Hiding The Pain || MonoShin [BOOK 1]

Chapter 3 - If Looks Could Kill

Monoma sat in Recovery Girl's office, looking at his hands as they fiddled with the watches on his costume. The tournament was over, Half Cold, Half Hot dude [Shouto Todoroki] coming in first with Broccoli Boy [Midoriya Izuku] (and a few injuries) second and Mr. I Wear Glasses and have Engines in My Legs [Tenya Iida] came third. He was rather annoyed about Class A hogging the spotlight again, but this wasn't a real fight, and after the serious blow he had dealt to Bakugou, he had no right to be annoyed at them at the moment, so he kept shut. Besides, he wasn't that much of an asshole.

He could feel the stares of 2 - A entering his skull, and if looks could kill, he would be dead. But then again, if looks really could kill, he'd have been dead since the day he got his quirk. He saw movement coming towards him from his peripheral vision and he looked up instinctively. The person, Shinso, looked down at him in a bored tone, but Monoma knew that, that wasn't what he was really feeling. The lavender - haired boy sat down on the chair beside him, getting a few weird looks from his classmates, especially that one with some black streak in his golden hair that fought Shinso in the first round. Golden - haired boy with black streak looked at Shinso incredulously, then with a look of anger, then betrayal, but Shinso waved it off. Monoma felt like he was intruding on a very private conversation.

"Hey." Shinso greeted, but it was more of a conversation starter than anything else. Monoma turned to look at him properly and the other boy tilted his head, expecting Monoma to say something back. "Hey, yourself." he managed to get out, attempting to give a smile, but it came out looking weak and pathetic. "You okay?" Shinso asked, and Monoma was glad that someone had the decency to ask. Didn't mean it would stop him from lying though. "Yeah, I'm fine." He deflected quickly, "How about you? You got 10th place, right?" Out of 36 students (Monoma, Bakugou and Kuroiro weren't in the tournament and Tsuburaba fell asleep again), 10th was pretty good. "You're trying to change the subject." Shinso deadpanned, but left it alone. "So, have you gotten a partner for that project Pop- I mean, Present Mic gave us?" Shinso asked, suddenly nervous. Monoma gave him a small look of confusion but shook his head. He hadn't really been thinking about it, besides, he still had a week to choose.

"Well then," Shinso cleared his throat again. Seriously, did this guy have a frog stuck in his throat or something?

"Would you like to be my partner?" he finally got out, the frog probably reduced in size.

Monoma was rather suspicious of Shinso. It wasn't like he wasn't acquaintances (he knew there was no way he could call them friends) with the rest of his class, so why him? Why Monoma, the worst (and craziest) person in their year? Possibly the worst person in U.A?

"Why me?" Monoma asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at Shinso. The piercing gaze and question must have upset Shinso, because he immediately put on a scowl. "Why not you?" he asks defiantly, expression matching Monoma's. The blond just gives up and accepts it, then shrugs. "Yeah, I guess. I'll be your partner. It's still better than being paired up with anyone else from your class." At that Shinso gives a small chuckle. "They aren't all bad Monoma." Shinso says. Monoma almost laughs, but then remembers that there are other people in the room that are still paying attention to them, questioning looks still on their faces from the interaction between Monoma and Shinso.

"Alright, who does thee, The Great Hitoshi Shinso, dub as worthy of praise from me?" Monoma asked, adding a smirk and a pretty well done Victorian 1920's edge to his voice. Shinso pretends to mull it over, then points at the boy with the black streak in his hair. "Kaminari. He's actually a pretty chill guy, so we're friends now." Monoma was dumbfounded and gave a rather dramatic gasp, and also another feeling came that he couldn't quite grasp (hey, that rhymed!), but that didn't matter. What did matter was finding out the story of how Shinso and Kaminari became friends. All he knew about Kaminari was that he was a major flirt and became pretty stupid if he used his quirk, Electrification, too much. Apart from that, he didn't know anything else. Hell, he didn't even know the guy's name until Shinso told him!