place. He knew of her social anxiety that was just as bad if not worse than his own. “Are you alright?”

“I think so,” Taking a deep breath, she made an attempt to calm herself down. This wasn’t a life or death situation. Even if she didn’t pass the exam, she could always just go and work. She was sure that she wouldn’t have any trouble finding a full time job. And it’s not as though she didn’t have other options. As long as she kept a steady head, she would be fine. “Just a bit nervous, but I should be fine. How are you holding up?”

Masami wasn’t the only one with a panicked look on their face. While Midoriya was a bit more confident in himself, anyone could tell that he was nervous. Besides a majority of his confidence came from his determination to become a hero. Masami didn’t really have that determination. It was more of a fear of failing or being laughed at over anything. Irrational as the idea of her failing was, she couldn’t help it. It was just her personality nowadays. If only she could be as confident as she was when she was little. Or maybe, just maybe, the confidence she gets when confronting Bakugo would leak into the rest of her personality. That would be nice.

Not that it’s likely to happen.

“I’m alright, a bit nervous, but I know that I can’t afford to fail!” The fire that seemed to light up in his eyes reassured Masami. She was thankful for whatever seemed to be influencing him. “If I fail now, I’ll be letting down everyone who has helped me get this far.”