Lightning Serenade

Chapter 15: Field Trip II

The zoo was fantastic. More amazing than any of them had imagined it would be.

Hitoshi was expecting a boring day, wandering around without any friends. Or worse: being the unwilling tag-along to an uninterested group that the teacher forced to include him in. Hitoshi had sighed in resignation, sorry for whoever was being stuck with the new kid, and was pleasantly surprised that Denki stood there, staring at him like a sika deer in headlights. Hitoshi had a small moment of self-doubt, that Denki wouldn't want to be seen with a boy that he had met in a mental institution and that their friendship was only supposed to last for the duration of their stay, but those thoughts were completely erased when Denki lunged forward without hesitation and squeezed Hitoshi like he had just saved him or something.

And to Denki, Hitoshi did save him. Denki no longer had to worry about spending the field trip making sure to keep an active eye on his friend group so that they didn't leave him stranded the second he got distracted by an animal exhibit. When Denki had stared at the lions a little too long, he frantically looked around, expecting to see that Hitoshi and Neito had walked off on their own, but they were still there, just as intrigued by the lions as he was. He wondered if they looked at the lions and were listing the similarities to Neito like he had been. That is where Neito's codename, Raion, had come from, after all. When Denki got lost in thought watching the penguins, and he looked left and right after a few minutes without seeing his companions, his heart dropped down into his stomach. When he turned around though, Neito and Hitoshi were just on the other side of the exhibit, having back-tracked back to the seals. They didn't leave him the whole time, not even to duck around the corner and play a prank to make him think that they had left him. It was the best field trip ever.

Neito was hoping that Denki and Hitoshi would end up being there, too, with it being a popular destination for the local schools and with the zoo being closed to the public in the interest of attracting more schools. He didn't expect for them to come to his rescue at the same time, ready to jump in and act as a team to get him out of an annoying situation that he had found himself in. Neito noticed his classmates actively avoiding him, even more so after they saw Hitoshi next to him.

Neito wouldn't admit it to Hitoshi, but he basically became the new Hitoshi of the class. Everyone had always been so paranoid of Hitoshi and his quirk, but now that he was gone, but his soulmate who also happened to have the ability to copy quirks was still around, they avoided him. Neito figured that it had more to do with them being afraid of retaliation against them for how they had treated his soulmate before they knew they were bonded, and he would be correct. They didn't actively target Neito, but he was excluded more often than he had been previously, which was still a lot. As far as Neito was concerned, he already had two strikes against him. One was his own quirk that could copy anyone else's (except mutation quirks, of course). Two was his soulmate bond to someone that the class had always feared since learning of his quirk a year and a half ago when Hitoshi was first transferred to Katsuhhiko Middle School.

Neito didn't even really mind it, really. He felt a little heroic, actually, being able to suffer in silence and experience what Hitoshi must have felt, minus an obnoxious blonde always trying to instigate him, of course, but there was no substitute for the enigma that was Monoma Neito.

Neito was really happy that he found Denki and learned his full name and other personal details that they weren't allowed to share on the unit. He felt like he found a good friend and he was lucky that he found him again so quickly. He obviously just had to invite Denki to his birthday party that was happening in a few weeks.

"Me?" Denki asked dumbly, mind going blank at the unexpected invite.

Denki felt stupid and expected a response of either 'who else would I be talking to' or even a 'never mind.'