Another Level

~12~

Killua stared blankly down at the whiteboard on his desk. Shit. His mind was drawing a complete blank, and he couldn't grab his phone out in class. They just showed my name on the board, but those symbols are so complex... He started writing, making sure to keep his lines looking confident even if he wasn't on the inside. I think... He wrote down a few strokes, eyes narrowing a little. He knew it was three characters, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what the last one was. I think it's this? He thought, scribbling down a symbol he thought looked familiar.

"Now, students. Who among you is ready to share?"

Killua stiffened a little at Midnight's question. We have to share? He started panicking a little internally. He wasn't confident that he spelled his name correctly, if he was just showing Midnight it would be a lot less embarrassing because he could just explain the fact that he didn't read Kanji well. But now if he misspelled it, he'd have to admit it to the whole class. Killua bit his lip roughly. I mean sure Uraraka, Tsu, and Iida already know. But- He was broken out of his thoughts as one of the students he didn't know the name of walked up to the podium and held his sign above his head. "I can not stop twinkling!" He announced. Killua let out an involuntary snicker, unable to help himself. He can't be serious.

To his surprise, Midnight seemed to love it. She rearranged the name a little, then gave him the go ahead. "Who's next?" Ashido ran up excitedly to the front, holding her sign up eagerly. "Lemme go next! My code name is Alien Queen!" Midnight pulled a face and quickly denied her choice, because of some movie or something. Seriously? How's hers worse than the first one? Killua thought. What would I even use as a hero name? Killua thought. He found that nothing came to mind. Hunters didn't have special code names, they didn't need them.

He watched his classmates go up to the front to present one by one, thankfully they started getting better. Killua ended up changing what he wrote at least five times, trying to connect what was being said to the kanji on the boards that were being presented. Almost everyone had presented by the time he decided to make his way to the front with his sign. Here goes nothing. He held up his sign with one hand, feeling way too nervous for the situation he was in. Midnight peered at his sign for a moment, then her eyes sparkled. "Large kitty? That's adorable! Perfect." Killua's face burned, that wasn't even close to what he was attempting to write. How did I fuck it up THAT bad?

Killua became increasingly more embarrassed as he started walking back to his seat, with all the strange looks his classmates were giving him. He let his head fall onto the desk with a soft thud, his face flushing to a deep scarlet. I'm gonna be known as 'large kitty' forever? Really? This can't be real. He was screwed, so utterly screwed. He still hadn't recovered from his embarrassment when Aizawa finally brought up the internships, and handed him a giant stack of papers. He knew he'd gotten significantly more offers than the others, but this was just absurd.

"Hey! I have a question. Killua right?"

Killua glanced up to see Kaminari staring at him curiously, Kirishima and a few other of his classmates nearby. He put on a casual look, acting like he didn't just fuck up his hero name. "Sure, what is it?" Kaminari snickered a little, and he raised his eyebrows. "What's the deal behind the cutesy name?" Killua felt his face heat up again, and he scowled at Kaminari. "Oh fuck off." Kirishima glanced quizzically at Killua. "I thought you'd go with something more badass, you know?" Why won't they just shut up about it! He rolled his eyes, "It's none-" Suddenly he heard a voice from beside him, Killua hadn't even noticed Asui was standing there. "Didn't you say you couldn't read Kanji, kero?"

Killua groaned, glaring down at the internship papers. "I'm working on it ok! There's so many lines...it looks like random squiggles." He grumbled. "Wait, you can't read!?" Kaminari exclaimed loudly. Unfortunately for Killua, it was loud enough that the entire classroom now knew his business. "I can read! I just can't read kanji. We don't use it where I'm from." He retorted, unable to keep the embarrassment off his face anymore. "What were you trying to write then?" I'm not gonna dig myself into a deeper hole by admitting I was trying to spell my name. "Doesn't matter." He replied dryly, shooting Kirishima a dry look. "Which one of these is Hawk's agency?"

Kirishima blinked, then peered over his shoulder. "Uh.." He sifted through Killua's papers for a couple seconds, before pointing to one. "That one." Killua quickly circled it with a huff and a muttered "Thanks." Before grabbing his bag and standing up. "You know, you could probably ask Present Mic for some sort of tutoring. " Asui suggested, staring up at him. Killua sighed. "I really don't want to be stuck in a room with him for longer than I have to." He said dryly. I'll study my kanji more during my internship, I'm sure Hawks will understand. Right?

1009 words

To Be Continued...

This book might be put on hold for a while. college is kind of kicking my ass, and if im being honest i havent actually written for this book in over a month. Plus i have like 5 new book ideas again. If I dont update in the next 3 weeks, then I've likely given up. but I hope I'll return to this one, eventually TwT