The Quirkless At U.A. (Student Reader x Aizawa)

Part 2: Chapter 21.

The knife hit the wall with a thud, the handle bouncing off the crudely drawn chalk target about 12 feet from me. A loud, metallic clang rings out throughout the gym. The sun was beginning to set, sending pink and purple hues through the windows.

"Shit." I quietly exclaimed. I turned the other knife over in my hand. I'd been here for 2 hours now- not a single knife setting into the target.

"...Why does it always fall down to me anyways?" I say to no one in particular, staring at my warped reflection in the blade. I guess maybe it just felt like these shitty things happen, and it was always up to me to fix it. And now, it was my own family.

"Struggling?" a deep voice echoed throughout the room. A mess of purple hair walked towards me. Shinsou eyed up the under-budgeted setup before me.

"Kinda, yeah..." I flipped the knife around in my hand precariously. He let out a huff, before taking it out my hands and throwing- sinking it into the wall with the utmost precision, dead in the middle of the target.

"Bullseye." he deadpans. My mouth stayed agape. He laughed lightly, the corners of his mouth only upturning a little.

"Any questions or do you need to see it again?" he patiently waited for my response. The automatic lights flickered on, the room now illuminated with fluorescent bulbs.

"...We haven't even used those in hero studies yet, Mr. General Studies. Who taught you that?!" I said in a hushed tone. He turned his eyes to the table of knives with crossed arms.

"I was a bored, not quite supervised child. Anything's a toy at that age if you try hard enough." Shinsou smirks.

"Just throw it by the blade." He picks one up and shows me.

"They make it look so easy in the movies..." I copy his actions.

"Line it up, and throw." The blade cuts through the target with a whoosh.

I tried to imitate him as best as I could. The tip of the knife barely goes through before dropping to the floor, adding itself to the current sad pile below.

"Don't be afraid of it. Use some more force. I know you can with your freak-strength." I shot him a death-stare before trying again. The handle bounces off the target with such power it comes flying back at us. We try to scramble to move out of its way.

"...Perhaps too much force." Shinsou says with a straight face, turning to me. He wiped a rolling drop of blood from across his eyebrow, revealing a small but deep cut. I gasped lightly, putting my hands to my mouth.

"Sorry..." He furrowed his intact eyebrow. He sighed.

"Come on. Nurse's office." He began to walk away, not before grabbing his stuff. I followed suit.

"Can't say I'll help you practice again but just keep doing what I told you. And less force than that next time." He continued to walk, slightly ahead of me. Wordlessly.

"Uh... I mean if I had a nickel for every time I used too much force and accidentally made someone bleed during practice, then I'd have two nickels! Which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice." I made a poor attempt at filling the awkward silence. Shinsou stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me with squinted eyes, as if to say '...Fucking really?'. I took the hint and shut up.

Opening the door to Recovery Girl's office, it lay quiet with a still air- she had gone home probably an hour or so prior.

"Look on the bright side, Shinsou." I said, grabbing some gauze and butterfly stitches from a drawer as he sat down on the bed. "Eyebrow slits are pretty badass, and you're gonna have an authentic one! I mean most people have to shave them in..." I once again tried to defuse the situation with humour as I dabbed his brow. At least this time he smiled just a little.