Smoke And Mirrors (BNHA x Male OC)

15:Straight Out Out Of The Gate Pt. 2

"I can't believe we got through to the battle round!" Midoriya cheered. He was shaky, clearly overwhelmed, but so excited. 

"Yeah..." Taiya mumbled, shell shocked, "neither can I.". 

The whole first part of the sports festival was quickly becoming a blur in his memory. What he could say for sure was he'd been less lucky when getting major awards then he was doing whatever the fuck that was. 

He had thought the land mines thing was a long shot, but it had worked perfectly and he had come out unscathed. 

Then he was sure being Midoriya's teammate was a surefire way to fail. They'd lose his headband easily and there was no recovering from that many lost points. 

But nope. That had gone well. Too well. 

And now Taiya, who had gone into this wanting to avoid attention, was in the final activity. 

"You sound really surprised." The weird tech girl observed. 

"I didn't think his character arc would progress this quickly." Taiya mumbled. It was absurd to say something like that, Midoriya wasn't a character. But Taiya had developed a habit of thinking of everything around him like it was a movie or story. 

It was actually something he'd had his whole life, and not some weird bit of show biz trauma. For once. 

Honestly it was probably why he did so well in the business. It also meant that he had known for a while now that his own story was a tragedy. A riches to rags, if you will. Or child star to rehab. 

Although, he hadn't had anything to drink since that party in Seoul. He hadn't even really gone through withdrawal, too busy working out and training. Maybe he didn't need rehab after all. 

"Hey, Tachibana, hurry up.". 

He clocked back in to notice that his class was heading towards their seats in the stands. He followed after them, physically shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. 

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At least he wasn't facing off against Bakugou in round one. That was all he could think. 

Although he had high hopes that he'd be able to ditch the tournament point blank. Several of 1-B's students rescinded their chance to compete, but when he tried to do that Midoriya looked at him like he was crazy. 

Naturally he had to then stay in the tournament because, well he wanted to look convincing as a hero student and the 1-B students had stepped down because of honor. He had no honor to lose or gain, so he'd just look like a coward. 

Especially considering it was Iida he was facing off against. The definition of 'not that scary'. 

Sure, he was strong and fast, but as Taiya had discovered through training that, as unfair as it seemed, he was stronger and faster. For a quirk built on speed, the only advantage Iida had over Taiya was his acceleration speed and the added power to his kicks. 

They had decided to break for lunch before the matches began, which of course meant Taiya was going to find a nice, quiet place to sleep. 

Sure, he hadn't eaten yet today but hey, that never killed anyone. Wait starvation does kill people. Was he starving? When was the last time he actually ate? 

Wracking his brain as he roamed the halls, he couldn't remember. 

These days he found that he felt nauseous after eating any amount of food. Like nothing sat well with him. Meanwhile feeling hungry was beginning to feel...kind of nice. He felt lighter-if that was even a thing people could feel.