Next in Line | ShinKami

IX - "Partners"

Kaminari

I stared at the blackboard as Midnight wrote down information, the class, including myself, turned their eyes to their notebooks and copied it.

Midnight put her chalk down and looked over the class. She pointed at Shinsou and called out his name.

"Before All Might became a full-time Hero, who did he partner up with in the United States?" she asked. You could tell Midoriya was shaking in his seat.

But this question is easy! I mean, a big chunk of us met his old partner's daughter!

God, she was hot--

I mentally slapped myself and looked over at Shinsou, who seemed very confused. He started ruffling through his notebook and whispered a curse to himself.

"Um..." he thought for a bit, "I'm not sure."

Midnight sighed and tilted her head, "that's okay, you weren't here last year anyway," she looked over the class again, "Bakugou, same question."

"Eh?" Bakugou looked up from his notebook and answered immediately, "Something Shield. Don't remember his first name. All I know is that his daughter was annoying."

Midoriya looked behind him and glared at Bakugou, who replied with a 'I'm right, though' look.

"Midoriya," Midnight grabbed the blackboard eraser and removed what she wrote previously.

"David Shield!" He called, Midnight writing down his name on the board in large letters.

"You aren't quite the support course, so we won't go into close detail on his work, but we are going to look over what he has made," Midnight explained, "you're going to work in groups of two. Make a model of one of his inventions and present it and what it does to the class."

The class separated into groups and my dear Sero, my forever project partner, my baby boo, paired up with his boyfriend, Iida.

I looked over at Ojiro, who was already paired up with Sato.

I kept looking around the class, watching as the Bakusquad members paired up with their significant others, leaving me to be on my own.

"Kaminari?" Shinsou asked, tapping my table and causing me to look at him. He was towering over me more than usual with the fact I was sitting down, "could we be partners?"

"Huh?" my face got warm and I stammered, I nodded and covered my face, "yeah, we can be boyfr- partners," I mumbled. Shinsou gave me a soft smile and went back to his seat.

×

Shinsou tapped the cardboard model of a robot arm on my desk. He kept tapping it as he tried to figure out how it was designed.

I already finished writing down its purpose, the problem that caused it to be made, and the solution it gave, while Shinsou was overthinking why it looked like a normal human arm.

I think this is the first time ever I was the one carrying the project.

"Toshi," I said with an angry tone. Shinsou looked over at me and blinked, taking in my glare, "I'm already done."

"What?" Shinsou whispered. He snatched my laptop and looked over the document. "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, Kaminari! I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine. I'm usually the leech," I answer, taking the laptop back, "even if I try to help."

"I- I was trying!" he called back. He took the arm and pointed it towards me, "it's just. I don't get it? Why would there be a need for a random robot arm?"

I blinked, taking a long pause as I took in his words.

Oh my fucking God.

This man.

Is a fucking idiot.

"IT'S A BIONIC ARM, YOU MORON!" I yell at him. I feel so... smart... compared to him. But Shinsou is smart. He's better than me at everything except English. I guess he sucks at common knowledge.

He looked over the arm and shook his head, "when I was 7 there was a kid I knew that got his leg ripped off by a rogue robot arm that looked similar to this."

"I- Wh- Huh?" I stammered, trying to take in that story, "what kids did you hang out with???"

"Orphans, kids of gangsters," he started counting with his hand, tapping each finger he stretched out with his other hand's index finger, "weird human-animal hybrids created in a lab that looked like they were in eternal pain even though they insisted they were fine even though their animal part wasn't their quirk--"

"Jesus Christ," I whispered, "was the orphanage you were at really that bad?!" I asked, looking over Shinsou with sympathy.

"What orphanage?" he tilted his head and let out an "ohhhh," he chuckled and shook his head, "I wasn't raised in an orphanage. I was going through a child trafficking scheme after my biological parents got murdered around when I got my quirk because some Mafia group thought I would be useful," he smiled. He talked about it like it was nothing.

Did his feelings really get dampened from that?

Shit.

And I thought getting physically abused was bad.