16 Chapter 16 : Day In The Life
*A/N*: Enjoy the chap! I tried to do my best for their interactions, welp I've got nothing else to say. The chapter is 2.5k word long so take your time when you read the waifu... ahem I mean Rumi's line.
Here's the discord: https://discord.gg/pRaqNADp7C
The riddle was actually found today, after 3 days by @Spicy. So me and him already cooked up a juicy OC who'll appear later on!
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Kurai shrugged, it's not like a kid's mood swings could affect him. He caught up to her, taping on her shoulder to get her attention. "Did something happen?" He glanced at the row of kids in front of them, they were all whispering.
Meanwhile, Rumi was still marching forward, thinking back to the previous meeting, 'Arrhg! I should've beat him too, annoying! Why did I stop?' She knew very well why she didn't do that, but she didn't want to admit it. She then felt a tap on her shoulder, and the same guy was looking at her again, with the same smile.
"So?" Kurai persisted, throwing a look around him.
"What so?!" Rumi nearly shouted, why couldn't he be afraid and leave her alone like everyone already does?
Kurai chuckled, he seemed to have met a cheeky brat for once. "I asked, what happened to them?" His piercing gaze settled on Rumi's ruby-red eyes.
She flinched before composing herself and throwing his arm off her shoulder, "I beat 'em! Got a problem with that?" She crossed her hands on her non-existent chest.
"Nuh-Nuh, just askin', jeez…" He signaled with his arms crossed.
Just when Rumi was about to resume her walk again, "But why are you like that? Did you wake up on your wrong foot, lil' bunny?"
"What did ya—?!"
This time when she really raised her voice, she was immediately interrupted by the homeroom teacher, "Rumi! Stop pestering the new kid already!"
Both Rumi and Kurai turned their heads in her direction, while Rumi's gaze screamed indignation, Kurai's was more laid-back. "But Sensei—!"
"No! I don't want to hear anything from you, Rumi! It's always the others starting, right!?" The teacher shouted again. Right now she really looked like an old teacher from his time, with her formal grey suit and matching grey hair, the glasses making her whole demeanor even more strict, or mean at the moment.
"Tsk." Rumi kept her hands crossed and turned her head away from the teacher, who did the same. 'Seems like both of them are used to this.' Thought Kurai, spectating from the back.
Rumi didn't forget to throw him a threatening glance before entering the classroom, now that the main row of students reached it. Kurai laughed it off and decided to enter the classroom too, but he was stopped by the teacher, waiting at the entrance.
She was taking attendance for a second time now that they've reached the class, and she couldn't help but blurt out something when she saw Kurai arriving last.
Re-adjusting her glasses on her nose, she said, "Please excuse Rumi for her rudeness, that little hooligan has it rough." She put the hand that stopped Kurai from entering the class down, and sighed. 'Seems like another troublesome one joined the group.'
Kurai nodded and proceeded to enter, interestingly enough her last sentence picked his interest. 'The school bully has it rough? Or maybe I don't know the full details, heh? And it seems like the teacher doesn't actually dislike her, umm...'
Sadly, since he and Rumi were the last on the row, pretty much all the seats were occupied. So there was only one seat left alone, the seat at the back, on Rumi's left, next to the window.
He walked there, passing between other kids, making everyone turn their heads at him. After all, he was the only one who survived a talk with that crazy bunny, at least for now… Kurai stopped and glanced back, his cat-like irises looking at each one of them slowly, making their heads turn again, in the right direction this time, away from him.
Finally, reaching his seat, and just when he was about to put his backpack down, he heard a tongue clicking.
Kurai glanced at Rumi with a raised eyebrow. "Do you have something in your mouth or what? You've been doing that for a while now, lil' bunny." He teased her with a small smirk.
Rumi only balled her fist, not even looking at him, seeing the teacher gaze on her. 'You'll see…' She clenched her teeth.
"Since everyone is now seated, let's start with the introduction!" The teacher declared.
She turned her back to the class, took a marker, and started writing her name on the blackboard, "I am Ishikawa Sensei, nice to meet you all!" After writing everything, she bowed to the class.
"Now let's continue with your introductions, please get up in the order you got in and tell us your name, quirk and what do you want to do later."
"I'll start, so my full name is Yumeko Ishikawa and I'll be your homeroom teacher for the next 6 years. My quirk is Growing Nail, just like the name, I can choose the length of my nails however I want. Pretty useful in my daily life if I had to say. And when I was young I wanted to be a teacher: I'd say mission accomplished!" She chuckled at the end but the kids silently listened to her and didn't react.
"*Ahem*, your turn," She pointed to a kid at the front.
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"... is to be a Hero." Kurai and Rumi both snorted at the same time, looking at each other at this coincidence. It had been the 10th time at least that they heard the dream of being a hero. And every kid until now lacked ambition, it's like they didn't know what else to say except 'Hero', well there were some who already knew their capacities and aimed for college instead.
"Okay good, next!" Ishikawa Sensei exclaimed.
This time Rumi got up, making the very bored Kurai stand straight. If the school bully introduction was boring too he would be disappointed. From what he observed from her, she was…
"Yo! I'm Rumi Usagiyama, nice to meet you." She softly said bowing at the end of her sentence, like everyone else.
She was cheeky, headstrong, and straightforward. She was…
"My quirk is called Rabbit." keeping the same tone, she eyed her classmates. Looking in their eyes to see any hint of mockery, but gladly she only saw fear.
Smirking, she glanced at Kurai who was expectantly, and looking directly at her too.
She was different, he could feel like.
"I wanna be the top female hero! The best of Japan! I'll do it alone and without anyone's help!" After hearing the gasps around, and even from the teacher, her smirk, while looking at him, became a full blown grin, but Kurai only answered back with the same toothy smile. 'Ahaha! Nice! Very good!'
Rumi kept her eye contact until she sat on her seat again, seemingly waiting for one of his narky remarks again, but it never came. Kurai knew when to joke or not, someone's ambition isn't something you can joke on, not after hearing the tone or how much spirit she put in that declaration. "Humph..." She broke eye contact, and looked straight in front of her.
"O-okay, next!" Losing her composure before such a high goal and confidence, the teacher continued.
This time Kurai was clearly awake, not half asleep of boredom like in the early presentations, he got up elegantly, his face going back to a neutral one. He knew that sooner or later he had to show his quirk. 'It's not that bad anyway.'
He imitated Rumi, not forgetting to send her a wink when he caught her looking, "Yo! I'm Kurai Hizashi, nice to meet you everyone!"
"Now my quirk…" He paused, gaining everyone's interest.
"Humph." Rumi snorted again, seeing such an attention grabber, but she nonetheless kept her attention on him too, it could be useful to know her future rival's quirk after all.
"...My quirk is called Cat." Imitating Rumi again, he transformed into his half-human, half-cat form. A meter long jet black tail growing from his back and 2 black cat ears appearing on the top of his head, some very thin whiskers started forming too, along with sharper nails.
Simultaneously with his new features' appearance, the whole class was shocked, but it was a good kind of shock, seeing the stars in their eyes, he could even hear some 'cute' here and there coming from the girls. Even Rumi and the teacher were gaping.
'Seems like it wasn't just my mom… It might be a thing in the whole country… Haha…' He laughed nervously.
Re-transforming back to his human form, he shook his head from his idle thoughts and took a more solemn expression. "As for what I want to be… Heh."
His low chuckle seemed to wake them up from their previous daze. Rumi, the closest to him, started feeling her rabbit instinct flaring up because of a particular pressure emanating from him. Something akin to excitement, or confidence? As if he was about to throw himself in a dangerous hole where he was sure to come out alive. But it disappeared so fast that she even doubted herself and her instincts.
"I'll be the strongest farmer in the world and have a farm full of chicks." His previous chuckle became an innocent smile, so innocent that it confused the bewildered teacher.
"C-chicks? You mean chicken right?" She intervened to dissipate her suspicion too.
Kurai tilted his head to the side, and tapped on his chin with his finger, "Um, yes chicken?" He looked quite lost to the teacher.
*Cough*
Ms. Ishikawa coughed to avoid embarrassing herself further, "I'm sorry for the interruption." She thought it was dumb of her to think that a 6 years old could purposefully make sexual innuendos.
The class though, was once again baffled, this was such a weird claim, no one ever proclaimed to be a farmer this proudly. Some wanted to laugh at him, some hesitated seeing the teacher, in the end they did nothing.
Of course, Kurai's ambition wasn't something like that, he just didn't see the need to tell it out loud to strangers.
And anyway, his ambition isn't like theirs, born from wanting to save people, or an idol.
He just wanted to be the strongest, purely and simply the best. If he had to become a hero or a villain, then so be it. Those last few years, the more he tried his power, the more possibilities he discovered, along with it came the feeling of power, and dominance. He felt like he could really trample on everyone.
Not like his previous life where he was limited by a plain human body, no, now he had something more, and he wanted to relish more in this sensation.
The teacher, seeing the class perplexed, decided that it was enough, "So, after this quite...uh.. original ending let's…"
Kurai was about to sit down, but just before doing so, he bent toward Rumi, who was still looking at him weirdly. He blew air in her long bunny ear. Waking Rumi up from her daze, she blushed at the sensation on her left ear and immediately glared at him.
"Clown!" She whispered, even if it was short, she knew there was something off.
Kurai knew Rumi must have felt something, maybe it was because she had animalistic traits. But he didn't care either way so if he could provoke the cute bunny on his way, he would literally be shooting two birds with one stone.
The rest of the class and until lunch was pretty disappointing to Kurai. Well, he didn't expect much from school, but it was… so lackluster. The teacher's tone was so boring to listen to, add to it the fact that he knew everything already, it didn't take him long to nap. Unfortunately for him, Rumi smacked his head a few times under the teacher's orders. To the contentment of the bunny girl, who enjoyed this treatment greatly.
*Bonk*
"Wake up lazy cat!" Rumi stuck out her tongue.
Even though Kurai was already woken up by the school alarm signaling lunch, he still kept his head turned to the window, so Rumi didn't see his raised eyebrow when she mentioned 'lazy cat'.
She was about to do it again when Kurai reacted, looking at her, he grabbed her wrist and turned her palm to the ceiling. Everything was done so fast that Rumi didn't have time to react or exert force.
"See, little bunny, I've let you act because the teach said so, but don't cross the boundaries, alright?" He pointed his finger at her open palm before she could say a word and zapped her with a little bit of electricity.
It hurt her a bit. "Kyaa!" And she shouted because of the surprise, but when she opened her eyes, he had already left for the canteen. She blushed a bit after hearing what kind of sound it was, but seeing no one around, she let out a relieved sigh.
She also ran to the dining hall, stomping her foot every now and then on the way.
'Who does he think he is!?'
But when she reached the canteen, she saw him surrounded by pretty much all the girls and some of the boys of her class.
She clicked her tongue, this gesture might become a habit when it came to Kurai.
"Tsk, attention-grabber!" She murmured.
Rumi went to the cooks. She took her plate and settled on a table, alone, like every other day.
' "A farmer" you said?!' She plunged her fork with more force than normal in her meal.
' "The strongest" ?' She chewed hard on the chicken, keeping her glare all the while.
'Who do you think you are? Huh?' He took nothing seriously, and it really irked her.
'I'll show you!' She finished her meal quickly and left. Though this meal was still more savory than the others. Compared to the times where she was totally alone, with others giving her weird looks.
Meanwhile, Kurai observed everything from the corner of his eye, 'Did I push her too hard? Meh, if she can't even endure this much then being a Hero isn't for her.'
'Still, she really is alone, heh.' He laughed, seeing his own situation, surrounded by kids asking him random questions, or asking about his previous stunt.
Fortunately, he could avoid or lie to most of them. But he really thought that it wasn't so bad to be left alone, even more so after 25 minutes of non-stop chatting from those blabbermouths called little girls. Still, he kept his promise to his parents, and maintained his nice 'behaviour'.
He sighed when the alarm echoed again to signal the end of the time allotted to dinner.
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'I hope it won't be like this everyday,...' Now on his way back, he was thinking of the learning program they talked about during the afternoon classes.
'Japanese language, social studies, arithmetic, and science?' He sighed again.
'It'll be six very boring years!'
"Or not?" He said to himself, slowly turning around.
There, a well known bunny girl to him was waiting, with her hands on her hips.
"You!"
Kurai acted surprised, "Me!"
Rumi glared at him, "Fight me!" She said ever so straightforwardly, moving her center of gravity lower.
"Oh, oh, isn't this interesting? You want to fight me?" He laughed, taking a more relaxed stance.
"Shut up! I'll smash that smug face of yours for all the things you did today!"
He put his hand in the air, pointing at her as he signaled her to come, "I'm waiting for you, lil' bunny!"
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