The Return of the Sus

|There's an image of the older Suzaku on my Patreon already, if you want to go and check it out. It's public.

And while at it, you should... you know... -wink, wink-

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|A week later…|

…

-Yawn…-

I wanna go home.

"... Hey, was it scary inside that laboratory, Suzaku?"

"...Huh? Oh, nah. Rather, it was the kidnappers who were pissing their pants after I told them I would kick their ass the moment I escaped…"

"Woah, that's awesome!"

'...Did he seriously believe that?'

Glancing amusedly at the excited Arata with an incredulous smile on my face, I shook my head and let out a long sigh.

The kid trusted my words too much, didn't he?

Just when did he start putting so much trust in me? I thought for sure he would say something like "You're just bluffing. I'm sure your pants were all brown down there"

…That's what I would say, at least.

…

Actually, should I say that to a kid who has just gone through a most likely traumatic experience?

…

Never mind, this kid is at least better than me in that regard.

"Ugh…"

While I was berating myself for my behavior in a hypothetical situation, I glanced at the clock on the classroom wall, and couldn't help but frown when I noticed that there were still 45 minutes until the end of the class.

'I'm dying here… How come only 45 minutes have passed since this class began?!' I thought while I plummeted my face against the desk. Feeling helpless in front of the slow passage of time.

For some reason, when I felt like 20 minutes had passed, in reality only 5 had gone by.

It irritated me to no end.

"Aaaand… This part here of your textbooks… refers to that quoted phrase on page 114… which you have to reference in the next question on page 116…"

And our teacher didn't make the wait any better.

She talked just like some of the teachers at university in my past life. Fast like a snail, and energetic like a rock.

I swore those fuckers were paid to talk like that so that it would be harder for the students to pass the subject.

This woman seemed to innately like that, though.

-Sigh…-

In my boredom, I even glanced at the LED lamp that hung above us. However, my expression only scrunched in regret when I noticed that I had already thought of every possible scenario of it falling upon us.

After two long boring years of school, it seemed like the lamp had reached its limit when it came to how much it could entertain me.

So, with no other option at hand to while the time away, I simply decided to go for my last resort.

"Time for a nap"

"Suzaku…"

Arata's eyebrow twitched when he heard me mutter my plans so openly after leaning back in my seat. However, I didn't pay attention to him and simply darkened my glasses' color. 

I was going to the world of dreams, and no one was gonna stop me.

"Suzaku, I know what you are doing. Undarken those glasses of yours and pay attention to the class"

-Giggles…-

"Tsk…"

Well, except for my teacher.

It seemed like the woman had seen through my plans right away when she saw me lean back in my seat.

But well, it was to be expected to a certain extent. I've been doing it for two years straight, so it was obvious that at some point she would end up noticing my schemes.

So, grumbling annoyed as I straightened in my seat and undarkened the color of my glasses, I proceeded to support my head with my palm as I leaned on my desk, before looking at our teacher continue with her class.

"Very well, children, in this exercise you must use multiplication… Do have in mind that, depending on the brackets, some operations may be resolved first or second…"

However, after about five seconds of listening to her, my mind simply wandered away.

'Sorry miss, I really would have liked to pay attention, but my mind is a free spirit… You cannot maintain it chained for too long…'

So, after apologizing half-heartedly, I closed my eyes from behind my glasses, and let my thoughts run wild.

I thought about many things. 

Like… what I would eat today, how much time I would nap after I got home, if I should buy a soda or something after this class ended, etc…

Things like that.

My thoughts were simply everywhere else but in the class going on in front of me.

However, after letting my thoughts wander free for a bit, I eventually ended up looking at my classmates. Remembering a certain thing that had happened earlier this morning.

At the moment, most of them were focused on the class. Others, however, were lost in thought just like me.

There was even one who was picking his nose. Yuck.

However, when I remembered how they all reacted this morning when I came back to school after all that incident in the hospital, I couldn't help but feel a bit of amusement, letting out a faint sneer from my nose as I reminisced those moments.

After the day when All Might visited me, I was forced to spend another whole week at the hospital to recover from my injuries. 

The hospital personnel said that, as long as my injuries were not treated, I would not go back to school.

To which I was mildly grateful.

After all, thanks to them, I managed to skip a whole week of school, and therefore, tons and tons of homework.

Homework that I could solve in a matter of seconds, but homework nevertheless.

Thus, all I could see here were wins.

Though, unfortunately for me, my injuries were not everlasting, and as a result, I eventually ended up having to come back to school when I got discharged for good.

And today, the day when I finally took my first step into the classroom after everything that had happened, all my classmates swarmed me with questions and worried expressions.

They all touched on the matter of my kidnapping, unable to keep their curiosity under control.

Cliche questions like: Were you scared? Or, did you meet a villain? rained upon me the second I entered the classroom.

Fortunately, none of them touched sensible matters like the amount of dead people discovered that day or the horrible human experimentation that was being run down at that place. I wouldn't have known what to say about those, except maybe lying through my teeth as I came up with an answer.

The kids were at least that sensible.

They knew that what I had gone through was not something a normal kid should experience.

And as such, they asked only the necessary.

…

Or maybe they simply didn't even think of asking about those details.

Who knows…

Anyway.

After that, however, came an awkward silence.

And I knew the cause of it.

'How do we treat him from now on?' 

That was probably what most of them were wondering.

Should they have a special consideration with me considering what I went through? Or should they just act like nothing happened at all?

And indeed, in front of a normal kid who has gone through such traumatic events, it was a normal reaction to have.

Even I could have problems dealing with such a situation.

But fortunately for them, I was not a normal kid.

As such, I immediately came up with a solution to dissipate the intense air of awkwardness that engulfed our classroom.

I acted like the whole ordeal had been nothing especially scary, and that it had been more exciting than anything.

And to make sure, I also told them that what had been shown on the news was simply exaggerated and blown up out of proportion.

With that, the whole awkwardness in the class was blown away, and all of them immediately became at ease with me, teachers included. 

It became like the whole incident had never actually happened.

'I'm such a genius, aren't I?

As such, I found it funny to see them all act so uncaring now, despite how they all had been acting that morning.

It was a big contrast.

"Hey… psst… Suzaku! … Tell me, what did those villains look like? Were they big and intimidating?"

However, I have to say… the solution may have produced some unintended consequences in the process.

"... I read a bit of an article about the incident, and a very notorious villain who suddenly disappeared from the public eye in the past was mentioned to have been there too! Did you meet him?"

-Sigh…-

As a result of showing the whole class that I wasn't that affected by the whole incident, I may have caused Arata to get a bit too comfortable with asking me all the questions that popped into his head.

And honestly, I was getting annoyed by it.

"... That villain had gravitational-altering powers, and he had defeated many heroes in the past. Because of that, he became a very dangerous villain in the public eye and was feared by many heroes. However, one day he disappeared—"

"Dude… pay attention to the Japanese class"

"We are in math"

"... Huh, no wonder I was feeling so lost"

Scratching my hair with a troubled expression as I glanced at my teacher, who gave me the stink eye after having heard that last line, I heaved a sigh and decided to try and focus a bit more.

After all, despite how carefree I might seem, I still couldn't risk having Arata beat me in grades, as I was still an adult in my mind.

Losing to a child in a subject I had already gone through once would be a disgrace.

So, symbolically adjusting my glasses with my finger (They were stuck in one place, so they didn't need that adjustment), I steeled my determination and prepared to confront the challenge in front of me. 

 'Whatever, there's just 40 minutes left… Nothing I can't handle…'

I was gonna pay attention to this class, and no one would stop me!

…

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|A few minutes later, Suzaku's teacher POV:|

…

-Snore…!-

…

-Snore….!-

…

-Snooooore…!!!-

…

This kid slept in the middle of my class again…

…

-To be continued…-

(A/N: The Sus is in All of ⓈUs)

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